September 5th 2016 is National Cheese Pizza Day. Yeah it’s a thing, and yeah it’s cause to celebrate with perhaps the cheesiest pizza known to mankind, the 99 Cheese Pizza, which was famously created in 2014 by 400 Gradi owner and World Pizza Champion Johnny Di Francesco. Since then petitions have been made begging Di Francesco to bring back the special, and it’s pushed him to reintroduce his monstrous creation for Monday only. You can be sure these will fly out the doors of 400 Gradi restaurants across Melbourne.
The AU Review was amongst the first in the world to try the pizza in 2014, which was made to celebrate the DVD release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As far as marketing goes, this one took the cake (or pizza pie, whatever).
An excerpt from our original piece on it:
I was amongst the first to try a slice (which turned into at least 6 slices) of the pizza, and my initial skepticism melted away on the first bite. This was a brilliantly balanced pizza, benefiting from the use of light cheeses over hard cheeses, and keeping taste as the focus.
“It’s incredibly easy to source everything from Australia”, Johnny said at an intimate theatrette gathering earlier today, taking us through just some of the cheeses he has included on the pizza. Everything is sourced fresh, largely excluding any man-made, unnatural cheeses. Johnny has melted down 94 [or 95] cheeses, in varying quantities, into a base, on which he has layered on the rest like fetta and goat cheese. What you end up with is a topping that is deliciously fluffy on first bite, giving way to a soft, flavourful mixture of cheeses that isn’t as a strong as one would expect, but rather light and creamy.
While there are stronger cheeses like blue vein cheese, gorgonzola, smoked cheese, and swiss cheese, the taste is balanced as such that these only come through in very small barely noticeable bursts. The final pizza features cheeses from a myriad of different countries, so there are small pockets of different flavours you can notice as the taste lingers.
What follows is a list of what went into the original 99 cheese pizza. There are no guarantees that this long list of ingredients is what will be used for this current 99 cheese pizza, but we think it’s a safe bet to say the list will be similar. Herald Sun also report that Johnny is using truffle pecorino and a cheese covered in grapefruit this time around.
1. Aged cheddar
2. American cheese
3. Asiago
4. Auricchio Calcagno
5. Aurrichio grana padano
6. Auricchio parmigiano
7. Australian Colby
8. Australian mild cheddar
9. Australian shredded pizza cheese
10. Blue cheese
11. Blue vein cheese
12. Bocconcini
13. Brie
14. Buffalo mozerella
15. Bulgarian sheep fetta
16. Burrata
17. Cacio
18. Calcagno
19. Camembert
20. Castello white
21. Cheddat
22. Chilli Cheddar
23. Cloth aged vintage cheddar
24. Colby
25. Cottage Cheese
26. Cracked Pepper cheese
27. Cream Cheese
28. Cyprus Style Haloumi
29. Danish Blue
30. Deidre mini chol
31. Dill chevre
32. Double cream brie
33. Easy melt Colby
34. Edam
35. Extra Sharp parmesan
36. Extra sharp vintage cheddar
37. Extra tasty cheese
38. Feta
39. Goats milk caprakaas
40. Goats
41. Goats cheese with Italian black truffle
42. Goats curd
43. Gorgonzola
44. Gouda
45. Grana Padano cheese
46. Grated nacho cheese
47. Grated pizza plus
48. Greek Feta
49. Gruyere
50. Haloumi
51. Havarti
52. Italian Cheese blend
53. Jarlsberg
54. Labneh
55. Light ricotta
56. Light Tasty
57. Lite n Tasty cheese slices
58. Lite swiss Jarlsberg
59. Livefree natural cheese
60. Manchego
61. Marscapone
62. Mexican Cheese Blend
63. Mild cheddar
64. Mini babybel
65. Mozerella
66. Nimbin natural cheese
67. Paneer
68. Parmesan
69. Parmigiano reggiano stravecchio
70. Pecorino
71. Persian fetta
72. Red Leicester
73. Red wax cheddar
74. Reduced fat cheddar cheese
75. Reduced fat vintage
76. Reggiano cheese
77. Ricotta
78. Saganaki
79. Sandwich cheese slice
80. Shanklish
81. Shredded lactose free
82. Smoked cheese
83. Smoked dutch
84. Special reserve vintage cheddar
85. Spreadable quarg
86. Stilton
87. Strong and bitey vintage
88. Supreme sour cheese
89. Sweet chilli cheese
90. Swiss cheese
91. Tasmanian Danish fetta
92. Tasmanian fetta
93. Tasmanian heritage st Claire swiss
94. Triple cream brie
95. Vintage club pickled cheddar cheese
96. Vintage extra sharp slices
97. Vintage tasty
98. Welsh cheddar cheese
99. White Brie
The 99 cheese pizza will be available on Monday 5th September ONLY from 400 Gradi stores in Melbourne. Locations include Crown, Southbank; 99 Lygon St, Brunswick East; Eastland Shopping Centre, Ringwood; and 100 Keilor Rd, Essendon. For more information on 400 Gradi click HERE.
Source: Herald Sun
Image: Broadsheet
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