The Negroni may be one of the world’s most enduring cocktails, but at FiDO Pizza, which opened last August in Boston, the Italian classic has taken a boldly unconventional turn. And it starts by soaking an entire pizza in gin…believe it or not.
The restaurant is serving a Pepperoni Pizza Negroni—a savory, bitter riff designed specifically to pair with pizza. The drink comes from FiDO co-owner and beverage director Ryan Lotz, who wanted a bar program that felt playful, unexpected and unmistakably pizza-forward, according to a recent report by VinePair.
FiDO (short for “fine dough”) is the fifth concept from Traveler Street Hospitality, and Lotz says the tone of the restaurant gave him permission to get weird. “I wanted FiDO to have a tongue-in-cheek bar program, and the Pepperoni Pizza Negroni seems to fit in perfectly there,” Lotz told VinePair. “We’re a pizza restaurant, and Negronis obviously have a connection to Italian food, so I wanted to find a way to do it.”
The idea was sparked by a visit to Pizza Marvin in Providence, Rhode Island, where Lotz first encountered a pepperoni-infused Negroni. But when he tried to recreate and expand on the concept back in Boston, nothing quite worked. Tomato infusions fell flat, milk washing stripped out flavor, and fat-washing the entire cocktail was a dead end. He said the drink just didn’t taste enough like pizza.
“So I thought, ‘Maybe we should try something that seems stupid, and soaking an entire pizza in a bottle of gin seems like a really dumb idea,” Lotz said. “So we gave it a try.”
He ordered heavily charred pepperoni slices from a nearby shop (FiDO wasn’t open yet at the time), submerged them in gin for 24 hours, and tasted the result. “I realized at that moment that the missing flavor was the char itself,” Lotz explained. “The myriad ways I tried to make the drink just couldn’t replicate the roasted flavor of the crust. That specific note of fermented, yeasty dough just screams pizza to me, and this hit perfectly.”
Today, FiDO’s Pepperoni Pizza Negroni starts with whole pepperoni pizzas infused into Beefeater London Dry Gin for 24 hours, then frozen and fat-washed to remove excess oil while preserving flavor. To boost herbaceous notes lost in the process, the bar team adds Industrious Spirits Co.’s Pizza Strip Vodka and St. George Spirits Basil Eau de Vie. The cocktail gets finished with classic Negroni components—sweet vermouth and Campari.
The drink is served on draft and charged with nitrous oxide for a slightly creamy mouthfeel. As odd as it sounds, the cocktail has become one of FiDO’s top sellers.
“It’s a tasty drink, and I love it, but it’s meant to be fun,” Lotz said. “It’s not meant to be a serious drink. We’re not trying to add the Pepperoni Pizza Negroni to the cannon of classic cocktails. Maybe it will take off, though. Stranger drinks have happened.”
Dining and Cooking