Lievità

Highlights — TLDR

1. Gourmet Neapolitan Pizza in Milan: Lievità brings a gourmet twist to traditional Neapolitan pizza, focusing on light, fragrant dough made from stone-ground flour, achieving rapid success in Milan.

2. Rapid Expansion and Success: Starting with their first store in Via Ravizza, Lievità quickly expanded to multiple locations in Milan, with plans to open eight more in two years.

3. Quality Ingredients and Skilled Team: Emphasizing top-quality ingredients and expertise, Lievità’s menu is curated by renowned pizza masters, offering a mix of pizzas, cold dishes, and fried specialties.

4. Integration with Deliverect for Efficiency: Adopting Deliverect, Lievità streamlined their online order management, improving order preparation time, reducing rider wait times, and eliminating entry errors.

5. Adaptation to Delivery Market Needs: Initially not focused on delivery, Lievità adapted to market demands, with delivery now constituting about 30% of their revenue, greatly aided by Deliverect’s solutions.

What is now a successful chain was born almost by chance from the intuition of five friends. The goal was to bring traditional Neapolitan pizza to Milan, reinterpreting it from a gourmet perspective. The basis of its success is the dough that combines lightness and fragrance to perfection. The long leavening process and the use of stone-ground semi-integral and whole-wheat flour result in a highly digestible pizza that quickly climbs the city's hierarchies. 

Not surprisingly, after the first store in Via Ravizza, openings followed in Via Varese 4 (Moscova), Via Sottocorno (Rinascimento), Via Piero Della Francesca 31 (Sempione), Via Settala 16 (Buenos Aires), and Piazza Vetra (Centro Storico). Business is booming, and Andrea D'Angelo, the co-founder and head of operations of Lievità, confirmed to us during the interview that they intend to open 8 more locations in the next two years. 

"What differentiates Lievity from other pizzerias is definitely the high digestibility of the product and the use of stone-ground semi-whole and whole-grain flours."

Focus on Raw Materials and Digitalization

Digestibility undoubtedly plays a key role, but it is complemented by using top-quality ingredients such as fiordilatte di Agerola or Piennolo del Vesuvio cherry tomatoes. The pizza menu, the flagship of Lievità, is curated by Giorgio Caruso, a master from Caserta who learned the secrets of oven and dough from two gurus such as Ciro Salvo, Neapolitan Pizza Ambassador for Slow Food, and Luigi Acciaio, world acrobatic pizza champion. Lievità's gastronomic offerings are rounded out by cold dishes (the realm of buffalo mozzarella, burrata, and carpaccio) and fried dishes, represented to perfection by battered squash blossoms and potato crocchè.  

There is no doubt about the quality of the ingredients and the expertise of the staff, but as a famous advertisement goes, "power is nothing without control." This is where Deliverect, the digital solution specializing in online order management, comes in. It not only integrates sales channels into the POS but also enables back-office analysis and the identification of trends, needs, and critical issues.

Reinventing yourself in the delivery world

"All metrics are improving. The order preparation time has shortened by a minute and a half, the rider waiting time outside our venue has lowered, and problems with entry errors resulting in missing items have completely gone away."

By Andrea D'Angelo's own admission, Lievità was not born with the idea of specializing in home delivery. As is often the case, they had to adapt to market needs, and currently, delivery accounts for about 30 percent of their revenue. While relying on a single player, Glovo, problems were the order of the day. The most significant was order entry in the cash management system, which was done manually before relying on Deliverect. 

With the introduction of Deliverect, the orders automatically go to the kitchen, reducing preparation minutes and rider waits. At the same time, input errors have virtually disappeared. During the interview, Lievità's head of operations did not hide his initial skepticism, but after trying Deliverect, he would recommend it to every restaurant in the industry. 

Andrea D'Angelo emphasizes that it is not necessary to have a business clearly oriented toward home delivery. Software with these features is perfect for getting an overview of the restaurant (or chain) and identifying which products work and which do not. The aspect he appreciates most is the ability to change the menus of each restaurant in a single operation. In the fast-paced world of catering, time is money.