Looking for pizza in Naples

Naples is a city that doesn’t give a damn what you think. It’s chaotic, gritty and full of garbage. The kind of place where chaos isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

The streets are cracked. The air smells like a mix of overripe tomatoes, sea salt and Vespa exhaust fumes. The locals park on sidewalks like it’s a competition.

Adding insult to injury, the city has been forever located in the shadow of Vesuvius. Perhaps the inhabitants of the area have learned to embrace life and death on a daily basis, as you never know what tomorrow will bring. So who cares about parking tickets in the pale face of death by volcano?

Street in Naples.

For some strange reason, all of this has led to culinary salvation. The Neapolitan cuisine is heavily influenced by its surroundings. The fertile volcanic soil from Vesuvius produces San Marzano tomatoes and the buffaloes roaming sun-soaked hills gives milk for amazing mozzarella. What to do with these simple yet tasty ingredients? Enter Neapolitan pizza.

Thin. Charred. Slightly soupy in the middle. Baked to perfection in a blistering wood-fired oven. Anything else than a plain Margherita is considered an abomination. Just don’t ask for pineapple or they will kill you.

The queue at Sorbillo. (Update: This place was bombed on January 15th, less than a month after my visit.)

The art of creating these dough circles is heavily regulated by the rules from 2004, and even included on the UNESCO list of culture heritage. Flour, tomato, mozzarella, basil. A dance of dough and fire. Keep it simple, stupid.

The first ever Margherita is said to have been served at Brandi, Julia Roberts had pizza at Da Michele in Eat Pray Love and Anthony Bourdain praised Pellone in 2011.

The queue at Da Michele.

Be aware that these places are very busy, so the queues are simply murderous. Get a reservation in advance, or be prepared to wait a very long time in the street.

The queue at Pellone.

Fortunately you can walk down any alley in Naples and find a pizza that would put your hometown’s best slice to shame. Dodge the heat-seeking Vespas and follow your nose. Somewhere in that smoky haze, under flickering lights and peeling wall color, you’ll find what you didn’t know you were hungry for. “Pizza makes me think that anything is possible”, as Henry Rollins once put it.