Man from Swinderby flew from Newark to compete in a world pizza competition in Paestum, South of Italy and came back with a trophy

A chef left Swinderby for Paestum, southern Italy, to return home as a pizza-making champion.

Antonio Carlos Garcia, originally from Alicante, Spain, has lived in Swinderby for 14 years and, for a decade has worked in restaurants.

He has his own catering company — Pizza San Carlo ­— which has provided for some big-name clients and also a consultancy and training company — Pizza Consultancy Antonio.

“I have a great passion for pizza and have worked in Italian restaurants for many years, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” said Antonio.

“I went last year to have a look and see how the competition was and if I could compete against all the pizza chefs.

“I said yes, that I just needed to prepare myself and this year, I just booked the flight and went.”

The competition in Paestum lasted for three days and had different categories, including pizza classica, and pizza napolitana.

There were around 500 competitors, each category with around 150/180 people in them.

In each category there were two winners, an Italian national and a foreigner.

He said: “It is an award but doesn’t mean you’re the world champion.

“You are the winner of everyone who came from all around the world in a certain category.

“It’s like music, you can have the Grammys, the MTV award, but there are different categories to it.”

Antonio brought home the Pizza Champion of the Pizza DOC — best international pizza maker — in the World 2022 trophy.

“For me was a big achievement, he said.

“I have a massive massive passion about pizza it was really rewarding.

“People think it’s really simple to make a pizza.

“But there are a lot of factors that make the difference between a pizza that is nice to a pizza that is excellent.

“I always hear the same — ‘oh man these pizzas are unreal, they are amazing’.

“It is so good to hear all this positive feedback.”