An Italian without pizza? Inn owner on stone oven drama

Gennaro Iannello's pub is missing an important component: the pizza oven. After three failed attempts, the tenant is exhausted. On Friday evening, it was a party instead of a stone oven drama.

Meinerzhagen – He announced it. For January, then for March, then for May. It took almost half a year before there was finally a pizza oven in the pub. But now the stone oven, which weighs several tons, is gone again. The prepared corner in the freshly renovated hall, where every guest could see how the pizza was prepared and put in the oven, is empty – and tenant Gennaro Iannello is tired. Tired of the fight, the explanation, the rumors.

If you say that the Italian doesn't have a pizza oven, that's not quite right. In fact, he has four – or at least he paid for them. The first never arrived, the second arrived broken, the third was not registered, and the fourth was on its way. The Neapolitan-born man will not answer when it will arrive or when the pizza will be available. “I will not make any more false promises.” He himself has lost trust in the companies and suppliers. He does not want to lose trust in him any further.

“It's bad that people have been so disappointed,” says his wife Incoronata Iannello. But there will be a pizza oven in the restaurant. Without it, the family would be making losses every day. And an Italian without pizza? That's unthinkable in Germany, says Gennaro Iannello. In Italy, on the other hand, you can't get pizza in any restaurant, only in pizzerias. But he also wants to bake it, his Neapolitan variations that taste like his homeland.

Gennaro Iannello is a trained chef. He can now draw on three decades of experience in the restaurant business. He ran the Ristorante Piccolo Mondo in Attendorn for ten years. “We made 500 pizzas a day, all in the stone oven,” he recalled. When the owner announced that he needed the pizzas for his own use, he moved to Kierspe. Iannello opened “Piccolo Mondo 2” here.

Gennaro Iannello worked for five years as head chef at Café Zuccaba on Sternplatz in Lüdenscheid, then as production manager at Feinkost Shahi, before finally opening his own Italian delicatessen in Kierspe on Friedrich-Ebert-Straße two years ago. When he leased the inn, his wife moved to Kierspe. Five months ago, the restaurant in Kierspe had to close – the reasons behind it are complicated, but they are on the landlord's side.

“We're fighting. We're really fighting.” But Gennaro Ianello wants to live his dream in the pub he's always wanted. And when the pizza oven, the fourth one, is finally here, there will be compensation for the long wait.

The Kierspe resident also wants to liven up the town with his restaurant. Small and large events with live music were announced. And there were smaller ones too: two evenings with live music on which it rained. And before Gennaro Iannello looks further into the future, he first looked back to the 1990s on Friday evening with a party – complete with cocktails and this time the best weather forecast.

The pub should not be forgotten, even if there is no pizza yet. Where the pizza oven used to be, there is now room to dance. Iannello is sure that the tide is turning. And the couple is looking forward to the day when they can answer the question “Where is the oven?” with a pizza.

We fight. We fight properly.