This local pizza shop brought pride and honor to the Philippines through its mouth-watering pizza.
When thinking of Filipino food, the likes of adobo, sinigang, and sisig come into mind. Furthermore, Filipino cuisine will never be complete without a cup or two of rice. A viand and rice is the quintessential Filipino food pairing. However, this year, Filipino-Japanese chef Yuichi Abellare Ito and his partners Ingga S. Cabangon Chua and Tommy Woudwyk brought honor to the Filipino culinary scene.
Crosta Pizzeria, judged the best pizza parlor in the Philippines by Top 50 Pizza took their pizza out of the oven and baked a new pride for the Philippines. The Pizza of the Year 2023 is awarded to a pizza made by Crosta Pizzeria chef Yuichi. The Fil-Jap chef used his expertise in taste-making to create an exceptional, award-winning pizza.
Chef Yuichi led the kitchen at Pizza Bar on 38th at the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo, which was named the number one pizza restaurant in Japan, ranked number 3 in Asia Pacific, and number 16 in the world by Top 50 Pizza. Today, he has found his way back to Manila and is the head chef of Crosta!
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Journey To Success
During the awarding in Naples, the team was unaware of how they would place in the competition. They were only told that they were ranked—but they didn’t know what number. The Crosta team faced a tough ordeal to prove that Crosta Pizza can bring home the oven-baked pride.
Before bringing pride to the Philippines, Ito and his team had to prove themselves in their region first. Their Pizza, Cherry Culatello, was awarded the Pizza of the Year in Asia first. The team also had to battle it out with four other Pizza of The Year winners—respectively from Asia-Pacific, USA, Europe, and Italia. Thankfully, Cherry Culatello from Crosta Pizzeria was hailed as the Pizza Of The Year 2023!
The pizza is topped with culatello, black Tasmanian cherries marinated in Marsala, gorgonzola cream, mozzarella, and balsamic vinegar. Sadly, we’ll have to wait until Cherry season again to try this award-winning pizza. It won’t be long though.
Banner by Sonny Thakur via Crosta Pizzeria Instagram @crostapizzeria.
