Naples Food and Travel Guide

Naples is the birthplace of pizza and one of the great street-food cities of Europe. Loud, chaotic and gloriously unpretentious, it serves some of Italy's most satisfying food at prices that feel almost unfair, especially along its ancient center.

What to Eat

Eat where the Neapolitans eat, on your feet and often, and you will understand the city in a single afternoon.

• Pizza napoletana — a blistered, soft-crusted pie baked in seconds in a screaming wood oven; order a marinara or margherita to taste the original.
• Sfogliatella — a crisp, shell-shaped pastry of paper-thin layers filled with sweet ricotta and candied citrus.
• Frittatine — a deep-fried nest of pasta, bechamel, peas and cheese, the ultimate street snack.
• Friggitoria fare — crocche potato croquettes, fried zucchini flowers and arancini sold hot from the pan.
• Caffe — a tiny, intense espresso, often already sweetened, downed standing at the bar.

Where to Go

Spaccanapoli is the dead-straight, narrow street that slices through the old center, lined with churches, pizzerias, bakeries and fried-food windows. Wander it slowly, ducking into side alleys where laundry hangs overhead and scooters thread through the crowds.

For pizza, the Centro Storico holds the most famous historic pizzerias, and a queue out the door is part of the experience. For a cheaper bite on the move, look for a friggitoria window selling fried snacks by the piece.

A practical ordering tip: at the busy old pizzerias you may share a table and the menu is short by design, so decide quickly and pay as locals do. Menus and chalkboards are usually in Italian only, so photographing the menu to translate it helps you tell a frittatina from a panino and order the Neapolitan classics with ease.