Giovanni Ricciardella wins the GazzaGolosa competition

A chef-pastry chef with a passion for panettone. A good news for the GazzaGolosa competition which this year awarded Giovanni Ricciardella, from Cascina Vittoria, for the best panettone of 2022. Ricciardella, 31 years old, has been running the family restaurant in Rognano, Pavia for 10 years, where he prepares gourmet cuisine in the threshing floor of a Lombard farmhouse. But he has also set up an artisan laboratory which in this period churns out 290 sensational panettone a day. Ricciardella is not an absolute novelty given that last year, in his first participation in our competition, he came second. But he is amazed by the very rapid growth.

The experiments

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The first tests with panettone are in fact from 2016 but a real production began in 2018. Just four years to reach a very high level. The engine of Ricciardella’s success is certainly the choice of the best raw material and continuous experimentation. An example: instead of using only one type of vanilla, he blends three varieties, Tahiti, Madagascar and Bourbon. Together they have a more interesting scent. At this level you win with the details. The GazzaGolosa jury, made up of journalists, gastronomes and cooks, examined 21 panettone from 9 regions, awarding Cascina Vittoria at the end. A note of merit also goes to Renato Bosco, second. The Veronese wizard of sourdough and dough passes with ease from pizza to panettone.

Vittoria farmhouse in Rognano (PV)

San Martino Wood (VR)

Cantolacqua of Tolentino (MC)

New Dolceria of Syracuse

Follador of Pordenone Casa Manfredi of Rome D’Aloisio of Barletta (BT)

Reggio Emilia terminus