L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele: a slice of Naples in London

The decision to open another L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele in London was only announced late last year, and the quick set-up of the restaurant is testament to the simplicity of the operation. Two styles of pizza, a short wine and beer list and a few desserts made out of house is all that’s on offer, so there’s nowhere for the quality of the food to hide. It also helps that the 2,300kg pizza oven gets so hot that the made-to-order pizzas fly out of the kitchen throughout the day. ‘It only takes a minute or two to cook each pizza, but the pizzaiolos are so fast,’ says Vania. ‘Customers love to watch them at work, even after they’ve finished their pizza.’

So why London? There is actually another L’Antica in Tokyo, but the decision to lay down roots in the UK capital was purely because of how much we love pizza. ‘My sister has lived in London for years and really missed Naples and its pizza,’ says Vania. ‘She thought it would be great to have this huge piece of tradition here in the city so Londoners had a proper place to eat real, traditional pizza. Plus, London is full of Italian people and pizza in general is really appreciated here.’

It wasn’t a simple case of replicating the Neapolitan restaurant and recipes in a new location, however – factors like humidity can make a real difference to how dough behaves when rising, so a little bit of experimentation was needed. L’Antica prides itself on its dough above all else, so it was vital to get the perfect flavour and texture in the pizza base. ‘We didn’t change the dough but we did have to alter the mix of ingredients because of the difference in weather, which effects how the dough rises. In Naples it’s obviously hotter, so the chefs came over and spent ten days finding the right balance between the flour, the yeast and the weather. I’m from Naples so I’ve been to the original L’Antica hundreds of times, and while the first pizzas we tried here weren’t exactly the same, we’ve now perfected the recipe and they’re great.’

The dough truly is something to behold – the thin base is almost like a flatbread, with leopard-like spots adding a smokiness to the light chewy dough. The fact that the very best, freshest tomatoes and creamiest cheese make up the toppings is the icing on the cake. If you're a fan of pizza and haven't had the chance to visit the Neapolitan L'Antica, it's well worth heading to the London outpost to see why Naples is the Mecca of pizza.

‘I think L’Antica is so famous because it’s so simple,’ concludes Vania. ‘People don’t have to spend lots of time choosing between hundreds of pizzas – it’s either marinara or margherita, that’s it. In Naples when someone asks you if you want to go there, you remember it as the place that only serves two varieties.’