Pizza Napoletana

Near the western end of Via dei Tribunali, or Court Street, a stone block road that was once the central east-west thoroughfare of the ancient Greco-Roman city of Neapolis and is still a much-trafficked street in the centro storico of Naples, Italy, there is an arcade on Vico del Fico al Purgatorio, the Alley of the Fig Tree of Purgatory, where visitors swarm the bronze bust of the commedia dell'arte character Pulcinella, snapping selfies and rubbing his crooked nose for luck. Across the way are three pizzerias called Sorbillo. Each claims to date back to 1935.

The westernmost, Gino e Toto Sorbillo, is recognized by the Michelin Guide and has outposts as far as Miami and Tokyo. Once, Jeff Bezos posed for a photo with Antonio “Toto” Sorbillo while holding a pizza topped with strips of mozzarella that spelled out his last name in capital letters. In the middle is Zia Esterina Sorbillo Pizza Fritta, a takeout spot owned by the same descendents of Luigi Sorbillo and Carolina Esposito, whose 21 children all, at least allegedly, became pizza chefs. Is the easternmost, called Pizzeria Antonio Sorbillo, run by a cousin? If branding is any indication–its logo and colors are different and the location isn’t listed on the other Sorbillo website–its business is distinct.

Outside the first Sorbillo amid a March downpour, an indissoluble throng jostles to reach a woman with the clipboard that will decide their dining fate. Inside, I order an ‘nduja-topped pizza Marisa—perhaps named for one of the 21, sitting on the menu above Arnaldo and, of course, Antonio—and it’s superb. At the third Sorbillo, I have the capriccioso, and it’s excellent too. A neighborhood away, at L'antica Pizzeria da Michele, where Julia-Roberts-as-Elizabeth-Gilbert, in the 2010 film adaptation of Eat, Pray, Love, says “it is your moral imperative to eat and enjoy” the pizza, the marinara and Margherita are—well, take a guess.

I’m in Naples because a few weeks before, past midnight on a Wednesday at Sophie’s on 5th Street in Manhattan, an off-duty bartender named Frank held forth on the history of pizza oven temperatures in New York City and insisted that if I was going to write a piece about Neapolitan pizza, I had to go to Naples. We had discussed pizza ovens because for years, I’d puzzled over why, in the part of Brooklyn I’ve lived in for a decade, it’s become quite the task to find a solid slice of New York–style pizza, but if you want to sit down for a Neapolitan or (sorry) Neo-politan pie, you’ve got three very fine options in a one-mile radius.

Two decades have passed since Anthony Mangieri moved his Una Pizza Napoletana from the Jersey Shore to the East Village—it’s on the Lower East Side now, and more popular than ever—and three years fewer since Roberta’s opened its original storefront in East Williamsburg. Since then, a city once proud of its hometown pie to the point of pugnacity has cozied back up with the style that spawned it.

Here is a very condensed history of la pizza Napoletana. The Greeks probably brought an early ancestor of the pita to Neapolis. (Pita may provide the linguistic root of the word pizza.) The Roman legions that conquered Neapolis had already encountered matzah in Israel, which they possibly ate topped with oil and cheese from their rations. But “the idea that Neapolitan pizza is this ancient thing is kind of incorrect,” insists Ian MacAllen, author of Red Sauce. “In the 18th century, pizza Napoletana was actually an almond-flavored pastry.” And sauces made from the tomatoes plundered from Mexico by the Spanish who brought it to Italy were mostly used on meat throughout that same century, writes Massimo Montanari in his book A Short History of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce.

That changed in 19th-century Naples, when anchovies, basil, garlic, fresh mozzarella, and olive oil joined the tomato on top of what we now call Neapolitan pizza. Licensed merchants known as pizzaioli peddled their wares mostly to the lazzarone, the city’s poorest class, who ate it only on days they could not afford macaroni. (At Michele’s in Naples, the price of a Margherita is currently €5.50; at two of my three local Neapolitan joints, the same pie costs $20.00.) In 1889, chef Raffaele Esposito served three pizzas to Queen Margherita of Savoy and allegedly named her favorite, then called pizza alla mozzarella, after her. It was likely one of the first times anyone not from Campania thought much about the stuff.

Since then, standards for the production of Neapolitan pizza have been codified, especially after the founding, in 1984, of L'Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. (Remember Pulcinella? He graces its logo, pizza peel in hand.) The AVPN’s stated mission is “to promote and protect in Italy and worldwide the true Neapolitan pizza,” and its specifications for that product, stemming in part from regulations imposed on its member pizzerias, were officially adopted by the European Commission in 2010.

But when pizza first came to America, the pie changed. Italian immigrants in turn-of-the-century New York at, say, Lombardi’s or Totonno’s—both older than any of the Sorbillos, and still churning out pizza—didn’t have the same access to fresh ingredients as they did in Italy. Canned tomatoes and dehydrated mozzarella became standard, and oregano supplanted fresh basil. New York had no domed brick ovens heated by wood to 900º Fahrenheit, so its pizzaioli used larger, square bread ovens, whose coal fuel burned hotter. (Frank knows his stuff!) These baked much larger pies, which were proofed for shorter periods, more quickly and crisply.

When soldiers returning from Italy following World War II—one of whom, Ira Nevin, invented the now-ubiquitous gas-burning pizza oven called Bakers Pride—helped to popularize the dish outside of Italian American enclaves on the East Coast, the great American love affair with pizza began in earnest. But it was this transformed pie that first sparked the romance.

Yet pizzaioli in New York have returned with a passion to la pizza Napoletana, despite only two pizzerias here maintaining AVPN membership. And many New Yorkers are willing to pay $20 for this single serving pie—perfect at the crust, somewhat soggy in the center, and impossible to eat on the go—when two slices can cost as little as $2. Why?

MacAllen, while no hater of Neapolitan pizza, offers a skeptic’s view: “What had been the cheapest food in Naples is now one of the most expensive gourmet meals you can get.” Hard to replicate in home ovens—and becoming pricier to produce in the city, with skyrocketing rents and newly-enforced regulations on emissions from cookstoves—this 12” pie brings back more bang for the pizzaiolo’s buck. (Lucali’s extraordinary 20” New York–style pies, in comparison, cost $32.)

Pasquale Cozzolino, chef and owner of the stellar (and AVPN-certified) Ribalta near Union Square—and the author of The Pizza Diet, a book that makes a case for losing weight by eating a Neapolitan pie daily—thinks it’s all about the ingredients and method. (Ingredients that the Neapolitan native sources, of course, from Campania.) “I think it's very good, very romantic, to keep the quality,” he says. “It's fermented for more than 24 hours. The dough, when it ferments, breaks apart the gluten. It's way more digestible. The whole pie is around 560 to 600 calories.”

Mathieu Palombino, chef and owner of the equally stellar Neapolitan chain Motorino’s, suggests that it’s as much about the pizzeria as the pizza—that is, that a primary attraction of la pizza Napoletana is its dining experience. “If you say to your three friends, let's go and have some pizza tonight, drink some wine, eat some antipasti, then the Neapolitan-style pizzeria is your pizzeria. You're gonna sit down and you're gonna have your pie.”

Peppe Miele, who heads the American branch of the AVPN, puts it most succinctly. “Neapolitan pizza is the mother of pizza,” he insists. “You'll never kill your mother.”