How Much Pizza Is Too Much Pizza?
Searching for the best pizzeria in Italy
My partner is full of great ideas, and that might have been sarcastic. When we last visited my parents in Rome during the holidays, he decided to lead us on a pizza tour, whose main goal was to corroborate if the number one pizza in the world was in fact the number one pizza in the world.
As any normal person would do, he packed three different pizzerias on the same day. The plan was to drive two hours from Rome to Caserta, hit the first pizzeria for an early lunch at noon, then have the second pizza for a late lunch at 2:30 pm, walk around a bit, and go to the final restaurant for an early dinner at 7 pm. After that, we would have to drive back to Rome.
Who could possibly handle three pizzas in a day, I wondered. Could we?
His thorough research showed that for many years the Pizzeria Masanielli in Caserta (a couple of hours drive from Naples) was tied for number 1 as the best pizza in the world, together with this one spot in New York City (more on that later). However, my partner discovered that the owner’s son branched out and opened his own pizza restaurant, I Masanielli di Sasà Martucci. Could the disciple have surpassed the master? We simply had to know.
And the third spot? Well, that one was added simply because while going through the reviews for the best pizza in the world, my partner found this one guy who recommended another place to be vastly superior. And that is how Pepe in Grani, in Cajazzo (30 min drive from Caserta) was awarded its own stop in our vastly ambitious tour.
And there was science to it too! Obviously, a Margherita would need to be ordered in every location. Otherwise, how do you ensure a fair comparison? The second pizza could be of any other type, better if a “gourmet” pizza. The one you see in the picture above is called “The Five Textures of the Onion”, from the number one restaurant, Pizzeria Masanielli. Everything you see there is onion, creamed, fermented, crunchy, burnt, reduced to mayonnaise, you name it. But you would be surprised, it tasted way less like onion than expected!
It was delicious, but was it the best? My partner wasn’t convinced. More data was needed.
We hit the second spot. I Masanielli di Sasà Martucci. The son’s restaurant.
Besides the traditional Margherita, we opted for an Eggplant Parmigiana, my all-time favorite (those crunchy bits you see sticking out in the picture above are Parmigiano).
At the end of the meal, when we still had half a pizza left on each plate, the waiter approached us visibly concerned.
«You did not like it?», he asked us as if it was the first time such a possibility had crossed his mind.
«Not at all! It’s only that it is the third and fourth pizzas we eat in less than two hours».
That’s when my partner decided to come clean and explain his plan, sparking the laughter and approval nods of the table next to us.
Apparently, ours was quite a feat!
(Pizza interlude)
With a few hours to kill and a stomach full of pizza to digest, I dragged my partner to see the Royal Palace of Caserta, a gorgeous building built in the 18th century by the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies as the residence of the kings of Naples. If that wasn’t enough, it is also the largest royal residence in the world, allowing us plenty of ground to walk off our absurd lunch.
Built in a Baroque style, the internal decorations are full of gold and brass. References to Roman gods, myths, and legends are found in the ceilings, statues, and paintings, as it was common practice to claim old glories for one’s own. Having reached almost the end of the day on a Thursday, we were happy to find it almost empty, making for a pleasant walk.
It was the theatre though that I truly fell in love with. If you are ever visiting the Royal Palace of Caserta, don’t forget to check it out! A bit to the side, you would need to go there on purpose and you won’t regret it.
Everything you see looking like marble is actually wood! And all the decorations, from the statue on the right to the blue drape on the left, are made of paper. Isn’t that incredible? And another fan fact, Tom Cruise paid for the renovation work in the theatre when he was filming some movie (a Mission Impossible, possibly?) on these grounds.
Alright, back to the pizza.
We made our way to the third and final spot for the day. We got back in the car and drove 30 minutes to this tiny town close to Caserta, called Cajazzo, where Pepe in Grani is located. We ordered a Margherita (obviously) and some fancy version of a Marinara, that you see pictured below. Not only because by then we were so immensely full that we wanted the lightest pizza we could possibly find, one without even mozzarella.
So what was the verdict, you ask? According to my partner, and rated per Margheritas, the son’s pizzeria came first, followed by the OG father’s pizzeria, and bronze medal to the late addition in Cajazzo.
(I found them all delicious so I couldn’t help build the ranking).
However, and here is the scandalous opinion, he still felt that Una Pizza Napoletana in New York was better than them all! This spot is quite interesting, to say the least. It is open only three days a week for dinner. It is virtually impossible to get a reservation and you would need to queue at 4 pm to enter on a first come first served basis. They only allow one pizza per customer, because they only make a set amount of dough for the day. When that is gone, that’s it. I honestly don’t understand their business model, and yet they are still open and going strong. Must be the fifteen-dollar difference in price with the Margheritas in Italy, who knows…
Pizza tour successfully completed, we braced the two-hour drive back to Rome with a belly full of pizza and a car full of leftover cartons. Here is where our study ended and where I apologize for making anybody hungry!
(Just a final note to say that this was a study of “Napolean” style pizzas, I expect that there will be one of “Roman” style pizzas in my future. That believe me are quite different!)