SPEND a few minutes in conversation with Max Proner, executive chef at Pastalicious, and one thing quickly becomes clear: He is very passionate about making pizza and is not satisfied until every creation meets his exacting standards.

Proner is adamant that cooking is not simply about putting ingredients together and serving a tasty meal; it is about achieving perfection, consistently, so that customers can return time and again and enjoy the same exceptional experience.

Born in Italy to a Jamaican mother and Italian father, Proner said he grew up immersed in a family tradition spanning five generations in the hotel and restaurant business.

Having spent the first 26 years of his life in Italy, he eventually made Jamaica his permanent home in 2013, following several years of travelling back and forth while dealing with immigration documentation.

More than a decade later his affection for the island remains strong, as does his determination to use his culinary experience to create something distinctive for the Jamaican palate.

“I love Jamaica,” he declared in a recent interview with the Jamaica Observer.

“When I came here I tried to do some different doughs for the pizza, and it worked out very good — I mean, like I didn’t have to struggle much to find a good balance,” he added, his accent a thick mixture of both cultures.

Proner said initially he worked on private culinary projects in Portland before joining the team at Devon House where he spent 10 years developing his understanding of Jamaican tastes, ingredients, and approaches to food.

That experience proved invaluable as he sought to adapt his specialisation in pizza-making to local preferences.

He said that in Italy a standard pizza is generally about 12 inches in diameter, intended for one person, with a thin crust and a combination of three or four ingredients.

However, Jamaicans, he said, tend to favour more generous toppings and bolder combinations, sometimes using four ingredients as a starting point.

Rather than insist on traditional Italian conventions, Proner explained that he set about finding the right balance for the local market, developing a light, thin-crust pizza dough capable of supporting an abundance of toppings without leaving customers feeling weighed down.

“Actually, this is what I ever aimed [for] with pizza and cuisine in Jamaica — the perfection; go down to perfection,” he said.

It is the standard he continually strives to achieve, and one he is determined to instil in the people working alongside him at Pastalicious, the new establishment located next door to Susie’s Café in Shoppes at Southdale plaza, St Andrew.

For Proner, success is not about producing an impressive dish once or twice, it is about consistency — creating a signature product that customers can identify with a particular chef and trust to be excellent every time.

His ambition extends beyond his own performance in the kitchen as he is actively sharing his knowledge and experience with the restaurant’s team, including supervisor Lamar Williams whom he wants to develop into a chef capable of producing consistently outstanding dishes in his own right.

Williams, who has spent about four years in the food and beverage industry so far, is embracing that opportunity as he begins a new chapter in his culinary career.

His experience has taken him through Chilitos, where he encountered the fusion of Jamaican and Mexican cuisine, and Chives, which exposed him to international dishes and Asian flavours.

He subsequently joined Susie’s Café where he worked with Jamaican dishes and familiar diner-style breakfast offerings.

Moving to Pastalicious, therefore, represents a significant shift from the cuisine he had become accustomed to at Susie’s.

Williams told the Sunday Observer that his decision to switch to Pastalicious was driven by more than the prospect of learning a different culinary tradition. He was attracted by the vision of Ray Hanna, the driving force behind the new venture, and wanted to be part of bringing that vision to life.

“He’s usually a no-nonsense man, and since the project started he’s been really happy,” Williams shared.

Pastalicious, which was officially opened on June 13, extends the work of Susie’s Café, owned and operated by Hanna’s wife, Susan, and builds on the established business’ more than 30-year history of serving Jamaicans and visitors.

Proner believes that the real measure of success at Pastalicious will be whether the knowledge and experience he is sharing take root and translate into consistent quality long after the excitement surrounding the opening has subsided.

“We’re trying to go that way…to cook with a good balance — the technique and the way we propose the food — which is the Jamaican way, which is in-between taste, time, technique — put them together,” Proner explained.

“In order to be able to cook you need to have presence, knowledge; you need to be skilled, dynamic. And you know, to the customer, this is what we do. It’s not a closed kitchen…there’s an element of perfection, a hip hop in the way how we approach it; it’s not just the food and the taste which is the main thing, it’s the execution from zero to 10,” he said.