What makes a great Pizza?

Years ago, I was at a Pizzaiolo training at the AVPN (Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the standardization body that protects the Neapolitan Pizza's authenticity) and the chef / my instructor for the day, answered a question on what defines a good pizza. If you see the AVPN rules for a Neapolitan Pizza, you'd think it'd have something to do with water content or the region from which the tomatoes come from, or the flour. But the chef's answer was extremely simple.

He said, that the best Pizza was one that was easy to digest (you shouldn't feel bloated after eating it, you shouldn't have to rely on a fizzy drink i.e. when it leaves a dry aftertaste) and that used simple but fresh ingredients; in other words a pizza that wasn't hiding its poor quality produce under multiple ingredients. Ofcourse, to make an easy to digest pizza you need a well fermented dough, you need it to have a minimum amount of hydration (65% by bakers fractions is usually the suggested hydration) and shouldn't over / under bake your pizza. To get fresh ingredients, well, you get fresh ingredients.

As simple as it sounds, the process is extremely challenging and one that is hard to perfect. By the said metric, I've had a good pizza in very few places, in fact some of the famous Pizzerias in Naples, fall flat in digestibility. My favourite places are 50 Kaló (Both the Naples, and London locations ), La Notizia 94 and Gino e toto Sorbillo (Naples).


50 Kaló: I admire their craft and hospitality. Their Marinara and Marinara Reinforzata are exceptional, the tomatoes are fresh and the flavours simple. This is the quintessential Neapolitan Pizza. Perfect representation of the flavours; and they scale very well! I had the opportunity to visit both their Naples and London outlets and both of them had no compromise on the taste!

La Notizia 94: When you bite into this Pizza you don't even realise it's vegan, it's so soft, and so full of flavour that you never realise that there's no cheese in it. The dough is perfectly fermented, the pizza is perfectly baked with the right amount of leopard spotting and the flavors are perfectly balanced.

Gino e Toto Sorbillo (via Del Tribunali, Naples): It's the classic ~100 year old pizzeria. Big lines, big brand name (and yes, the taste varies between outlets, their pizzeria in Milan was less than ideal); but the Pizza I had at their original location in Naples was fantastic. Another vegan pizza, and another Pizza where the quality of the dough and the freshness of the tomatoes was so impeccable, I barely thought about anything else.

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P.S. Fun Fact: The plural of Pizza is Pizze.