The lump of dough is the size of a bowling ball and almost as heavy: working
it requires real physical effort. Over and over again the pizzaiuolo heaves
it onto the marble counter, forcing air into the mixture. Then he takes a
chunk the size of an orange, flattens it with a push of his fist, and twirls
it on his fingers until, magically, it seems to open up like a cowboy’s
lasso into a shimmering, spinning saucer a few millimetres thick, hovering
over his hand. This is la gestualita, “the movement”, as important a part of
making a genuine pizza as choosing the right ingredients — which only ever
consist of San Marzano tomatoes, oil and oregano; or, if you are making a
margherita instead of the more traditional marinara, mozzarella and a few
torn basil leaves.
Once the toppings are in place, the pizzaiuolo takes a long paddle, not unlike
a lollipop-lady’s sign, and slides the pizza into the glowing mouth of a
wood-burning oven. Three minutes later, it’s done; the toppings still
liquid, the crust light and airy, the base mottled with ash from the burning
logs.
“I will admit,” my 16-year-old son says a little later, as he pauses for
breath, “this is better than Domino’s.”
I have come to Naples for two reasons. The first is easily accomplished: I
want to show Tom what a real pizza tastes like. Naples, I have told him, is
where fast food was invented: as well as pizza, we will eat taralli, fried
doughnuts studded with nuts, and sfogliatelle, pastries filled with cream,
which, improbably, the Neapolitans devour for breakfast. In a city that
lives on the streets — noisy, frenetic, flamboyant — they have elevated
street food to the level of high cuisine. Yet every business, I promise him,
is unique, a family establishment where quality is all and the whole concept
of food-as-corporate-product anathema.
Tom can’t quite get his head round the idea of a successful food business that
doesn’t want to take over the world. As we drive out of the airport, he
points triumphantly to a McDonald’s.
“But there’s nobody in it,” I say, even more triumphantly. At that moment, a
moped passes us. On the pillion, a young woman sits facing backwards. She
has removed her helmet, if indeed she ever had one, the better to attend to
the mobile telephone in her right hand and the pizza folded a fazzoletto —
like a handkerchief — in her left. The young man driving her swerves round
our taxi, prompting an operatic exchange of insults, during which our driver
takes both hands off the wheel and steers with his knees in order to make
his point more forcefully. The young woman, of course, takes no notice
whatsoever. Later, the same taxi driver will cheerfully try to charge us
double what’s on the meter — “It’s not working properly, and anyway there’s
a supplement when the traffic is heavy” — and, by way of compensation, write
us a list of what he considers to be the best pizza establishments in town.
(For the record, he favours Cafasso, in Via Giulio Cesare, thus marking
himself out as something of a purist. Tom and I preferred Marino, in Via
Santa Lucia, and Mattozzi, in Piazza Carita, both of which are members of
Vera Pizza Napoletana, the organisation set up to protect the provenance of
the pizza.)
My second reason for coming to Naples is more complicated. I was last here two
years ago, with Niall Downing, the director of The Naked Chef, and Jamie
Oliver. I had just published a novel set among the backstreet restaurants of
Rome, and I was keen to find another subject that also dealt with the
relationship between food and love. During my visit, I happened to read
Naples ’44, Norman Lewis’s memoir of the allied occupation, and an idea was
born.
The Naples Lewis describes centres on Zi’ Teresa’s, a black-market dive near
the bombed-out harbour, where dapper mafiosi entertained American staff
officers, and soldiers on leave danced with their girls. All restaurants
were meant to be closed and food rationed, but Zi’ Teresa’s somehow got
round the restrictions. As an NCO in the Field Security Service, Lewis was
nominally responsible for preventing this sort of thing, but in fact he was
kept busy trying to prevent British soldiers from marrying their beautiful
Italian girlfriends.
I had wondered what might happen if these two worlds collided — if, say, a
young British officer doing Lewis’s job had himself fallen in love with a
young Italian cook — and the wondering gradually took on the shape of a
novel.
First stop, therefore, is Zi’ Teresa’s itself. To a British way of thinking,
it may seem remarkable that a restaurant famous during the war should still
be going strong, but that’s to misunderstand the Neapolitans’ deep sense of
tradition and continuity when it comes to culinary matters. Zi’ Teresa’s is
a big, brightly lit room, with tables seating up to 30 people, which in
Naples constitutes a relatively small family outing. The waiters — some of
whom Lewis would probably have recognised — serve classics that Lewis would
certainly have been familiar with: spaghetti alle vongole, seafood pasta
slippery with fishy juices; pesce spada, swordfish; tonno, pan-fried tuna.
