The final of the XIII edition of the storied pastry competition “La Best Schiacciata alla Fiorentina” will take place on Thursday, February 8 at 11 a.m. at the “Da Saba” restaurant in Florence (S. Donato shopping center, via S. Tosi, university area; Tel. 055/0540970). This contest has been going on for the longest time in Florence, and since 2007, it has pitted the best pastry shops and ovens in the metropolitan area against each other. The public is welcome to attend the event, which has the support of the Municipality of Florence, and they may provide you free assistance. The event’s organizers, House of the Nello and Festival of the Pastry Shops, are pleased to announce that this year the Meyer Pediatric Hospital Foundation was also involved and will benefit from a fundraising effort: as a result of the new regulations for competition registration, all finalist pastry shops will actually bring three crushed. The organizers will deliver them already assembled to Meyer Foundation volunteers, who will set up shop outside the final site and offer them for free to anyone in attendance as well as anyone walking by the mall. All proceeds from the sale will go toward funding the hospital for Meyer children.
It was decided to increase the number of finalists to 31 and conduct a pre-selection in tandem due to competitors and ways of handling the extremely high number of requests received by the Competition Directorate (over 50). The judges concluded that the final-crushed finalists were, in fact, the greatest in the metropolitan region. The names of the finalists, arranged by hometown, are listed below: Antico Caffè Torino, Caffè Gilli, Freedom, Batoni, Bellucci, Cartabianca, Patrizio’s desserts, Gabriele Rocchi, Giorgio, Marisa, Dolce, Pegaso, Resta, Serafini, Stefania, Bescagli oven, boxed oven, oven pappa e ciccia (Florence), Andrea-Ruggini, Marcello (Pontassieve), Pimpina, Rigacci (Cerbaia), oven Martini (Castel Fiorentino), Aquila, Pan Dolce (Scandicci), Caffè Neri Crociani & Squieti, Le Chicchere, Malasci (Sesto Fiorentino), Delizia (Poggio a Caiano),Bellesi Bellese Bistrot coffee, Vannino (Calenzano). The smashed (classic, not filled) will be delivered to the designated tasting area the same morning as the competition. All pastry chefs and food industry professionals who make up the popular and technical jury will be required to sample a “covered” piece of each cake without knowing the identity of the maker and then cast a vote on a scale of 1 to 10. The person with the greatest score will be crowned the winner. Only the initial three ranks will be disclosed by the jury. Beautiful memory plates and product prizes will be given out by Assicurazioni Alleanza, the Carra Distribution Spa event sponsors, to the first three places in the Popular Jury and the first place in the Technical Jury. Establishment Organisers of the competition are the Festival of Pastry Shops and the Catering of Florentine Traditions of the Nello, who were the original creators of all the pastries contests relating to the pastries of the metropolitan area, such as “Pan di Ramerino – the Florentine Middle Ages”, “Lo Zuccotto – the Renaissance on the table”, “The best crushed with grapes”, “Rice pudding – The Florentine dessert”, and the most recent “Classic Cantuccio”, which took place two weeks ago and saw the historic Gilli Caffè in Florence win.
