The young restaurateur said it’s important to help - even if a fresh slice of pizza isn’t as vital as
other supplies for Sandy victims.
“I’m not a doctor, those aren’t my capabilities,” said Marco Chirico. “But I can make food. That’s
my specialty.
One of Italy’s top pizza men is coming to Brooklyn to give Sandy victims a piping hot slice of support.
Sergio Miccu - president of the Neapolitan Association of Pizza Makers - has come all the way from
Napoli to make 200 pies for victims of the massive superstorm in Red Hook on Saturday.
“The way the houses were destroyed. The way the cars were flipped upside down. It was terrible. I had to
do something,” said Miccu.
The proud pizza man said the images he saw on TV sback home conjured up memories of earthquakes
that rocked his homeland over the years. Miccu never lost his home or his loved ones but had plenty of
friends who did in the small town of Tito.
And he’s going to do now what he did then; make pizza.
“We traveled all through the night to cook for people in Tito,” said Miccu. “We even brought our own oven
to cook for people. It was just something that we had to do.”
Miccu called his friend Joe Chirico who runs Marco Polo Ristorante on Court St. and asked for help
making pizza for the victims.
Chirico welcomed him with open arms and volunteered his son Marco to help make the margherita-style
pizza at his son’s restaurant Enoteca on Court St. this Saturday.
Chirico and his son Marco donated trays of baked ziti and hundreds of bowls of minestrone soup for Red
Hook residents at the Visitation Church on Richard St. days after the storm hit.
Chirico - who’s lived in Carroll Gardens for the last 40 years - said the devastation reminded him of the
earthquakes that shook his hometown of Calabria.
“I lost a lot of things in the earthquakes so I know what it’s like for people to be put out of their house or
without electricity - especially with small children,” said Chirico.
“When I saw this I had to help out.” Marco Chirico, 24 has plenty of friends who live on Staten Island and
the Rockaways whose homes were destroyed.