The pizzaz of Fire and Ice

Lovers of all things pizza must have tried Kathmandu’s very own Fire and Ice Pizzeria at least once. They will, now that the restaurant was featured recently in The New York Times’ 15 of Our Readers’ Favourite Pizza Places Around the World.

It’s their Pepperoni and Mozzarella pizzas that made the cut. A comment in NYT reads: ‘Italian pizza by Italian owner using local ingredients in just about the last place you’d imagine. An expat’s treasure.’

Fire and Ice founder and long-time Kathmandu resident Annamaria Forgione disagrees: “It is not just expats. Fire and Ice is what it is today because of our Nepali guests. And tourists are here only for two weeks.”

Forgione came to Nepal from Napoli via Venezuela and Britain, and her popular pizzeria has been at the same spot in Thamel for three decades. Nepali five-year-olds who used to accompany their parents to the pizzeria in the 1990s now come with their own children.

Loyal customers say the quality and taste of the pizzas have remained consistent for 30 years in the original Thamel spot and at new outlets in Sanepa, Kolkata and Colombo.

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Forgione says three-fourths of her guests in Thamel and Sanepa are Nepalis, but one recent evening every table was taken up by trekkers devouring slices.

There have been celebrity customers: Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulla Al Thani of Qatar who summited Mt Everest in 2013, Italian climber and helicopter rescue pilot Simone Moro, and Hollywood actor Richard Gere.

Even former Crown Prince Dipendra used to walk over from Narayanhiti Palace in the evenings, sit at a corner table, and have his gelato.

Forgione’s family is originally from Napoli but migrated to Venezuela when she was young. Her father later took the young Annamaria to her aunt in Milan who ran a hotel and casino.

She then worked with the Italian Embassy in London, but soon got bored. Her husband got a job as a teacher in Kathmandu, and asked her to join him. She did not know where Kathmandu was.

“I will never forget 16 September 1988, getting off the plane in Kathmandu,” Forgione recalls. “The mountains were all out. I just stood there on the stairs and stared, blocking the other passengers. This country was like heaven, I want that Nepal back.”

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Fire and Ice NT 3 — Forgione with the original staff in 1995 in Thamel.

She started selling Italian tomato sauce at the Summit Hotel Sunday market in Sanepa. That eventually led to Fire and Ice Pizzeria and Ice Cream Parlour where Forgione kneaded the dough for pizzas and worked the Carpigiani herself.

Some of the more popular pizzas over the years have been Margarita, Ettore (chicken mushroom topping named after a friend) and the colourfully-anointed Rompipalle (spicy meat sauce).

But why are pizzas so popular around the world? “Pizza is such a welcoming, comfort food which you can share and eat in a group,” Forgione explains.

Fire and Ice has also been an excellent training ground for Nepali chefs and waiters, many of whom have gone overseas. One chef now earns $1,000 a month in a pizzeria in Saudi Arabia.

Forgione’s next project is to open a Fire and Ice outlet in her tiny village in Essex. “My neighbourhood there is quiet, no tall buildings, just people walking their dogs. But it doesn’t have a good pizza place,” she says.

And after that? “I can’t see myself not working. Perhaps a Fire and Ice in Pokhara or Khumbu?”

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