Capuano pizzerias (including the one with the pizza chef Barbie) are expanding in Italia and abroad
A partnership between Mattel and Vincenzo Capuano, who heads a network that has grown to 50 venues, including those abroad: upcoming openings in San Francisco and Tokyo
With Barbie, you can even play at being a pizza chef. That’s the idea behind the new collaboration between Mattel and Vincenzo Capuano, a Neapolitan pizza chef who has become an international brand in just a few years. At the heart of the initiative is the Barbie Pizza Playset, a play set with 25 accessories – an oven, baking tray, pizza cutter and delivery boxes – designed for little pizza lovers.
“Each playset is designed to bring a profession to life,” explains Eleonora Schiavoni, Head of Consumer Products for Italy, Spain & Portugal at Mattel, noting that the pizzeria joins other professions featured by the brand. Hence the decision to link the product to a competition, running from 15 September to 15 October: by purchasing a Barbie toy in participating shops, customers can win a voucher to spend at one of the Capuano pizzerias in Italia, whilst in the outlets in Naples, Turin, Rome and Milan, the Barbie-branded playsets are on display alongside Unogiochi’s toy ovens. “The competition is a marketing hook,” explains Schiavoni, “a way to raise the profile of a collaboration that we value highly.”
What makes this partnership feel so natural is Capuano’s own personal journey, as he sees his own story reflected in the world’s most famous doll. “Mattel, and therefore Barbie, are a company and a historic brand that represent family, children and, above all, dreams,” said the pizza chef during the presentation, tracing the thread that links his own rise – from Scampia to global success – to the legend built around the doll.
Beyond the marketing campaign, the brand continues to expand rapidly. The chain now comprises around fifty pizzerias, stretching from Sicily to northern Italia, with international branches ranging from Singapore to Hong Kong and as far as Mumbai. The next frontier is the US: the opening of San Francisco is scheduled for December, followed in January–February by Tokyo, a market considered strategic given the founder’s social media following (over one million followers on Instagram and YouTube). The stated goal for 2027 is New Delhi and Macao, with a strategy that prioritises a gradual approach: staff training in Naples prior to each opening, to ensure the product maintains its high standards. In Italia, meanwhile, three further openings are planned in the north by December.
Despite its rapid expansion, however, the management model remains the same, namely a ‘semi-direct management model, excluding pure franchising, which is incompatible – according to Capuano – with the artisanal nature of the product’. The approach to staffing is also consistent with this philosophy: each outlet employs on average between 15 and 20 staff, including pizza chefs, bakers and staff responsible for the final preparation of the product before it leaves the kitchen – a stage that the company considers increasingly central to the definition of ‘contemporary pizza’.
