Owner Pietro Vardeu tells Short Order that he and partner Antonio Gallo have been developing the project for about a
year and are now working with a broker to scout warehouse space north of Downtown Miami, possibly on the outskirts of
the Design District on North Miami Ave. or N.E. Second Ave.
Offered alongside house-made-fresh-daily fior di latte (cow's milk mozzarella, from free range bovine in Jacksonville) and pouches of creamy burrata bursting with soft curds, Vardeu and Gallo currently import their mozzarella di bufala from Campagna in Naples, Italy. There, the country's only herds of water buffalo, numbering some 7,000, produce a snow white milk lacking
the beta carotene that tints most cows milk cheeses.
Mozzarella di bufala, like the boot's other prized artisanal food products, is regulated by the Italian government through protected geographic status. There are only 200 producers with the right to make, sell and market product bearing the "Mozzarella di Bufala Campana" trademark.
Vardeu adds that the team recently got approval from the USDA to import frozen water buffalo milk from Campagna, and they are preparing to purchase the pasteurization machinery from an Italian company with which they have formed a relationship.
Mozza Re (Italian for king) may not be as pleasant a surprise to Mozzarita, a Pompano Beach company known
for supplying local restaurants with its own fior di latte and other mozzarella cheeses made with milk from local cows.
But the more the merrier, we say!
