Crosta: A format worthy a Harvard Business School Case
In Via Felice Belotti 11, a small street in the residential area of Porta Venezia in Milan, there is Crosta. The place, opened in 2018, is categorized as pizzeria, but it is more than that.
In my humble, opinion, Crosta may be defined as an innovative food project with at the nexus everything that could be baked: bread, pizza, croissants and fresh bread; at lunch, the “pizza on a paddle” (pizza alla pala); in the evening the classic pizza. On the top of that, during the day you can buy bread and cakes there .
Although the atmosphere is relaxing and extremely casual, you can easily feel that Crosta is mainly patronized by people belonging to the high middle class of Milan. The dining room is packed and there is not much room between the tables. Nevertheless, it is quite comfortable having lunch there.
The service is one of the things that I love most about Crosta. The waiters and waitresses are extremely polite and friendly, they are always smiling although the work is quite intensive at Crosta. Besides, Crosta’s staff is really international. The staff working there come from different countries. Given that, the company in order to avoid potential tensions between the new hires and clients, has implemented a solution that I really love. For the new members of staff, who do not have a good command of Italian yet, their badge together with the name has also written in Italian: “Be patient, I am still learning”. I still remember two actual members of the staff when they were wearing that badge two years ago. Now, they have full command of the Italian language, and in my humble opinion, having had the opportunity to work with the clients since the beginning has been extremely useful in order to achieve it.
Crosta represents the state of art in terms of croissants, bread, cakes and pizzas. You can not go wrong if you buy them. I strongly recommend trying all of them.
My preferred dish is the pizza on paddle with Stracciatella cheese and prosciutto (Italian dried ham). It is a crunchy unusual pizza without tomato but with some amazing Stracciatella cheese and high-quality prosciutto as toppings. The perfect mix of the three ingredients is what makes this pizza so yummy.
In fact, the Crosta’s pizza on paddle is a variation of the Roman-style pizza and of the pizza gourmet, which was born and became popular in the Italian region Veneto. The base of the pizza is more similar to bread and is quite crunchy. Its main function is to be the perfect support for tasting high-quality ingredients from different types of cheese, prosciutto, salami up to shrimps and foie gras, which are placed on the pizza after it comes out of the oven.
In conclusion, if you are in Milan, Crosta is one the places to eat. Indeed, you would not find a place like that in other cities. If Crosta had opened in California, it would be a Harvard Business School case study. The two founders, Giovanni Mineo and Simone Lombardi, have created an amazing format which has allowed Crosta to thrive also in the middle of COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, I strongly discourage everyone from going there without a reservation during the rush hours, it is absolutely impossible to find a seat.
