Chef Franco Pepe's pizza has been voted the best in the world and he loves Neapolitan food (2024)

The award-winning pizza maker of Pepe in Grani honed his craft in Naples. Here are his Neapolitan culinary favourites, from Chalet Ciro to Mimì alla Ferrovia.

Italy's seaside city of Naples is the birthplace of pizza, with proto versions of the tomato and mozzarella-smothered flatbread hitting the cobblestoned streets as early as 1738. But in the 1990s, long before he created what has been voted the world's best pizza, chef Franco Pepe was pounding the city's pavements to learn the great Neapolitan pizza making arts.

"I have a wonderful personal relationship with Naples," says Pepe, now the eponymous owner of the global sensation Pepe in Grani pizzeria in his hometown of Caiazzo, 50km outside the city; famed for his mastery and innovation. "My time there was crucial to my pizza making career. Spending time with Neapolitan pizza masters... soaking up the pizza-making culture... witnessing the birth of the disciplinare (the official AVPN regulations defining "True Neapolitan Pizza"). That experience helped me develop my own pizza. For me, Naples symbolises my youth."

Though iconic among Italian cities, Naples is often overlooked by overseas tourists in favour of Rome, Florence and Venice. But Pepe loves returning to his old stomping grounds. "You experience colours, music, and, yes, okay, confusion," he admits, alluding to the city's notoriously chaotic traffic and jumbled lasagna layers of Ancient Greco-Roman, Spanish, Norman, Bourbon and Baroque architecture. "But also, art, history and beauty. Spending a day there is magical."

Pepe's favourite way to experience the city is to wade through the graffiti-streaked side streets of its 3,000 year-old centro storico (historic centre) – "It's vivacious; you see how Neapolitans really live" – and stroll down the Mergellina seafront, a 2.5km stretch of rocky coastline hugging the Gulf of Naples, facing the humpbacked Mt Vesuvius: "Like walking through history."

When asked for his top Neapolitan dishes, Pepe is quick to note: "Neapolitan food isn't just pizza; there's an amazing cuisine using products, which I also use on my pizza, that you can't find anywhere else in the world, cultivated in the volcanic soil of Vesuvius. Like the piennolo [tomato], the apricot, the wines… our mozzarella. The parmigiana di melanzane (aubergine parmigiana); the Neapolitan ragù that simmers for hours.... those are the things you have to eat in Naples."

Here are Pepe's favourite Neapolitan culinary experiences.

1. Best for old school cooking: Mimì alla Ferrovia

To get to the heart of Neapolitan cuisine, start with tradizione. For Pepe, that means Mimì alla Ferrovia, a Naples stalwart since 1943.

"If I go to Naples for Neapolitan food, I go to historic places like Mimì alla Ferrovia that make it the right way," says Pepe of the cosy, home-style trattoria where the walls are tacked with framed photos of celebrities. "The greatest actors go there. Everyone goes there. It's not elegant, but it's nice. It's traditional, it's clean, the service is great and so is the food."

Mimì alla Ferroviais found on an unassuming block crisscrossed by train tracks in Naples's Unesco-listed centro storico, crowded by mildew-stained buildings and scooters whizzing through razor-narrow cobblestone streets where, without warning, ornate medieval churches spring from corners and Greek ruins appear beneath your feet. The menu abounds with Neapolitan classics like pasta e patate (pasta with potatoes and cheese) and polpette al ragù (meatballs with ragu) but Pepe is partial to their parmigiana di melanzane; layered aubergine, tomato sauce and mozzarella. "It's incredible. For me, that's the must try," he says. "They bake it in a tegamino (earthenware pot) and it's wonderful. It's cooked correctly, the ingredients are right, it's well-balanced. It gives me joy."

2. Best spaghetti al pomodoro: Palazzo Petrucci Ristorante

Sometimes even Michelin-starred chefs just want a simple, perfect plate of spaghetti al pomodoro (spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce).

"We have many types of tomatoes [here in the Campania region]," says Pepe. "The San Marzano, the datterino, the Corbarino, the yellow tomato… But if cooks don't know how to use them, they're not going to do the product justice."