It’s typical of half-a-dozen big places clustered round the Borgo Marino,
although the bombed-out warships Lewis describes have now been replaced by
yachts.
The next day, we head out to Vesuvius. This was also an important part of
Lewis’s story — the last time it erupted was in 1944, when allied soldiers
gave up their leave to help evacuate the locals — but it’s long been central
to Neapolitan gastronomy too: it’s the volcanic potash in the soil that
makes simple ingredients grown here so special. Some of the best Vesuvian
restaurants are in the modern part of Pompeii. In fact, you can easily slip
out of the excavations by the back entrance and enjoy a leisurely lunch
before resuming your sightseeing. Il Principe and Il Presidente are two of
the more famous establishments, the former previously the holder of a
Michelin star, but we opted for the more homely Zi’ Caterina. From the
outside, to my son’s amazement, it might have been a fast-food joint,
complete with a counter for takeaways. Only when you step inside do you
discover the chiller cabinet of fresh fish, the pizza oven and, once again,
the huge tables seating contented Italian families.
This happy juxtaposition of excellence and informality, of a long tradition
lightly worn, was something we encountered again and again in Naples. Take a
stroll down the Via Pignasecca. This street, one of the most vibrant food
markets in Italy, is also a hotbed of wheeler-dealing. Would-be Pavarottis
sing out the qualities of their wares; prices plummet the further away you
walk, and any refusal to taste the goods on offer will provoke the vendors
into an early grave. Halfway down the street, at Tripperia Fiorenzano, there
is a shop selling nothing but tripe, the display of cows’ innards watered by
a sprinkler system to keep it fresh. There are even a few tables in the back
where you can sample the goods, cooked by the owner with a little
calf’s-head broth for flavour.
If you don’t feel like making tripe your whole meal, continue down the hill to
the Piazza Carita and Mattozzi’s. The first thing you notice on entering is
the vast, beehive-shaped wood oven, a miniature Vesuvius before which the
pizzaiuolo stands on a raised plinth, the better to demonstrate his skills.
Here you can eat a wonderful, dripping mozzarella di bufala or an equally
fresh fish from the bay, expertly roasted. Then you decamp to the Gelateria
della Scimmia next door, where the seasonal flavours include blood-orange
sorbet, and the specialities boast a banana dipped in molten chocolate.
I wondered if there was such a thing as a modern, foodie restaurant in Naples.
We did find a couple, such as the tiny Coco Loco, but the gulf between it
and Mattozzi was not so very large — more to do with the prettiness of the
surroundings than any great leap in quality.
And it is this, perhaps, which is the most defining characteristic of
Neapolitan food: its consistency. The guidebooks might steer you towards one
pizzeria rather than another, but the truth is that wherever you go here,
you will eat pretty much the same dishes, prepared with the same love and
passion. They simply care too much to let the quality slip, and with a past
like theirs, who needs innovation? It’s as if every single restaurant,
gelateria or street stall is part of the same all-pervading culture.
Strangely enough, it’s the same philosophy that McDonald’s and Domino’s
aspire to: the difference is that here, it works.
Anthony Capella travelled as a guest of Italian Expressions (020 7433
2675, www.expressionsholidays.co.uk), which has three-night breaks
at the Grand Hotel Parker’s from £450pp, B&B, with flights.
His latest book, The Wedding Officer, is published by Time Warner Books,
priced £12.99. To order a copy for £11.69, including p&p in
the UK, call The Sunday Times Books First on 0870 165 8585
THE RESTAURANTS
Zi’ Teresa (Borgo Marinaro 1, 00 39-081 764 2565,
www.ziteresa.com): about £50 for two, without wine
Zi’ Caterina (Via Roma 20, Pompeii, 081 850 7447,
www.zicaterinapompei.it): about £28 for two, without wine Tripperia
Fiorenzano (Via Pignaseca 14, Naples): a dish of tripe is £3
Gelateria della Scimmia (Piazza Carita 4, 081 552 0272)
Ristorante Mattozzi (Piazza Carita 2, 081 552 4322): about £28 for two,
without wine
Coco Loco (Piazza Giulio Rodino 31; 081 415482): about £63
for two, without wine
WHERE TO STAY
The Grand Hotel Parker’s (081 761 2474, www.grandhotelparkers.it) has elegant
public spaces, an antique library and a rooftop restaurant; doubles from
£153. Or try Il Convento (081 403977, www.hotelilconvento.com), occupying a
16th-century former convent, with doubles from £60.
GETTING THERE
Naples is served by British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com) from Gatwick;
BMI (0870 607 0555, www.flybmi.com) from Heathrow; EasyJet (www.easyjet.com)
from Stansted; and Aer Lingus (0818 365000, www.aerlingus.com) from Dublin.
