Dining in Naples

The food of Naples: Neapolitan specialties, pizza, and some favorite restaurants

For more info:
www.inaples.it

ReidsItaly.com Naples Map
View Larger Map



TOURS FROM TRUSTED PARTNERS

Intrepid Travel

G Adventures Travel

iExplore
Naples guide
Intro
See
Stay
Eat
Planning FAQ

Naples restaurants specialize in spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with the tiny local clams called vongole verace) and heaping platters of frutti di mare ("fruits of the sea," a combo of crustaceans, shellfish, bivalves, calamari (octopus), squid—basically, any seafood that's not actually a fish), usually served either fritto (fried) or al vivo (live; ugh—also, risky, given the food-borne illnesses you can get from raw seafood).

But Naples' biggest claim to culinary fame is, of course, the pizza.

Pizza in Naples

Pizza misconception
That's not mozzarella melted on top of your pizza—at least it shouldn't be. It's fior di latte—very similar to mozzarella, but made with cow's milk (rather than mozzarella's buffalo milk) and a bit tougher. Delicate mozzarella doesn't hold up well to heat and doesn't melt properly, so it is not usually used on pizzas—unless it it added after cooking, along with fresh tomatoes. Most waiters and menus have given up on teaching foreigners this distinction, however, and just call it "mozzarella" for simplicity's sake.Naples is most famous for being the place that invented pizza.

This might not actually be true (like most items of divine inspiration, the origins of pizza are lost to the mists of time and conjectures of historians)—however, I wouldn't go around Naples saying that.

At any rate, Naples certainly did perfect the pizza.

The city has a bit stronger claim to having come up with the simple combination of toppings that we would eventually become what we call a "plain pizza."

In 1889, in honor of a visit by the queen of the newly-created country called "Italy," a Neapolitan pizza chef at Pizzeria Brandi decided to honor her highness by creating a new pizza in the tricolor of the Italian flag: red tomato sauce, white mozzarella (er, see box on the right), and green basil leaves.

He called his wildly popular new concoction pizza Margherita, which is a pun in Italian, since that was both the Queen's name and the word for "daisy"—which the pizza, with its corona of yellow crust, vaguely resembles.

The best pizza in Naples

Picnic pickings
You can get all the picnic supplies you need in Naples at the string of little shops lining the first block of Salita S. Anna di Palazzo, off Via Chiaia.OK, calling this section "The best pizza in Naples" was just to get your attention. Everyone—certainly every Neapolitan—has their own favorite pizza parlor in Naples, and everyone has a famous one or two that they will dismiss as overrated.

In Naples, the subject of "best pizza" is hotly debated and intensely argued. It is a subject that has riven families and caused generation feuds across clans. There are camps and factions filled with fans who are as fiercely devoted to their favorite pizzeria as they are to their home soccer team.

Taste is, of course, relative, so this is merely a sampling of some of my own favorite pizzerie in Naples. (One of the best weeks ever in my job was the week I spent in Naples taste-testing the pizza at more than a dozen pizzerie as I researched a guidebook.)

My advice? Try these places. Ask around for other recommendations. Perform your own taste-test challenge and find your own favored pizzerie. Then tell me about and we can argue over whose is best—over a nice pizza dinner, of course.

** Pizzeria Brandi
** Pizzeria Port'Alba
* Pizzeria Trianon da Ciro

Other favorite restaurants in Naples

** Osteria al Canterbury
* Ristorante Umberto
Mimi all Ferrovia
Vini e Cucina

Tips

Related pages


   ShareThis

Intrepid Travel

Search ReidsItaly.com

This material was last updated March 2011. All information was accurate at the time.

about | contact | faq

» THE REIDSITALY.COM DIFFERENCE «

Copyright © 2008–2011 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.