Chef Damian Wawrzyniak Creates His Perfect Polish Slice to Help SODO Celebrate the Diversity of Walthamstow
Great Britain’s Polish food ambassador and TV chef, Damian Wawrzyniak has helped London pizza restaurant Sodo to celebrate the diversity of Walthamstow after being asked to create his perfect slice of pizza using Polish ingredients.
Sodo’s special eight slice pizza has differentiating and authentic toppings to represent the eight largest communities living in Walthamstow, based on data collected from the last census. Sodo partnered with migrant charity, MyLondon to source local chefs to create the pizza, reflecting the origins of the local community. In addition to Chef Wawrzyniak, the Walthamstow pizza includes a slice created by chefs from Britain, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Lithuania, Romania and Jamaica.
Chef Wawrzyniak based his slice on a Polish village dish, Zapiekanka which is smoked sausage ‘Torunska’, salted cucumber ‘Malosolny’, onions, pickled mushrooms and peppers. He said, “This was such a fun project to be involved in, with an important underlying message. I’m very pleased with my slice of the Walthamstow pizza. It’s a great representation of Poland and one of my favourite traditional dishes, updated.”
Dan Birch, founder of Sodo said, “The old English for Walthamstow is ‘Welcome Place’ and a love of food is something we all share. Who doesn’t like a good pizza? With this special pizza, I really wanted to bring people together, I mean after all, aren’t we all just pizzas with different toppings?”
To celebrate the pizza’s launch, a community street party was held outside the Sodo Walthamstow restaurant on the 8th October, between 2-90pm, with a live band and guest speakers. Groups made up of eight different nationalities were given the Walthamstow pizza for free. Chef Wawrzyniak will also serve Zapiekanka (the Polish version of pizza) at his Peterborough restaurant, House of Feasts from this week.
To find out more about Chef Wawrzyniak visit www.chefconsultant.co.uk.