The Neapolitan Pizza

The Original Neapolitan Italian Pizza

The Neapolitan Pizza.

Where did Cafe Panetteria's love for pizza start. Like any young growing boy pizzas was a staple in our household. Whenever the week ended on a Friday and it was the end of the month we were surprised with an order of pizza from our local pizza store that Friday night.

That very first bite from a pizza that just came out of the oven.

It was equivalent to you having not yet had anything to eat for your entire life. But the one bite made your entire world so much better that night it felt like your taste buds exploded in your mouth. It didn't take us long to finish the full pizza and we were already asking for more later on.

Our first attempt at making our first pizza.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was still a young lad who didn't know much at the time but I wanted to try and make my very own pizza. Growing up in a age where we didn't have the internet available to us. And the only knowledge I had of pizzas was from where we used to order the pizza from. Looking to tv shows that was on the tv that time. Not much information was available to us. So we went to books and researched recipes and bread recipes that were handed down from family members. Making my first batch of pizza dough, I must confess that it didn't come out the way I expected it would. The dough was not kneaded correctly and the ingredients I used was only the items we had in our pantry at the time. We had chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese. But nowhere near the quality that we use today in the our pizzeria. We knew nothing of pizza stones and what temperature the oven needed to be at. I placed the pizza in the oven using a baking tray and we waited for some time for it to finish baking. But at the end we had something to eat that wasn't all to bad and thinking of what age I was it actually came out quite nice.

Looking further down my career as a baker and a chef.

When I wanted to make a real pizza I thought back throughout my entire life and I was thinking of what was the best pizza I ever had, and what that tasted like. Now having tried multiple different pizzas before from many different pizza stores. I was at a crossroad. A question that bothered me for years. How was I going to create a masterpiece of a pizza that made we want that particular pizza so much that I had to make it over and over so many times. It came down to one conclusion. I needed to do more research of where did pizza really come from. And that was the light bulb that went off in my mind. No other place could compare. It had to be ITALY.

The next step of my pizza journey.

When I researched the history of where pizza came from I then found that all pizzas originated from Italy. The Neapolitan style pizza a specially the Margherita pizza that was named after the queen Margherita of Italy in the year of 1889. It came from a region of Italy called Naples. The ingredients was quite simple. You didn't really need much. All you needed was freshly squeezed or hand crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil leaves and extra virgin olive oil. These ingredients were specifically selected in order to resemble the vibrant colors and to honor the Italian flag.

By Chef Lee