New pizza brands here for a bite of the pie

Two new artisanal pizza brands are here to whet Singaporeans' appetite

- Tan Hsueh Yun

Call Singapore the Republic of Pizza. How else to explain how a tiny city can boast top pizza brands such as L'antica Pizzeria Da Michele from Italy, Roberta's and Osteria Mozza from the United States and Fortuna from Australia?

Add to them home-grown ones such as La Bottega Enoteca, Wild Child Pizzette, Beyond The Dough, Bad Habits Provision, Puffy Bois and Chooby Pizza.

Two new brands are muscling in. Vincenzo Capuano from Naples, Italy, opens its first restaurant in Asia at Robertson Quay on May 17; and Pizza Studio Tamaki from Tokyo, Japan, opens its first Singapore outpost in Tanjong Pagar on June 10.

Both tick all the artisanal pizza boxes: special blends of flour, long-fermented dough, Italian pizza ovens, and Italian tomatoes and cheeses.

Their founders are hell-bent on world domination.

On one side is pizzaiolo Vincenzo Capuano, 35, born and raised in Naples, and who followed in his father's and grandfather's footsteps. He already has more than 30 restaurants, and is using Singapore as a base to open in the Philippines, India, Thailand and other parts of Asia.

"My dream is to open in Tokyo because I have a big fan base there," he says.

On the other side is Tsubasa Tamaki, 45, from Okinawa. His first trip to Italy was in 2023, when he went there for an award ceremony. His Pizza Studio Tamaki (PST) was No. 88 on that year's list, put out by online pizza guide 50 Top Pizza.

He says: "When I was 26, I wanted to be like Colonel Sanders. I had the same idea, but instead of KFC everywhere in the world, it's pizza."

Coming up are PST restaurants in the US, China, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Existing players are not taking any of this lying down.