Alessandro Perretti Alessandro Perretti

Bringing an Italian product to Paris always means accepting a particular challenge. It is not enough to be authentic, not enough to arrive with a good idea, not enough to rely on the powerful appeal of Italian cuisine. Paris listens, tastes, judges and compares. It is a gastronomically demanding city, capable of welcoming the new but also of ignoring it if it does not understand it. When Alessandro Perretti and his partner Valeria decided to open Vale&Ale in 2018, pinsa romana was still almost unexplored territory in France. In Paris, he says, there was no one. And looking at the French market at the time, there was practically nothing. Today Vale&Ale ranks seventh in the Top 10 of the 2025 Guide to the Best Pinserie in the World. It is a recognition that rewards not only the quality of the product, but also the courage of a project born independently, without external investors, built day after day in a small restaurant in the 9th arrondissement. It is a story of contemporary migration, but also of craft: because behind the lightness of a well-made pinsa there is technique, sensitivity, trials, mistakes, adaptations and a knowledge of dough that cannot be improvised.

Alessandro comes from Calabria, from Rota Greca, a small town in the province of Cosenza. He entered the world of hospitality early, at sixteen or seventeen, moving from the kitchen to pizza and then more generally to the world of baking. His training began in the field, but was also enriched by courses on high-hydration doughs, a skill that would prove decisive. He discovered pinsa around 2010 in a restaurant in Cosenza. He did not work with it immediately, nor did he instantly turn it into a profession, but the impact was strong. “It was love at first sight,” he says. That different, airier, more complex product stayed in his memory. For several years he continued to make classic Roman-style pizza, deepened his knowledge of dough and gained experience. Then came Paris. The choice did not arise from a cold business plan, but from an emotional bond with the city. Alessandro and Valeria had loved it for a long time, often travelling there on holiday, also because he had relatives in the Paris suburbs. At a certain point they asked themselves: why not? They were young, they could change, they could try. It was a decision that contained enthusiasm and recklessness, but also an important entrepreneurial clarity: bringing something that did not yet exist, instead of entering an already saturated market.

“The public is curious, but it must be led with measure.”

The opening was not difficult so much from a bureaucratic point of view as from a human and linguistic one. Arriving in France without speaking French meant feeling disoriented. They had to learn laws, habits, relationships, everyday codes. They had to understand how to move, how to speak to customers, how to explain a product that even many Italians, at the time, did not really know. Alessandro and Valeria learned on site, little by little. The language became part of the journey, a necessary effort to turn an idea into a real business. The first year was the most difficult. People read “pinsa” on the menu and did not know what it was. In Paris, many people are in a hurry and do not always stop to read the explanation of a new product. Patience was needed. It had to be explained, tasted, accompanied. To win over the French public, pinsa first had to escape misunderstanding: it is not simply an oval pizza, not an Italian trend, not a lesser variation. It is a dough with its own identity, its own technique, its own promise of lightness and fragrance. Little by little, the response came. Customers began to understand, returned and became loyal. Today Alessandro speaks of people who come two or three times a week, guests he now knows by name, with precise tastes and recognisable habits. This is perhaps the truest sign of success for a small restaurant: not initial curiosity, but return. Pinsa becomes part of the gastronomic routine of a neighbourhood, a familiar presence inside a vast and competitive city.

The bond with Italy is one of the pillars of the project. Alessandro says it clearly: all raw materials are imported from Italy. He cannot imagine making his pinsa with local products, because for him the identity of the product also passes through Italian ingredients. He returns to Italy to discover new things, looks for suppliers and works with those who import directly. One supplier brings products from Italy once a week, and then there are others already present in France who source from Italy. This network allows Vale&Ale to maintain strong coherence without losing contact with the taste of origin. From a technical point of view, Alessandro belongs to the express school. He does not pre-bake. He bakes the pinsa directly, starting from the dough worked and stretched at the moment. The reason is above all a matter of taste. In his view, without pre-baking, the ingredients incorporate better into the dough, find a more harmonious relationship, cook together rather than simply on top of an already partially defined base. If a base has already been baked for a minute, the topping will have one minute less to integrate. In direct baking, instead, dough and toppings follow a common path. It is a more difficult choice, especially in a small space and with significant numbers. Alessandro speaks of forty, forty-two pinse a day, not few for a small restaurant and for a process without pre-baking. Speed becomes essential: a highly hydrated dough, if managed too slowly, risks sticking to the counter. It requires hands, concentration and organisation. Direct baking is not a romantic pose, but a concrete discipline, with sensory advantages and operational difficulties.

The parameters tell of precise work. The flour mix is Marco’s expert blend, which Alessandro does not modify. He does not feel the need to “put his own touch” into the flour: he considers it perfect as it is, exceptional, to be worked with competence rather than corrected. Hydration is around 82 per cent. The dough starts from a minimum maturation of 48 hours, during which it is not manipulated except for regeneration and folds; on average, however, Vale&Ale works around three days. The final temperature of the dough becomes essential, because it must allow proper maturation over time. This is where what Alessandro calls the pinsaiolo’s eye comes into play. It is not only about applying a formula. Through touch and sight, after years of experience, one understands whether the dough needs more or less water, whether it should be colder, whether the outside temperature is changing the behaviour of the flour. In summer, with thirty degrees, flour left at room temperature absorbs less water and the dough may not bind properly. For this reason, in hot months, the flour can be cooled in a refrigerator: colder flour incorporates more water and helps manage hydration better. These are technical details, but also intuitions of craft, the kind no manual can entirely replace. Baking takes place at around three hundred degrees. A white base requires about three minutes, while a pinsa with tomato can take four to four and a half minutes. These are long times compared with Neapolitan pizza, but coherent with a very different product, more hydrated, more structured and more complex to manage. Here too, comparison with pizza only goes so far. Pinsa has its own architecture, its own needs, its own rhythm.

The relationship with French taste is another central element. Alessandro observes that the French tend to choose classic flavours. The best-selling pinse are the Regina, with cooked ham, mushrooms and a touch of smoked provola, and the pistachio pinsa with mortadella and burrata. When customers read the menu alone, they often go towards Margherita, Regina, reassuring options. If instead they are guided, if someone in the dining room accompanies them, they may open up to more particular combinations. It is a subtle dynamic: the public is curious, but it must be led with measure. Alessandro also looks to the future with a very interesting idea: gourmet pinsa. In his view, the product lends itself extremely well to a higher, more constructed, more gastronomic evolution. The base is there; it must simply be developed. In Paris, he imagines, one could work on an evening proposal with four well-chosen champagnes and a sequence of gourmet pinse in pairing. For the French public, it could work very well. It is a strong intuition, because it brings together two worlds that only appear distant: the artisanal lightness of pinsa romana and the convivial elegance of champagne.

In the end, Vale&Ale tells one of the most interesting directions of contemporary pinsa. Not only international diffusion, but intelligent adaptation. Not copy, not compromise, not folklore. A Roman product that, in the hands of a Calabrian in Paris, becomes an Italian experience in the French language. And it continues to grow, one express bake at a time.