On the Wednesday morning following PizzaTuesday Naples, my insider's tour of the pizza heartland, the group met with the great Franco Pepe on the sunny rooftop of Pepe in Grani, his pizzeria in the town of Caiazzo. Recalling the prior night's tasting of 10...
Naples
Why Pizza in Naples Has to be So Soft
Naples shared its love of pizza and dry pasta with the world many years ago but something got lost in translation. Rather than eat pasta al dente and pizza soft, in the Neapolitan way, foreigners learned to do the opposite. Non-Italians at last discovered the...
A Pox on the Pizza Polka Dots
Until this week I assumed the appearance of mozzarella polka dots on Neapolitan-style pizzas was an unintended consequence of using the wrong cheese or handling the right cheese improperly. But groundbreaking London pizza merchants like Franco Manca and Pizza...
Neapolitan Pizza Master Enzo Coccia Loves Stringy Fior di Latte
Neapolitans may sing the praises of Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP but mostly they eat fior di latte – mozzarella made from cow's milk – on their pizza. Any ambivalence about fior di latte , as opposed to buffalo mozzarella, might have something to do with...
Da Michele’s Master Pizzaiolo Shows His Age
The very first pizza of PizzaTuesday Naples, the young&foodish group tour of the world's pizza capital, was shaped by the hands of Luigi Condurro at the legendary L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele. The master pizzaiolo lightly pinched the corners of the uncooked pizza...
For 3 Franco Pepe Pizzas, A Special Delivery
Forget the great operatic tenors of La Scala. No voice in all of Italy is so lyrical as that of a Pepe in Grani waiter serving you a Franco Pepe pizza. At this incomparable pizzeria in a hilltop village some 30 miles (50km) north of Naples, every pizza made by Pepe,...
Pizza Fritta Ripieno: A Neapolitan Street Food Classic in the Making
The wall menu at the great Naples pizzeria-friggitoria Di Matteo saves the best for last: The 27th of 27 listed selections is pizza fritta ripieno, a Neapolitan street food classic. The puffy golden saucer of "stuffed fried pizza" is traditionally filled with...
8 Naples Pizzerias in 1 Day & 2 Minutes
On September 25th at 6:10am GMT I flew from London to Naples, Italy. On September 25th at 9pm CET I flew from Naples back to London. I spent the time between trying 16 Neapolitan pizza at eight of the world's greatest pizzerias in the space of 8 hours. To fully...
The Straight DOP on Mozzarella & Margherita
Order a Margherita at the best pizzerias of Naples and you typically get a pizza topped with fior di latte, a mozzarella made from cow's milk. Don't believe any Neapolitan who tells you the only mozzarella his brethren will tolerate on a pizza is from the milk of...
Now Playing in London’s West End: the Maserati of Espresso Machines & Stradivarius of Pizza Ovens
If real wizardry was what the people wanted, November's red carpets would have been diverted from the Harry Potter premiere at Odeon Leicester Square to a great new coffee shop on St Martin's Lane and a superb new pizzeria restaurant on Great Newport St. Notes Music...
Spaghetti with Red Sauce Goes Yellow
Just when it looked as though the Neapolitan me could live on spaghetti and red sauce the good folks at Sainbury's seduced me with a 33%-off promotion on tins (cans) of its Taste the Difference pomodori d'oro - plum tomatoes of the colour yellow. It's perhaps...
#PizzaTuesday celebrates a taste of Trianon at Santoré
The connection between the London restaurant/pizzeria Santoré and the legendary Naples pizzeria Trianon da Ciro is unsubstantiated and at best tenuous. The quality of the pizza, however, does not lie. Before Crossrail construction extinguished its brick oven and...
Joseph’s ladder & the vineyards of Aversa
The major work at the Beuys Is Here exhibition on view at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill until the 27th of September is Scala Napoletana ("Neapolitan Ladder"). The 1985 sculpture, completed by Joseph Beuys near the end of his life, was inspired by a ladder the...
Top 10 pizzas in London
[slider_pro id="19"] My top 10 pizzas in London list reflects a global renaissance in the appreciation of Neapolitan pizza. The difference this time is that the feeling is genuine. Naples shared its love for pizza and dry pasta with the world many years ago but...