Wood oven pizza bakers fill gap in the mountains

When Jan Grünig lived in Thun, he often ordered pizza to be delivered. So numerous were the providers in the city, that it was often difficult to decide from whom to order.

“It was practical,” Grünig said, “to have possibility to call a pizza service if one hadn't cooked anything or hadn't gone food shopping.”  Living in Saanenmöser, Grünig, 24, realized that something like this was lacking in Saanenland. He and Raik Süss discussed the idea and were spurned into action when they learned that Pizzeria Rütti was closing.

Raik Süss and Jan Grünig founded Pizza Montagna in February 2011. The bakery is located in Saanenmöser. Philipp Brand, 25, from Gsteig jumped in to stand in for Süss, who had a full time job and a family. Grünig acquired his pizza chef diploma and transferred his knowledge to Brand.

“Baking pizza is a little science all onto itself,” Grünig says. “A normal pizza delivery uses an electric oven. We have a wood oven. This makes everything more complicated, but the pizzas are more delicious.” The oven allows for five pizzas to be baked side-by-side.

“Last winter, we received nothing but positive feedback,” Philipp Brand said. In the meantime, both young men have fine-tuned their delivery system and have found a process that is potentially worth patenting.

Customers can receive hot pizza on the table, even if the drive takes 30 minutes. Pizzas are delivered in a special box, in which temperatures are clearly higher than 100 degrees.

“The pizza dough is everything,” Grünig says. “When it is not good, you can't get a good pizza.”
The two men make everything themselves, from the dough to the tomato sauce to the desserts. They buy local fresh meat. The house specialty is “Pizza Montagna,” featuring special dried beef and the best mountain cheeses.

They may remain open in summer. Until recently, it was difficult to deliver to households, because there was no house numbering. “Now that there are street names and house numbers, this was made easier for us,” Grünig says.

www.pizzam.ch, Phone 033 511 21 11