ERrico PoRzio - Salerno, Italy

Rating: 7 / 10

"I think they put honey in the dough" - Turned out she was right.

On a blisteringly sunny day in Salerno, I headed down to the harbour and spotted the line from a mile away. Perhaps most of them were tourists, perhaps not. I decided to be nosey and popped over for a look, spying the plump, charred pizzas through the plexiglass. I had to order one.

I waited a good half hour before the slightly confused waiter popped his head out and shouted "Margherita". I grabbed the steaming box and crossed the road finding a solitude-worthy perch on a bench overlooking the ocean. 

Opening the box the first thing that struck me was the dark hue of the dough ring. Honey perhaps? Oil? Sugar? Something was causing that extreme brown colour and I wanted to find out what. 

Biting in was a nice detour from the succession of highly average pizza's I had eaten in Sicily and Catania. Nothing had come close to the taste of this one, even tho stacked up against the pizza in Naples this would be mid-shelf. The dough was light and charred, yet had an underlying sweetness to it that I don't prefer. The tomato sauce was fresh and vibrant and the cheese was, well, cheese. All in all it was a good pizza to break the monotony of disappointment, and one to whet the appetite for tomorrows train back to Napoli to gorge on a few final moments of triumph before the call to leave Italy sets in.

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.