Re I Mi

Where Pizza Becomes a Considered Format

On the periphery of Sassari, away from the centro storico and its more tourist-facing dining rooms, a specific strand of Italian pizza culture has taken hold. It is the strand that treats leavening as a craft discipline rather than a production step, and it positions the finished slice not as street food but as something closer to a composed plate. Re I Mi, at Via Salvatore Coradduzza 17, sits squarely within this movement. The setting is informal, the service deliberately unpretentious, but the seriousness applied to dough, ingredient sourcing, and pairing logic reflects a kitchen culture that has spent the past decade migrating upward from the pizzeria into restaurant territory.

Italy has long had a parallel conversation about what pizza can be. The Neapolitan tradition established its own orthodoxy around high heat, short fermentation, and soft centres. The Roman school pushed toward thin, crackly bases. A third current, less geographically anchored, has emerged from chefs and bakers who trained in restaurant kitchens before returning to leavened dough, bringing with them techniques of slow fermentation, ingredient composition, and tasting-menu sequencing. Re I Mi operates within this current. The degustazione format, in which pizza arrives cut into six or eight slices and moves through a sequence of toppings rather than a single combination, is the structural expression of that restaurant-kitchen logic.

The Dough as the Central Argument

In any serious pizzeria operating at this level, the dough is both the method and the claim. At Re I Mi, the base achieves something technically specific: it is approximately a third of a centimetre high, which places it in a register far thinner than Neapolitan tradition but with a structural integrity that resists collapse. Persistent air bubbles run through the entire crust, a marker of long, controlled fermentation rather than quick commercial leavening. The texture is described as exceptionally friable, a crumbliness that increases salivation and creates a textural contrast with the toppings above it. Crispy throughout, including at the centre, a point of distinction from styles where the centre softens or steams under ingredient weight.

This kind of dough discipline is not accidental. It requires managing hydration, fermentation time, oven temperature, and resting with the same attention a pastry kitchen gives to laminated dough. The result reads on the palate as something between a fine cracker and a bread, a category of its own. Chef Sandro Cubeddu applies this foundation to ingredients treated with the sourcing and composition standards of a restaurant menu, which is precisely what separates this format from the broader pizza-restaurant category.

Sardinian Context and the Local Ingredient Logic

Sardinia's food culture is often read through its pastoral interior: cured meats, aged cheeses, bitter honeys, flatbreads like pane carasau. Sassari, as the island's second city and the administrative centre of the north, sits at a point where that inland tradition meets a more urban, restaurant-driven sensibility. The city has a small but serious dining scene, represented at the leading end by places like Mesadoria Restaurant and Osteria de' Mercati, where Mediterranean technique is applied to local produce with genuine rigour.

Re I Mi occupies a different register within that scene. It is not competing with those restaurants on formal dining terms, but it draws from the same philosophy: that Sardinian ingredients, used wisely and paired correctly rather than deployed as background flavour, can carry a dish. The toppings across the tasting sequence work in that spirit, with quality ingredients treated as the restaurant kitchen would treat them rather than as pizza additions. Starters extend the same logic, and a curated wine selection adds a pairing dimension that most casual pizzerias do not attempt.

The Degustazione Format and What It Asks of the Diner

The tasting format in pizza is a relatively recent structural shift. At its least ambitious, it is simply a way of offering more variety. At its most considered, it mirrors the sequencing logic of a restaurant menu, moving through lighter, more delicate combinations before building toward richer or more complex toppings, using the dough as a consistent thread rather than a variable base. Re I Mi's format sits toward the more considered end of that range.

This positions the experience differently from a standard pizzeria visit. The diner is not selecting a single pizza but moving through a designed sequence. The parallel with Italy's fine-dining tier, represented at the leading by institutions like Osteria Francescana in Modena or Le Calandre in Rubano, is not in ambition or price, but in the underlying grammar: the meal as a progression rather than a selection. Even at the accessible end of Italian dining, that grammar is increasingly present, and Re I Mi is an example of it applied to a format that most diners still approach casually.

For visitors more accustomed to Italy's starred table formats, including Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence, Dal Pescatore in Runate, or Uliassi in Senigallia, the contrast with Re I Mi is instructive. Those rooms operate at the level of €€€€ tasting menus with full service architecture. Re I Mi operates at a fraction of that investment in a deliberately informal room. What connects them is the discipline applied to ingredients and composition rather than the setting or the price.

Planning a Visit

Re I Mi is located on the outskirts of Sassari at Via Salvatore Coradduzza 17, which means arriving by car or taxi is the practical approach for most visitors. The venue operates with informal service in a relaxed room, and the pan pizza alongside the round format gives the table additional range within the same visit. A selection of wines is available to pair against the tasting sequence, which rewards the time to work through properly rather than treating the visit as a quick stop.

For a fuller picture of where Re I Mi sits within the city's dining options, our full Sassari restaurants guide maps the scene across formats and price tiers. Those also exploring the city more broadly will find relevant resources in our Sassari hotels guide, our Sassari bars guide, our Sassari wineries guide, and our Sassari experiences guide.

Internationally, the tasting-pizza format has few direct equivalents at the level of consistency Re I Mi appears to operate. Creative Italian rooms like Enrico Bartolini in Milan, Piazza Duomo in Alba, or Atelier Moessmer Norbert Niederkofler in Brunico operate in entirely different categories, but they reflect the same underlying Italian principle: that the quality of a dish is determined by the rigour applied to each of its components. Re I Mi applies that principle to leavened dough. Outside Italy, the contrast with technically driven rooms like Le Bernardin in New York City, Atomix in New York City, or Quattro Passi in Marina del Cantone underlines that a format is not what determines a kitchen's seriousness. The ingredient discipline does.