That's why, when Pepe needs his tomato pasta fix, he goes to the Michelin-starred Palazzo Petrucci Ristorante, chef Lino Scarallo's upscale three-storey seaside eatery in tranquil Mergellina. "Palazzo Petrucci is a fantastic place on the sea," he says. "Lino Scarallo interprets Neapolitan flavours in a more gourmet way than Mimì, but they're always authentically Naples."

Palazzo Petrucci Ristorante offers a menu of modern Neapolitan fare, like fish crudo and spaghettone pasta with anemones, mussels, green chilli and lemon. "Spaghetti al pomodoro is just one of the things he makes," says Pepe. "But Lino Scarallo's spaghetti is special; in its simplicity it gives off an incredible perfume and flavour. And this, against the backdrop of the sea… he's a Michelin-starred chef but a chef who can excite you with a simple, humble dish has won."

3. Best for innovative Neapolitan fare: Aria Ristorante

Another New Neapolitan experience Pepe recommends is Aria Ristoranteon the fringe of the centro storico, a high-end space with moody, minimalistic interiors helmed by Michelin-starred chef Paolo Barrale. "Paolo is also doing great work," says Pepe. "He's an interpreter of Campanian flavours and Neapolitan cuisine. With Aria, his new restaurant, which hasn't been around all that long, he's been re-interpreting Neapolitan cuisine in an incredible way."

Like Scarallo, Barrale serves what Italian foodies call a "revisited" traditional cuisine, offering an ever-changing menu of breathtakingly whimsical dishes. "He makes this fantastic turbot fish enrobed in mussel sauce, accompanied by this cold broth to which he's added a drop of aniseed liqueur," says Pepe. "It's a Michelin-starred chef's take on the flavours of Campania's sea and land."

4. Best street food: Fried seafood at Il Cuoppo and pastries at Chalet Ciro 1952

Some of the best Neapolitan foods come from a cart and can be held in your hand – ideally while sauntering through the historic Pignasecca street market or along the seashore.

Fried and delightfully oily, the street foods of Naples range from taralli n'zogna e pepe (ring-shaped crackers made with lard, almonds and black pepper) to pizza a portafoglio (pizza folded in half and eaten on the go) to the frittatina di pasta (creamy macaroni croquette). Pepe is partial to the cuoppo di pesce – fried calamari, shrimp and sardines served in a paper cone.

"There's a place called Il Cuoppo in the centro storico's side streets, near Via dei Tribunali," he says. "You go there with €6; they give you this cuoppo and you can taste the Gulf of Naples. The right way is to eat it straight from the cone; get your hands dirty."

There are street sweets as well, like the plush, pillowy fresh-fried pastries at Chalet Ciro 1952, one of Mergellina's famous seaside "chalets"; inspired by American snack bars of the 1950s. "Whenever I go to Naples, I always to Chalet Ciro for a graffa (fried dough twists rolled in sugar). It's fantastic," says Pepe. "Even if I'm having dinner somewhere else, I say, 'No, dessert', because I need to get in my car and, even if I can't find parking, I have to go to Chalet Ciro for my coffee and my graffa."

5. Best Neapolitan sweet: The babà at Scaturchio

In a city renowned for its luscious, ricotta-filled sweets, the babà au rhum, a mushroom-shaped sponge cake soaked in rum syrup with distant roots in France and Poland, is the undisputed king. And for Pepe, its realm is the historic Pasticceria Giovanni Scaturchio, founded in 1905. What makes Scaturchio's babà the best? "It's the balance of the softness, and the blend of liqueurs they use," says Pepe. "In some babà they use too much and it's aggravating, but when there's the right balance of liqueur, you can eat the pastry and inhale the perfume… it's a mix of experiences, of perception of the palate."

"I interpret my life via my five senses," says Pepe. "I made my recommendations based on sight, smell and taste. That's the only way I can advise someone who's visiting Naples. I want them to smell what I've smelled; taste what I've tasted."

BBC Travel'sThe SpeciaListis a series of guides to popular and emerging destinations around the world, as seen through the eyes of local experts and tastemakers.

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