Naples Food Travel Guide

There is no city in the world that takes pizza more seriously than Naples — because Naples invented it. The Neapolitan pizza, certified by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, is a precise, passionate art form: a soft, blistered crust, San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, and a wood-fired oven that reaches 485°C. At the city’s legendary pizzerias — L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele, Sorbillo, Di Matteo — queues form hours before opening and the debate over the perfect margherita is never-ending. But Naples is far more than pizza. Its street food culture is among the richest in Italy: fried pizza folded and eaten walking, cuoppo of mixed fried seafood, sfogliatella pastries warm from the oven, and babà soaked in rum.

Naples sits on one of the most dramatically fertile stretches of Italian coastline, and its proximity to the sea and the volcanic soils of Campania gives its ingredients an unmatched intensity. The tomatoes grown in the shadow of Vesuvius — pomodorini del piennolo — are unlike any other in the world: sweet, acidic, and explosively flavoured. Fresh pasta with clams, grilled octopus, pasta e fagioli made with local dried beans — Neapolitan cooking is bold, honest, and utterly unforgettable. Washed down with a glass of local Falanghina or Aglianico, a meal in Naples is one of the defining experiences of food travel in Italy.