Gambero Rosso: special awards, confirmations and news for the best pastry shops in Italy 2024

The beauty of Italian pastry making is the variety. In the flavors yes, but also in the stories told at the Gambero Rosso presentation. There are the betrothed, complete with a social declaration worth the award for best communication (the pastry shop is Gruè in Rome with Felice Venanzi and Marta Boccanera) there is the family in the branch since the nineteenth century, there are those who have just opened last year and enters the Guide to Pastry Chefs and Pastry Shops in Italy 2024 by the City of Tastefor the second consecutive year in collaboration with Club Kavè – Il Club dell’Espresso Italiano, as main sponsor.

In the 13th edition there are 650 signs, with 60 new products, distributed throughout the national territory. Attending the awards ceremony, however, it was immediately clear that the North and the South triumphed: above all Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto on one side, Campania and Sicily on the other.

Three Cakes

There are 31 excellences that obtain the maximum recognition of the Three Cakes with a score higher than 90 out of 100. The two new entries are Dolciarte from Avellino with 90 points for the great leavener Carmen Vecchione and Piccola Pasticceria from Casale Monferrato, led by the female Japanese-Piedmontese couple: Angelina Cerullo and Yumiko Saimura, united by chocolate.

The only one with 95 points is Alessandro Dalmasso from Avigliana, in the Turin area. Son of art and in love with the details on the top step of the podium. Maestro Iginio Massari, for Gambero Rosso, remains the best in the world of Italian pastry making to which the Tre Torte d’Oro goes, while Pasticceria Veneto, in Brescia, is the best in Italy.

The special prizes

The Special Emerging Pastry Chef Award goes to Corinne Tammaro and Stefano Lo Jacono from Costè in Borgo San Dalmazzo, Cuneo, opened in autumn 2022 with revisions of the great classics of the French, southern and Piedmontese traditions. The Novelty of the Year is awarded to Tisti – Pasticceria & Tea Room in Domodossola, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. It goes without saying that it is a Piedmontese triumph.

For the Best Savory Pastry we go down to the south with L’Arte Bianca in Parabita, Lecce, with the reworking and Cesare Gialdi – Délices à emporter in Catania. Remaining in Sicily, Sciampagna in Palermo won the Special Award for Best Chocolate Dessert for the creation in the shape of a cocoa bean with 80% dark chocolate mousse, sponge cake, siphoned chocolate, fruit pulp with Chinese mandarin cocoa mucilage and citrus fruits.

The social corner

Well-decorated desserts and spectacular recipes that travel on Instagram and TikTok, accompanied by the right hashtag, can contribute to the success of a product or venue; but, as Laura Mantovano, editorial director of the Guide, underlines «today being social is not enough: the shapes, the colors, the aesthetics, the design, must go hand in hand with the concreteness and solidity of the proposal. It is the technique, the quality of the raw materials, the ability to intelligently mix the ingredients, the increasingly careful dosage of sugars and fats that make a good pastry chef.”

The Pastry Chefs

There are 16 the best dessert creators who work in some of the great Italian restaurants: Titti Traina at Paolo Griffa al Caffè Nazionale, Aosta, Manuel Costardi at Da Christian e Manuel at Hotel Cinzia, Vercelli, Chiara Patracchini at La Credenza, San Maurizio Canavese (TO), Lucia De Prai at DUO Restaurant, Chiavari (GE), Marco Pinna at Seta by Antonio Guida, Milan, Sara Simionato at Antica Osteria da Cera, Campagna Lupia (VE), Alessio Billeci at Atelier Moessmer Norbert Niederkofler, Brunico /Bruneck (BZ, Kevin Fejzullai at Harry’s Piccolo, Trieste, Sara Mazzoli at Il Piccolo Principe of the Grand Hotel Principe di Piemonte, Viareggio (LU), Luca Abbadir at Madonnina del Pescatore, Senigallia (AN), Mattia Casabianca at Uliassi, Senigallia ( AN), Christian Marasca at Zia, Rome, Luca Villa at Imàgo of the Hotel Hassler, Rome, Roberta Merolli at Tre Olivi of the Hotel Savoy Beach, Capaccio Paestum (SA), Angelica Giannuzzi at Pashà, Conversano (BA), Fabrizio Fiorani at the Duomo, Ragusa.