With a pizza featuring 1001 different cheeses, Frenchman Benoit Bruel enters the "cheese legend" and conquers the Guinness World Records. But for him, extreme toppings are an old story.
The news
The three ingredients that cannot be missing from Benoit Bruel's life are definitely flour, cheese, and records. The pizza chef, owner of the Déliss’Pizza restaurant in the 3rd arrondissement of Lyon, on October 8th, shattered all previous records by creating a round pizza with a whopping 1,001 different types of cheese.
Benoit, in fact, had not quite digested his defeat in 2021 when, during the Sirha Lyon (the global food service event known for international competitions like the Bocuse d’Or, the Pastry World Cup, and the International Catering Cup), chef Julien Serri, YouTuber Morgan VS, and cheesemaker François Robin stole his previously held record with a pizza featuring 834 cheeses. He had already achieved a record in February 2020 with 254 cheeses. So, Benoit - who apparently despises defeats - decided to make a 30.5 cm pizza with 1,001 varieties of cheese. "Why 1,001? I thought it was a nice number. There's a Bugatti Veyron with 1,001 horses, I like the cartoon '1,001 Pattes,' and it's better than 1,000," he says with a smile to the 20 minutes newspaper.
To select all the cheeses, Bruel spent 5 months, traveling relentlessly throughout France ("except in August, because it was exhausting," he adds). "For five months, I traveled and found 800 cheeses, but I could have found many more. In France, we have 58 AOP cheeses, 1,800 well-known ones, and 3,000 lesser-known ones. Then there are 'farmhouse cheeses,' almost 200,000: they are the cheapest, and some have incredible flavors. I learned a lot during this journey," he continues.
The help of cheesemonger Sophie Richard Luna was crucial because "the most difficult part was in the selection. We had to carefully classify each product, as double additions were not allowed, and she helped me with that. After over twenty-four hours of work, we ate everything and had a lot of fun. The ten cheese boards used to make the pizza were then distributed to the people present and passersby in the neighborhood. All the evidence will be sent to the Guinness Book for the final verdict, but the outcome will certainly be validated," the chef reveals, confident that he has met all the conditions set by the Guinness World Records, especially the presence of "at least two grams of each cheese."
Proud to have reclaimed the Guinness World Record scepter, the Lyon pizza chef wanted to dedicate this success to his friend, cameraman Brice Guilbert, who died in a helicopter accident in Argentina during the filming of the show "Dropped." However, never satisfied, Benoit assures, "It's not over; I will beat my own record!"
Cover photo: @Paul Poirot
