There are four states of matter: gas, liquid, solid and stracciatella.

I refer not to stracciatella the chocolate-speckled gelato variety, though that too can melt into a border region distinct from the liquid and solid states, but stracciatella the cheese.

Stracciatella (stra-cha-TELL-a ) means “torn apart” in Italian. As cheese it refers either to thin strands of mozzarella soaked in fresh cream or, just as accurately, fresh cream thickened with thin strands of mozzarella. It’s the milky, creamy, dangerously oozy filling found beneath an outer shell of mozzarella in burrata, a product of the Puglia region of Italy you now find on menus throughout London. Stracciatella is burrata without protection, without constraints.

Few foods elicit desire like stracciatella: Once you’ve had it you want more of it, if only to be sure it was as good as you remembered. I first encountered stracciatella last November in a Mediterranean salad at Gjelina in Venice, California. In New York it was served to me over toast with borlotti beans, roasted treviso and rosemary oil at The Spotted Pig and atop a pizza (photo top of page) at Co..

Co. wisely placed the stracciatella atop the pizza after it had been baked. Subject stracciatella to the intense heat of a wood-fired oven and in a matter of seconds it will run off the pizza and flow westward and into the Hudson River.

In London I found stracciatella quite by accident at Apero, as did Chris Golding, the chef who introduced it on the Ampersand Hotel restaurant’s menu. His supplier could not fulfil his usual order for burrata and offered Pugliese stracciatella as a substitution. Golding accepted and took to it, as will most when presented with a softer-than-soft cheese that spills sweet cream when you do nothing more than wink at it.

Stracciatella is now a menu fixture at Apero, with Golding changing how it’s outfitted clothes according to season. He’s paired it with beetroot and, most recently, with flat peaches and basil. This Sunday and Monday, at #LondonBurgerBash, he’ll lay it atop a cooked burger patty, under a poppy seed beetroot bun. The UnBEETable Burger will also have a reprise at the BurgerMonday dinner for 20 on August 12th.

 

 

Golding wisely leaves the stracciatella to melt atop The UnBEETable burger patty away from the heat, after it’s been grilled. Subject this cheese to the sizzle of a burger griddle and it will run off the beef and move westward faster than the Heathrow Express.