Born in New York in 1986 to Chinese and Japanese parents, Sei Shiroma launched the roaming project Ferro e Farinha in 2013—now a Rio de Janeiro benchmark. In 2025 it ranks 4th in 50 Top Pizza Latin America and wins “Pizza of the Year” for the Scampi.
Shiroma moved to Rio in 2013 with a wood-fired oven bolted to a pickup truck, selling naturally leavened pizzas around Laranjeiras and Botafogo.
The venture went viral: in 2014 he opened a first brick-and-mortar site in Catete, followed by venues in Botafogo, Leblon and Ipanema—the last a two-storey house with a rooftop pizza-cocktail bar.
50 Top Pizza placed Ferro e Farinha 9th in Latin America 2024 and, in 2025, promoted it to 4th, crowning the Scampi—garlic cream, shrimp, basil and spicy tomato—as “Pizza of the Year – Latteria Sorrentina Award.”
Globally, the pizzeria entered the 50 Top Pizza World 2024 at No. 89, the first Rio venue ever listed.
Shiroma works 72-hour doughs, bakes at 485 °C and tops with Brazilian produce: meia-cura mozzarella, Amazon basil, smoked tucupi. “Pizza should be eaten with your hands; it must tell the story of where it’s made,” he said after winning Pizza of the Year.
He also runs Asian trattoria Suibi in Ipanema and hosts masterclasses on tropical sourdough and caipirinha-pizza pairings. Next: a lab researching fermented cassava flours for gluten-free bases.
