Imperatore 1906 - Napoli, italy

Rating:  8 / 10

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard of the pizza-guru Antonio Fucito: "Tanzen Pizza" who basically travels Italy eating pizza and posting about it on social media. I reached out to him a month ago asking for some tips in Naples, and he was kind enough to reply.

​This places was one of his recommendations.

The interiors were rather flash, and crowded enough to make me feel paranoid since we're still living in a pandemic. I therefore opted to take-away since 20 meters away is a small square where I could eat it before it got cold.

Before heading outside to wait, I managed to ask if I could sneak a photo of the oven, which was granted. I then sat out in the blistering wind counting down the minutes to see how this pizza paired with the other top ones I'd tried so far.

With an eyeful of red, green and white I decided it only fair my mouth be the ultimate judge, and dove in. It took a couple of bites to figure out what was making me hesistant. It was the sauce.

Take nothing away, this is a great Margherita pizza, the dough is slightly heavier than some spots, but had good chew. It could easily have snuck into the top 5, but again, like Di Matteo, the sauce had a slightly piercing bitterness. I'm not sure if this is a seasonal concern, but they were definitely more sour than a lot of other pizzeria's I tried during the same month.

Thanks Mr Fucito, I'll be trying your other recommendations soon!

These recommendations are just personal opinions based on my palate, things change, chefs get fired or replaced, places open-close, relocate, so take it all with a pinch of MSG  and discover your own gems too. But please do try a few of these, they have been researched exhaustively.