“This is haute cuisine applied to pizza,” declared Mr. Martucci, and I Masanielli’s kitchen, larger than a full-size tennis court, is his half-million-euro laboratory — stocked with sous-vide machines, flash freezers, dehydrators, fermenters, freeze dryers, 19 refrigerators to maintain separate temperatures and ovens of all kinds, alongside the customary wood-burning pizza variety. The frying station, captained by a young Michelin-kitchen-trained chef, is a long bank of digitally operated stainless-steel technology that looks ready for a moon mission. Deep frying is a big deal around here.
By 8 p.m. that evening, I’d consumed only a plate of cooked vegetables at the Reggia di Caserta’s cafe, and walked 10 miles according to my phone, yet hunger eluded me after two nights of overdoing pizza as if it were a hazing rite for a fraternity. Still, my appetite revived after Mr. Martucci presented the first slice of the tasting menu — with three kinds of bitter, he explained: fermented sea urchin, fermented chicory and beer-infused ricotta.
The sensations were otherworldly, adventurous, a full ride of earthy and marine flavors unlike anything I’d ever experienced on a pizza. That was followed by a slice with a vegetable-reduction paste, fior di latte and jammy prunes on a diaphanous dough cloud with wood-fired singes on its cumulus curves. There was a pizza with zucchini, zucchini flowers and Kombu seaweed blanketed by the whispery smoke of provolone, and a slice with silky Jerusalem artichokes cooked three ways atop honey-dried pecorino.
Like the Reggia di Caserta, it was all more than the senses could comprehend. Luckily, the trains back to Naples ran until late, and I would skip dessert that night as I Masanielli’s award-winning pastry chef (and Mr. Martucci’s partner), Lilia Colonna, was on maternity leave with the couple’s baby.
“We want to take pizza to another planet,” Mr. Martucci said, his blue eyes dancing as he set down my last slice: a marinara with anchovies over oven-roasted puréed tomatoes and wild-garlic pesto, etherealized with his signature triple-cooked crust — a featherlight gauze of dough that was steam-baked, deep-fried and then oven-crisped.
