You have to be a little Neapolitan inside to fully understand the beauty of Michele's Pizza, the one always with a capital "P".
Simple, healthy and genuine. Without the pretense of either overdoing or being perfect. Handmade and cooked in a wood oven. Filled with first choice basic ingredients and not enriched with any other type of additions, which would alter its taste and origin.
That of Francesco Condurro (heir and grandson of Salvatore, founder of the most famous pizzeria today in the world) and his family, is a precise and unshakable choice. We do not intend to give in to innovation and industrialization of processes, nor do we want to change the way of working that has been handed down within the walls of via Cesare Sersale, in Forcella, since 1930 - even if the beginning of everything it even dates back to the 1870.
The characteristics of pizza
While out of Michele's Pizzeria every day hundreds of people they wait for hours to be able to taste this legendary pizza, inside it is not made any change to the processes of preparation or cooking.
The dough must have plenty of time to rest (the one prepared in the morning is used for the lunch service the next day and the one made in the evening for the dinner service the next day).
The pizza loaves are obtained from the dough by a machine (here there was a compromise with technology), which however simulates cutting them by hand.
The filling is fast (only fiordilatte, tomato and seed oil for the Margherita and even less products for the basic Marinara), as is the rapid cooking.
What the customer, after having waited a long time, finds himself in front is a pizza with an imprecise shape, with a speckled cornice that can appear almost burnt (with inexperienced eyes) and that smells of tomato.
No wonder some might initially be disappointed, because expectations for Michele's Pizzeria are very high indeed. The fact is that only after enjoying the first bites of the pizza anyone will change their mind in a flash, because the organoleptic properties of this "culinary masterpiece" will take it to seventh heaven.
The goodness of simplicity and the experience of tradition are the characteristics that are served every day by Michele, who does not hide his production behind magical recipes and mysterious ingredients. There is no trick. If not that of having decided to continue his father's work exactly in the humble and passionate way he had been taught.
A place that has become a myth
When we talk about Neapolitan pizza we cannot help but think of this pizzeria that has become by now an institution for the whole city and which is visited by tourists from all parts of the world.
But she remained there, in the same place where it was opened and has not changed the way of marketing her pizzas: proposals in only two versions (Margherita and Marinara), at low prices (4 euro for normal versions, something in more for the extra large), on convivial tables (because to reduce waiting times you are willing to eat at the table with strangersi), with the cutlery placed informally in the middle of the table (just like at home).
A light pizza but rich in taste, to be eaten as Neapolitans have always done: folded in 4 "a wallet" and then bitten when it is still hot, with fiordilatte (buffalo mozzarella is banned here) still stringy.
Salvatore was able to delight already at the beginning of the 1844 the Tsar Nicholas II on a mission to Naples, joining the ranks of court pizza chefs.
Anyone who wanders through the narrow streets of Naples can see that nothing seems to have changed since those years, especially in the Pizzeria da Michele. In a city that keeps customs and traditions alive, without being corrupted by progress and dirty with technology, the Pizzeria da Michele does more marketing than any other business thanks to a single and only investment: the passion that has no cost but produces more than any kind of advertising.
