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Kesté’s Roberto Caporuscio Now Making His Own Mutz

It had to happen sometime: Before he became a master pizzaiolo, Roberto Caporuscio was a dairy farmer and cheese salesman outside of Rome, but it took some gentle prodding from former Casellula fromager Tia Keenan to get the pie guy to reconnect with his lacto-roots.

Last September, she enlisted him to help her teach a class at the Brooklyn Kitchen on how to make fresh mozzarella. In November, after sourcing BelGioioso curds from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Caporuscio started making his own every morning in the kitchen at Kesté, where it has displaced imported buffalo mozzarella on his Caprese salad and in an antipasto of prosciutto and pillowy cheese. Whatever little remains is used the next day on some of his pizzas. The cheesemaker’s secret? Adding fresh cream to the curds, Caporuscio believes, puts his cheese on par with Italy’s finest fior di latte. Although the pie man plans to gradually bump up production to the point where it’s all made in-house, he’s still supplementing his own with what he considers a very fine specimen from Di Palo. Ask which pizza has which cheese, to be absolutely sure, but you really can’t go wrong either way.

Kesté’s Roberto Caporuscio Now Making His Own Mutz