L' Antica Pizzeria da Michele in Naples, Italy.
I said a while ago that I will be doing my reviews of various pizza places around the world and decided to start with arguably the most famous pizza restaurant of them all – L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele in Naples, Italy.
I had the privilege to spend 10 days in lovely Naples doing my pizza course at the famous Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana as per my first introduction.
The obvious thing to do during my free time, was to visit as many pizza restaurants as I possibly could. I tried to eat a normal Margarita pizza wherever I went to compare the same pizza at all the establishments.
I have read and seen a lot of reviews about L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele and sure enough it did not disappoint in many ways.
Now, it has got the reputation of being the best in the world…
So was it that good or could it be partly due to the movie that basically made it famous – Eat, Love, Pray starring Julia Roberts. There are lots of references and articles about it on all the walls so you can’t escape the hype. I actually got the seat in the same spot as she did in the movie and that was just a coincidence.
But, is the pizza really that good…
I am going to start by saying that although the pizza is good, I am not so sure that it is the best the pizza in the world. Making the best pizza in the world is extremely difficult in my view **. Although one might think that it is very easy, it is actually very difficult.
The problem for this restaurant in my view – is that they are very popular and get extremely busy. We got there on a Saturday afternoon at 15H00 and got ticket number 46. We waited for an hour. I believe it is actually part of the eating pizza experience there to say that you waited in the famous line and get a ticket? Once we got in it was very basic and service was quick. You will find basically two things on the menu (varied ). Pizza Margarita (with cheese) and Pizza Marinara (without cheese) and cost between 4-6 Euro’s. It is very good value for money indeed. The pizza is about 14 inches, so quite big. You can get the Buffala, Fior di Latte (Cheese) or without mozzarella (only garlic and oregano).
Our pizza was very good. The taste was really good so the ingredients worked. Nice sauce and did go well with the cheese. Even the Marinara was very good and well balance of flavours (garlic, oregano and oil). The taste came together in your mouth for sure. The pizza was soft and chewy as it should be. It passed the fold test for sure **. The pizza crust was good but that was my only problem with this pizza. I thought it could be better.
The dough tasted good but the “cornicione” or edge was slightly flat and not crunchy at all. It should have a slight crunch and bounce back if you press it with your finger. I think that the oven temperature was off due to the volume of people served at the time **. I think if you go at a quieter time you will get a better pizza altogether. Therein lies the problem with these pizza reviews - you can come at a different time and the pizza will probably be totally different. The staff were super friendly and the place was buzzing.
Would I recommend this place – yes for sure. I would definitely recommend anyone to go and eat a pizza there.
Let’s Rate the Pizza then:
Type of Oven – Wood Fired
Taste – 9.8/10
Ambiance – 9.8/10
Quality of pizza – 9.4/10
Overall Score – 9.6/10
Note when you see - ** – please refer to my notes in another post!
