by Marie-Luise Stromer

Created on: November 29, 2010

Whenever I read an enthusiastic review on a frozen pizza and how delicious it is, I’m overwhelmed with sympathy. “Poor sod,” is what I think, “if only they knew.” A pizza from the freezer of a supermarket can only be OK (Sorry, but I simply can’t use the term ‘delicious’) in comparison with other pizzas from the freezer of a supermarket but never with THE PIZZA as such. The Pizza with capital letters can only be found in Naples, Italy. There are several good pizzerias in this city, but the No 1 is indisputably the Antica Pizzeria Da Michele in Via Cesare Sersale 1. Once you’ve eaten there, all other pizzas fade into the B league or worse.

The pizzeria is easy to find. Coming out of the Central Train Station you go down the broad street Corso Umberto and turn right at the first traffic lights and walk up the street a bit. From the outside it’s so inconspicuous that you can overlook it easily if you go there at noon on a weekday. If you go there in the evening or any time during the weekend or, God forbid, at Saturday night, you’ll see people queuing outside. When the establishment is full, numbers are handed out to new customers who willingly wait for an hour or longer to get in.

What is it that makes this place so special? Not the outside, as I’ve already said, but not the inside, either! The first pizzaiolo (pizza baker) of the Condurro family started learning the trade in 1870, in 1906 a certain Michele Condurro opened the first pizzeria in Naples which had to move, though, because of construction work. In 1930 the pizzeria was transferred to the present site which over the years has acquired the nickname ‘The Sacred Temple of Pizza’. They have been making pizza there for five generations now.

The pizzeria still has its original tables, on the whole it’s very simple furniture-wise. The tables seat eight customers each, how many tables there are, I’ve forgotten to count, but not many, that much I remember. The walls are covered with white and black tiles creating the ambience of an old indoor swimming pool. The only ornaments on the walls are a religious statue and two long poems in Neapolitan dialect praising the two kinds of pizza on offer, Margarita and Marinara. Fans and lovers call the M and M pizzas ‘edible poems’!

The customers are seated wherever there’s room, if you’re alone or come with a partner, you’re sure to find yourselves

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