Italian · Puglia

Pugliese Focaccia (Focaccia Barese)

Focaccia barese is Puglia's magnificent flatbread—a thick, golden, dimpled focaccia topped with halved cherry tomatoes, olives, and olive oil, with a crumb that is simultaneously airy and moist, a bottom crust that is gloriously crisp from the olive oil pooled in the pan, and a top that glistens with tomato juices and oil. This is not Genovese focaccia (which is thinner, softer, and topped only with oil and salt)—the Barese version is thicker, more robust, and emphatically topped, making it closer to a pizza-focaccia hybrid that functions as a complete snack or light meal. The dough uses durum wheat flour (semola di grano duro) blended with bread flour, which gives the crumb its characteristic golden colour and slightly nutty flavour—a Pugliese signature that distinguishes it from all other Italian focacce. The dough is high-hydration (70-75%), mixed with yeast, salt, and a generous pour of olive oil, given a long, slow rise, then stretched into a well-oiled round pan, dimpled vigorously with fingertips, and topped with halved pomodorini (cherry tomatoes, cut-side down), pitted olives, and more olive oil. A second, shorter rise allows the dough to puff around the toppings before baking at high heat (220-240°C) until the top is golden, the tomatoes are blistered, and the bottom is crisp and almost fried from the pool of oil in the pan. The bottom crust is the glory of focaccia barese—it should be deeply golden-brown, crisp, and almost cracker-like, achieved by the generous olive oil that essentially fries the base during baking. Focaccia barese is sold at every bakery (panificio) and street corner in Bari, consumed at all hours from breakfast to late-night snack.

ServesOne 30 cm round focaccia, serving four to six

Total3–4 hours (or overnight with cold fermentation)

Sourced1of 10 in BC

Cook

The Market List

The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.

For the dough

250 g

durum wheat flour (semola di grano duro)

finely milled

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

250 g

strong bread flour

Origin · CanadaNot yet stocked in British Columbia

350–375 ml

water

lukewarm, to achieve 70–75% hydration

Your own market

7 g

dried yeast

or 15 g fresh yeast

Your own market

10 g

fine salt

Your own market

30 ml

extra-virgin olive oil

added to the dough

Your own market

For the pan and top

60–75 ml

extra-virgin olive oil

divided: for the pan and for dressing the top

Your own market

For the topping

300 g

cherry tomatoes (pomodorini)

halved

Origin · ItalyBosa Foods · Vancouver →

80 g

pitted black olives

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

1 tsp

flaky sea salt

for finishing

Your own market

Each tap is counted, so the stockist sees the demand Provenance sends them.

The Method

Combine the semola and bread flour in a large bowl. Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and pour it into the flour, mixing until a shaggy dough forms. Add the salt and the 30 ml of olive oil. Work the dough with a wet hand or in a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook for 8–10 minutes. The dough is correct when it is cohesive, very wet, and pulls cleanly from the sides of the bowl — it will remain slack and sticky throughout; add no flour.

Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, approximately 2 hours — or, for deeper flavour and a more open crumb, transfer to the refrigerator and leave overnight, then bring to room temperature for 1 hour before proceeding.

Pour 45–60 ml of extra-virgin olive oil into a 30 cm round baking pan or heavy sheet pan. The oil must pool visibly and generously across the entire base. Tip the risen dough into the pan and, using oiled hands, press and stretch it to the edges. If it springs back, rest it for 10 minutes and continue. The dough is ready when it covers the base in an even layer.

This is where the focaccia lives or dies. Using all ten fingertips, dimple the dough deeply and vigorously across its entire surface — press firmly, almost to the base of the pan. The dimples must be pronounced; shallow impressions will close during the second rise and the characteristic pooled-oil texture will be lost. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the surface so that oil collects in every indentation.

Press the halved tomatoes cut-side down into the dimples, embedding them firmly so they do not lift during baking. Distribute the pitted olives across the surface. Scatter the flaky salt over all. Leave the topped dough to rise, uncovered, for 30–45 minutes, until the dough has visibly puffed around the toppings.

