I CRANE my neck as Marco kneads the dough into a perfect circle.
He steps back, inspects his work, then smooths out a small imperfection in the crust – the tiniest dimple that, no doubt, only he could see.
“That’s where the secret is,” he tells me. “You want a fluffy crust. If it’s too thin or too thick, it either falls apart or takes up too much space on the plate.”
As a thoroughbred Sicilian, I have seen pizza made a thousand times. But hardly any chefs – or pizzaiolos, as we say in Italy – put as much care into it as Marco Giornetti does.
On April 4, Marco placed second in Spain’s Pizza Bit Competition, the country’s top pizza-making contest. The bout was fierce, with over 150 contenders descending on Madrid from across Spain.
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Marco wowed judges with an innovative recipe showcasing some of Italy’s finest products: a punchy, flavour-packed creation he named Norte-Sur (‘North-South’).
He invited me to try it at Spiga, the restaurant he owns and runs in Malaga – which now, officially, serves the second-best pizza in the country.
“I wanted to create something that brought together Italy’s finest products from both the north and the south,” he says. “So I came up with this.”
Pizza is originally from Naples, in southern Italy. Classic variants typically feature the traditional flavour combinations of the Campania region: buffalo mozzarella with San Marzano tomato sauce; spicy salami with ricotta; fresh sausage with sautéed broccoli rabe.
But Marco is from Livorno, a bustling port town not far from Florence, in Italy’s north.
“I still make pizza the traditional way,” he says. “But now and then I like to get creative.”
So his award-winning Norte-Sur weaves together flavour profiles from both ends of the Italian peninsula: Neapolitan tradition with a northwestern twist.
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Instead of tomatoes, the base is a robust roasted pepper sauce. Dollops of fresh mozzarella soften it slightly, while spicy Neapolitan salami – spianata piccante – and salty gorgonzola, typically from northern Italy, add sharp peaks of flavour.
Topping off this bold combination is stracciatella, a delicate fresh cheese from Puglia in the south, alongside caramelised onion, bright basil leaves, and a drizzle of olive oil.
All the ingredients are imported directly from Italy, Marco says. He works with Pasquale, a sturdy, middle-aged Neapolitan who supplies traditional Italian products across much of Andalucia through his company, Italimentos.
For me, they taste just like home.
The result is a show-stopping dining experience. Every bite engages the full palate, with the cheeses playing a lively counterpoint to the brawny base of pepper, onion, and salami.
Marco has made pizza exciting again.
“It’s funny you should say that,” he tells me shyly. “My real passion is bread-making.”
When he was 17, Marco says, his father confronted him with a choice: either finally apply himself at school or find a job.
That was not a tough decision to make, because school was never Marco’s thing. So instead, he found work at a local bakery and learned the art of bread-making from his first employer.
“But I also wanted to travel and learn new languages,” he says. “So my boss told me to learn how to make pizza. Everywhere in the world, pizzaiolos are in high demand.”
That’s how Marco became one of Italy’s many roving pizza-makers – though he has likely travelled farther and longer than most.
He first moved to the Canary Islands for a brief stint under the West African sun. Then he headed halfway across the world to Queensland, Australia, where he spent eight years.
“I wanted to learn English – and, well, surf.”
After that came France, though not for long. Then Marco took a job as a chef on cruise ships.
But his globetrotting came to an abrupt halt when he happened to stop off in Malaga – and immediately fell in love with the city.
“The sun shines so bright here, and people are just wonderful,” he says. “So I thought I’d finally settle down.”
He founded Spiga a year and a half ago, and the restaurant is now thriving. After earning his Pizza Bit award, he says he is ready for the next step.
“I want to change locations first – maybe move to La Cala de Mijas,” he says. “And eventually expand across Spain.”
Pizza is so popular these days that you can find it almost anywhere. For many, it’s just party food – something you order in, eat on the sofa, and share with your mates while watching football.
For us Italians, it is something different. It is comfort food, and it demands quality ingredients, along with a touch of artistry, to truly come to life.
Marco understands this. The result is a pizza that tastes like Italy, some 1,500 kilometres from our respective hometowns.
If you really want to find out why Italians love pizza so much, your best bet is to visit Spiga.
For now, you will find it on Calle Jaramar 2–4 in Mijas, just off the A-7 motorway.
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