Pizza in Naples: what it is, what to order, what to avoid

Overview

Naples did not popularise pizza; it made it, as cheap food for people who ate standing up. That origin is still legible in the thing itself. Neapolitan pizza is soft rather than crisp, blistered and slightly wet at the centre, with a puffed rim — the cornicione — and it spends only sixty to ninety seconds in a wood oven. That is why it arrives the way it does: too little time to dry out, which is a feature and not a fault. If it comes rigid enough to hold flat by one edge, it is a good pizza from somewhere else.

It is also a small pizza by international standards, served whole, one per person, and eaten with a knife and fork or folded — never shared, never sliced into a communal wheel.

The most repeated story about it is probably untrue. The margherita is said to have been made in 1889 for Queen Margherita of Savoy by the pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito, its tomato, mozzarella and basil matching the colours of the new national flag. Historians have been picking at that account for decades and the document underpinning it is widely regarded as unreliable. It is worth knowing as folklore, and worth not repeating as fact.

What is documented is more useful. In 2010 the European Union gave Pizza Napoletana a traditional-speciality designation, which fixes the dough, the ingredients and the baking — the definition of the thing, not a list of addresses. That distinction is the single most useful idea for a visitor: there is no official ranking of pizza in this city, and the places that meet the definition number in the hundreds.

What to order

Two things account for most of what a Neapolitan actually eats, and both are near the top of every list.

The margherita is tomato, mozzarella, basil and oil. The marinara has no cheese at all — tomato, garlic, oregano, oil — and, despite what the name suggests in English, no seafood of any kind. It was the sailor’s pizza because it kept, not because it came from the sea. It is usually the cheapest thing on the menu and ordering one is the closest thing to a local handshake.

Beyond those two, the words worth knowing:

• a portafoglio — “wallet-style”: a whole pizza folded twice into quarters and handed over in paper, made to order and eaten walking. This is the street version, and it is the correct one.
• pizza fritta — fried rather than baked, folded and filled, usually with ricotta, provola and pork. It predates the baked pizza as street food and is still one of the cheapest full meals in the city.
• ripieno — the same thing baked: a closed, filled pizza. A ripieno al forno is the oven version, a pizza fritta the fried one; they are not interchangeable words.
• cosacca — tomato, hard cheese, no mozzarella. Older than the margherita and still made in the traditional places.
• montanara — a small disc fried first, then finished in the oven or simply topped. Often served as a starter before the pizza proper.

Two orders that will mark you out, harmlessly: pineapple, obviously, but also asking for it ben cotta — well done. It is a legitimate request and it is made by visitors who expect crispness. If softness is not what you want, that phrase is how to get something closer to it, and nobody will mind.

What to avoid

Almost none of this is about spotting a bad kitchen. It is about spotting a place set up for people who will not come back.

Someone standing outside inviting you in is the single strongest warning. Photographs of the food, on the menu or on a board by the door, are the second. A card in four languages, a menu running to dozens of pizzas with English names, or a fixed-price “tourist menu” with a drink included, all say the same thing about who the room is for.

Pizza by the slice from a heated display is not a Neapolitan form. It exists here almost exclusively for passing trade. The walking version is the portafoglio, made when you order it.

Be careful with a queue as evidence. Neapolitans do queue, and a line of locals at nine in the evening is real information. But at least one famous doorway in the historic centre has had a queue for over a decade partly because a Hollywood film was shot there, and that wait says more about the film than about the oven. The test is who is standing in it.

Finally, AVPN on a window is real and limited. The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana certifies method — dough, ingredients, oven, timing — and publishes its member list. It tells you the place makes the thing properly. It does not tell you the place makes it well, and many excellent pizzerias have simply never applied.

Practicalities

A margherita in an ordinary neighbourhood pizzeria costs roughly €5 to €8; a marinara is usually a euro or two less. At the contemporary end — longer-fermented doughs, table service, a wine list — you can pay double or more, and that is a parallel tradition rather than a better one. If you are being asked for well above that range in the historic centre, you are paying for the doorway.

Many places add a small per-person coperto, typically €1 to €2. It is not a tip and not a scam; it is normal, and it should be printed on the menu. Service is not expected on top, and rounding up is plenty.

Dinner runs late, from around eight, with the busiest hour closer to half past nine. Lunch is markedly quieter and the ovens are the same, which makes it the easiest way to eat well without waiting. Many of the best-known places take no reservations and work from a written list at the door, so arriving at opening or after ten is the difference between ten minutes and an hour.

Carry some cash. Cards are widely accepted, but the smallest places are the likeliest exceptions and the fried-pizza hatches are cash only.

And eat it while it is too hot to be sensible. A Neapolitan pizza is at its best in the first three minutes and is a different, sadder object by the tenth.