Discover a quintessential pizza experience in one of the Ligurian Riviera’s most famous towns. Giovanni Senese, the successful Neapolitan pizzaiolo who has made his home in San Remo, and who is already the owner of another location in Via Scoglio – a pizzeria that is sought after by locals and visitors alike – has opened a second restaurant. His newest spot, Senese Lab, finds itself in the old spaces of one of the city’s historic pizzerias, Maggiorino.
Senese’s latest creation has a new flair to it – it’s where the world of pizza takes on a different and more evolved connotation paying tribute to Liguria and its traditional products with contemporary premium pizzas, the most selective ingredients, and even adds on a takeaway corner perfect for enjoying a gourmet pizza in the quiet of home.
San Remo: Resort Town of the Italian Riviera
San Remo, known as the city of flowers, is nestled along the coast of Liguria – a stone’s throw from Monte Carlo. A favorite tourist destination since the 1700s, the picturesque resort town of the Italian Riviera, offers visitors a splendid climate, and a beautiful sea in a postcardesque location painted in colors that burst out of the town’s hill-perched houses, ancient steep streets, and little piazzas. It is also a famous seaside resort with a yearly national song festival, a historic casino, and lots of art, culture, boating, and sports – all of the perfect activities to work up a good healthy appetite for an authentic and incomparable pizza experience.
Senese Lab: A Tribute to the Past and a Look to the Future
With this new opening, Giovanni Senese manages to detach and resume at the same time. He resumes, the master pizza maker, the past of the Maggiorino, an establishment that Giovanni took over and completely renovated.
“Taking this place was a bet,” he said, “precisely because of its history. I put my signature here because I have my own philosophy, but I want to maintain the historic memory of Maggiorino. The proposals we will make will be a revisiting of the history of the restaurant, with the addition of something of my own.”
He breaks away, however, from the offerings of his pizzeria on Via Scoglio in San Remo, a reference point for locals and outsiders alike for the evolving Napoletana. If, in fact, the traditional Neapolitan pizza – revisited and actualized by the master – is central to the proposal of his first establishment, at Senese Lab the offer is articulated through different doughs that are more modern, elaborate, and structured to support a ingredients of great quality.
At Senese Lab, Giovanni’s painstaking research abandons the classic Neapolitan format to embrace creativity and trends proper to contemporary pizza, in a menu characterized by brilliant gastronomic curiosity.
Senese Lab: The Toppings and Doughs
At Senese Lab there are three different doughs on offer. The first is La Pala, from Agricola flour, a 100% organic mix made from seeds and whole grain rye: a dough with a rich taste and exceptional nutritional profile.
Then there is Il Padellino, made with spelt and chickpeas, which are employed to recall the citrus fruits of farinata. Two baking processes are used – steamed and baked – creating a pizza with a bold flavor and an amazing aroma.
Finally, “Come una ciabatta,” a dough that comes from the blend of sprouted wheat flour and type 1 flour. The result is a contemporary stuffed pizza with a rich texture and intense flavor.
He always pays attention to the ingredients used as toppings on his pizzas. For all preparations, Giovanni Senese strictly uses products from his homeland, Slow Food principles, and local raw materials. Many of these come directly from his own vegetable gardens, and plots in the hills of San Remo, a true paradise of biodiversity where vegetables, aromatic plants, and fruit trees coexist.
The end result is always an absolute enhancement of the raw materials and flavors in a clean and orderly balance, where every taste note is part of a harmony masterfully basted by the master pizza maker.
Senese Lab: The Design
After a complete renovation of the space, the pizzeria has an intimate and refined design. There are about 30 seats where one can taste Giovanni’s exquisite pizzas in comfort, in addition to a takeaway corner where one can buy directly from the street and then consume at home.
There is no shortage of aesthetic reminders of the former Maggiorino, starting with the walls, amid bricks and stones of yesteryear: “I wanted to maintain the historicity of the place, starting from the very stones that came out at the first blow of the pickaxe when we began the renovation. Senese Lab