Heat the oven to 230°C (fan 210°C), placing a shelf in the lower third of the oven. Bake for 20–25 minutes. The focaccia is done when the top is deeply golden, the tomatoes are blistered and have released their juices into the dough, and — critically — the base is crisp and deeply golden-brown. To test, slide a palette knife or thin spatula under the edge: the focaccia should move freely in its pan, its bottom almost crackling against the metal from the oil that has fried it.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest in the pan for 5 minutes, then slide onto a wire rack or board. The underside should be a uniform deep amber. Serve warm or at room temperature.

III

Quality Hierarchy

Reserve — Cold-fermented overnight dough using stone-milled Pugliese semola rimacinata, estate-bottled Puglian extra-virgin olive oil (Coratina or Ogliarola cultivar), and small, intensely flavoured sun-ripened pomodorini del Vesuvio or Pugliese fiaschetto tomatoes.

Estate — Day-of dough with a commercial finely milled semola di grano duro, a quality single-origin extra-virgin olive oil, and ripe cherry tomatoes from a market stall; baked in a seasoned steel pan.

Market — Supermarket semola and bread flour in equal parts, a mid-grade extra-virgin olive oil applied with a generous hand, and cherry tomatoes from a standard punnet; serviceable and recognisable as focaccia barese.

House — All-bread-flour dough — possible at a pinch — but the characteristic golden crumb and nutty flavour of the semola are absent; the result is closer to a Genovese focaccia than a Barese one.

Sensory Tests

◇Touch. The dough remains slack and cohesive throughout mixing — sticky enough to cling to a wet hand but pulling cleanly from the bowl; if it is stiff, the hydration is too low.

◇Sight. After the first rise the dough has doubled and holds a domed, jiggly surface; after the second rise it has visibly puffed around the embedded tomatoes.

◇Touch. Dimples pressed firmly to near the base of the pan and filled with pooled oil — they must not spring closed immediately.

◇Sound. When a palette knife is slid under the edge after baking, the base crackling or scraping against the metal signals that the oil has crisped and almost fried the crust — the defining texture of focaccia barese.

◇Where it lives or dies. The focaccia lives or dies in the dimpling: press firmly and deeply with all ten fingertips, for it is the dimples that hold the pooled oil and create the characteristic moist interior against the fried, cracking base.

V · Cross-Cuisine Parallels

Genovese focaccia — the northern Italian relative: thinner, softer, topped only with olive oil and coarse salt, without the Barese tomato-and-olive crown or the semola crumb Sicilian sfincione — another thick, robustly topped southern Italian bread, with tomato, onion, and anchovy, sharing the pizza-focaccia register Turkish pide — a topped flatbread tradition in which shaped dough is loaded with savoury ingredients before a high-heat bake Lebanese manoushe — a topped flatbread, typically dressed before baking, consumed at all hours as a snack or light meal, paralleling the street-food role of focaccia barese in Bari

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What to Pour

The pairing

El Silencio Espadin Mezcal

El Silencio Mezcal · Oaxaca — Mezcal

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Agave spirit

From British Columbia

Fort Berens Riesling

Fort Berens Estate Winery · Lillooet

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Wine

Without alcohol

GT's Synergy Organic Kombucha — Gingerade

Not yet stocked in British Columbia

Non-alcoholic

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The whole pairing

VII · Origin & Lineage

Focaccia barese is native to Bari and the surrounding province in Puglia, the long heel of the Italian peninsula, where durum wheat has been cultivated since antiquity and the Adriatic olive groves produce oils of pronounced character. The use of semola di grano duro in bread dough is a defining Pugliese practice, traceable to the region's role as the granary of Roman Italy and sustained through centuries of peasant baking in which local grain was never substituted. Focaccia barese is documented by Carol Field in The Italian Baker and in the regional culinary record of the Touring Club Italiano's Puglia in Cucina as a bakery staple sold at every panificio in Bari, consumed from early morning through late night — a bread that belongs entirely to its city.

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Sourced through Provenance

The hands behind the plate.

Bosa Foods

Vancouver · cherry tomatoes (pomodorini)

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