Peppino Corsini is the first deaf pizza chef in Europe.

Giuseppe Corsini, known to all as Peppino, was born in Salerno in 1967. He has been deaf since birth, but he managed to transform his handicap into a record that made him very popular: he is the first European pizza chef who cannot hear.

Coming from a family whose parents were also deaf, Peppino grew up using Italian Sign Language (LIS) and, throughout his life, has also been committed to representing and advocating for the deaf community. His adventure with pizza began very early. In 1983-84 , when he was about 16 years old, he went to Paris and worked at the Fontana di Trevi Italian pizzeria and restaurant , run by an uncle. There he learned the trade, working alongside already experienced Italian pizza chefs. After about two years, he had to return to Italy for family reasons, but he never forgot pizza.

For many years, he pursued a different career path, eventually working as an office worker. At the same time, he continued to cultivate his passion for dough and, as a self-taught artist, studied the Neapolitan pizza recipe and contemporary pizza techniques. The real turning point came in March 2023 , when he earned his professional pizza chef qualification from the Scuola Italiana Formazione in Naples. From that moment, his passion officially became a new career. It is precisely on the basis of this qualification that Corsini is presented as the first deaf pizza chef in Europe . He himself states that there are other deaf pizza chefs around the world—he cites one in Iran and one in the United States—but maintains that his professional career path makes him the first in Europe.

Initially, the main problem was communication. In a pizzeria, where orders arrive quickly and coordination with colleagues and customers is essential, deafness could create complicated situations: Corsini, for example, recounts having sometimes prepared a different pizza than the one ordered because he misunderstood the request.

Today, however, according to him, technology has changed things a lot: smartphones and applications allow us to communicate much more easily.

Thus Corsini combines his work as a pizza chef with that of a popularizer: he travels around Italy and holds seminars and lessons on Neapolitan pizza, also aimed at the deaf community.

Cover photo from Corriere del Mezzogiorno – Salerno

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