Roberta Bergamo Roberta Bergamo

Some encounters are planned; others happen almost by chance and end up changing the course of a career. Roberta Bergamo’s encounter with Pinsa Romana definitely belongs to the latter category. She did not start out as a pizzaiola, nor did she come from the world of baking and dough-making. When she opened her first restaurant in 2016, her path seemed to be heading in a completely different direction: traditional Salento cuisine, local dishes, and a passion for cooking that became a profession.

Then life reshuffled the cards. In 2018 Roberta closed that osteria and decided to start again in Lecce. During this period, a friend and colleague who had moved to France to work as a chef in an Italian restaurant told her about meeting a Calabrian who made Pinsa Romana. He described a different kind of dough: elongated, full of bubbles. That was enough to spark her curiosity. Roberta began searching online, watched the few videos available at the time and was captivated by one detail in particular: the dough coming alive, rising and filling with air. “When I saw the dough bubbling, I fell in love with it,” she tells us. She had not even tasted it yet, but decided to attend a school, take a course and learn. Her idea was to introduce Pinsa in the new business she was about to open in Lecce. It was anything but a safe bet: this was early 2018 and practically no one in the city knew what it was. “I introduced it with a huge question mark hanging over it. At the time, nobody in Lecce was making Pinsa Romana.”

The new restaurant once again opened as an osteria serving traditional Lecce cuisine. Pinsa was supposed to be just one part of the offering. Exactly the opposite happened: within four or five months it became so successful that Roberta was forced to scale back the kitchen almost completely to make room for the new product. “It was completely unexpected. I never imagined it would turn out this way.”

Perhaps one of the keys to understanding the success of Pinseria da Roberta lies precisely in its owner’s professional background. “When someone asks me if I’m a pizzaiola, I always say no. I started because I had a passion for cooking.” It is a distinction that matters greatly to her. She did not spend years making Neapolitan pizza, round pizza and other styles of dough before adding Pinsa to her offering: she chose this one product and remained faithful to it. “I make Pinsa Romana and only Pinsa Romana,” she explains, while occasionally extending her work to pizza in teglia and other products characterized by tall, soft, highly aerated doughs.

“Made with my own hands. Period.”

And this is where one of the clearest aspects of her philosophy emerges: no ready-made bases. For Roberta, Pinsa must be made by the hands of the person who prepares it. She recalls having to resort, exceptionally, to bases made by someone else when the restaurant ran out during one of her absences. The customers noticed. A small empirical test that reinforced an already firm conviction: “I have always stuck to my idea: made with my own hands. Period.”

This is not merely a statement of identity. Behind it lies an awareness of the complexity of a dough that requires presence, sensitivity and experience. Asked what her secret is, Roberta almost smiles: “I don’t have any great secrets.” Yet what she says next is probably worth more than any formula. “With a product like this, you have to stay on top of it.” Since she does not use proofing chambers, she constantly monitors environmental conditions and adjusts the timing according to the temperature, which can be particularly challenging during a Salento summer. She has even set up a small workspace at home so she can keep an eye on the dough without having to spend the entire day at the restaurant. “If you have the passion and you give it the time it needs, fine. If you don’t have the time, you can’t make a product like Pinsa.”

The most beautiful definition comes shortly afterwards: the dough is “a bit like a child.” It has to be watched, guided and understood. It takes very little to compromise the work. Timing matters, of course, but so does something as apparently simple as the size of the container: too small or too large and the dough may develop earlier or later than expected, throwing the entire schedule off course. After eight years, Roberta says she has found her own “sweet spot”, but experience itself has taught her just how little room there is for approximation.

The same determination proved crucial when she had to persuade Lecce to taste something it did not know. Roberta did not simply put Pinsa on the menu and wait to see how customers reacted: she came out of the kitchen, put herself on the line and explained it. “Whenever Pinsa Romana came up, we would go into the dining room and explain what we were serving people.” She would talk about the high hydration, the production method and the distinctive nature of the dough. Before selling a Pinsa, in other words, she first had to make people understand it. Then came the tasting. “Anyone who comes to me knows that I make the original product, worked by my own hands.”

But there is another element that makes Roberta’s story particularly interesting and probably also explains the result she achieved in last year’s Guide: cooking. Being a cook before becoming a pinsaiola allowed her to see the base not as the final destination, but as a canvas onto which she could transfer flavours, recipes and gastronomic memory. “Pinsa is a product that works well with any kind of cuisine. If you know how to cook and bring your cuisine onto a Pinsa base, it works.” It is a sentence that perfectly captures her approach. The dough must be technically impeccable, but what goes on top of it has to be a recipe, not simply a succession of ingredients.

This gives rise to a menu where two souls coexist. On one side is Rome, with Carbonara, Amatriciana, Gricia and Cacio e pepe among the most popular choices. Roberta laughs as she explains that Carbonara is also one of the most expensive and, despite this, continues to sell extremely well. The conclusion is simple: when the ingredient is good and customers perceive the quality, they are willing to recognize its value.

On the other side are the South, Puglia and Salento. This is where Roberta’s language becomes even more personal, with creations such as Salentina, Leccese and Martina Franca. And it is the latter to which she feels most attached. “Definitely the Martina Franca, because these are truly our own products.” It starts with rape affogate, braised turnip greens deeply rooted in Salento cooking, joined by capocollo di Martina Franca and stracciatella. Rome provides the grammar of the dough; Puglia changes the vocabulary of flavour.

This is perhaps one of the most fascinating characteristics of contemporary Pinsa: it has a precise identity of origin while at the same time possessing an extraordinary ability to absorb the territories in which it takes root. Roberta experiences this every day through Lecce’s international clientele. Foreign tourists may walk in looking for traditional Puglian cuisine – which still retains a place on the menu – but then discover Pinsa and often change their plans. “When they come here and try it, they go crazy for it,” she says. For people from Lecce, meanwhile, the relationship is now firmly established. Some still even ask her whether she is Roman. The answer is inevitable: no, she is from Lecce. And it is precisely this apparent contradiction that tells the story of Roberta Bergamo so well.

A cook from Salento who, in 2018, almost accidentally encountered a Roman product she did not yet know, fell in love with it before even tasting it and decided to take a chance on it when almost nobody around her knew what it was. Eight years later, that gamble has become a professional identity. Yet the principle remains exactly the same as it was at the beginning: no shortcuts, no standardization, just time and hands in every batch of dough. Because a great Pinsa, at least according to Roberta, does not need secrets. It needs someone who is always there for it. Just like a child.