I’ve had a long weird relationship with pizza. I think in the times when I was struggling most with an unhealthy relationship to food as a teenager, I turned to pizza. Cold pizza out of the fridge before bed. A greasy fast food pizza delivered at midnight after a hard day. Every time I got too perfectionistic, restricting what I ate, pizza seemed to show up everywhere. Birthday parties. School functions. Field trips. This homemade Neo Neapolitan pizza recipe is a great balance of satisfying and fresh, using real, non-processed ingredients. So, in my head, it’s healthy.

This past fall I went to Italy for the first time. Florence – not the birth place of homemade Neapolitan pizza, but still. I had such gigantically high expectations. Like somehow it would exceed all laws of the human world I’ve known thus far. I would go home and burn every bastardized Margherita pizza recipe.

After a long, 30+ hour journey to Italy from Maine, I arrived at a hotel in the middle of Florence. I was shocked to see my cab driver pull into a pedestrian cobblestone street to drop me off. Effortlessly dodging hoards of tourists. I paid with cash, and he helped get my luggage out of the back. Soon I was staring at a steep staircase and a tiny elevator.

Travel Anxiety + Neo Neapolitan Pizza

I spent the next 15 minutes pressing buttons and running up and down the stairs to find the hotel. My body was confused, exhausted, and impatient. I nearly started to cry when a young American couple came down the stairs. They wore Italy like a familiar coat. I stopped them and asked them to please help me find the elusive hotel, desperate for salvation. For a bed. For a shower.

They were staying in an Airbnb, and had no idea where the hotel was. I checked booking emails on my phone. Or tried to. My internet barely worked. Soon I found a pin and emerged into a corridor. After a few more minutes of searching, I found my room. I couldn’t wait to lie down. Unpack. And my stomach was screaming.

When I found my room I splashed my face with water and rested for a moment. I was ravenous. Ready to try my first Italian pizza. I only ate a pathetically small ham sandwich on the airplane. So, without regard for my horrible sense of direction or my barely working phone, I leapt into the cobblestone streets and started walking.

Lost and Injured on Italian Cobblestone

Soon I was completely lost, and only had the memory of a neon green cross to guide me home. I took a right turn, and suddenly felt like everyone was staring at my aloneness. I always hated being alone, especially in big crowds, and I was terrified. Terrified of being out of place, or being found out as some kind of imposter. In the middle of looking at my phone, I felt my foot fall off the sidewalk. My ankle turned and my entire weight pushed on it. I cursed like a sailor.

Everyone stared at me, laughing. A crowd of teenagers gawked. Still, I persisted, and told myself it was nothing. It was a temporary ache. It would go away. When I carried on down a side street and saw a homemade Neapolitan pizza restaurant, I felt starstruck. I carefully stepped up into the restaurant, ankle throbbing, and realized I was about to speak Italian for the first time. My Duolingo owl was laughing at me.

Thankfully, the man working there spoke English, and was incredibly kind. I asked if I could buy a pizza to go, and it was no more than 8 euros. Turns out it was the same restaurant where I would try bruschetta! I waited patiently in the street, watching a young couple play footsies, and when the pizza was done, I paid, walked back towards my hotel, and stood there for a few minutes trying to find it. Then, I saw the neon green plus sign, and felt a huge wave of relief when I approached the familiar stairs and elevator. 

My First Bites of Real Margherita Pizza

Still, I didn’t get to eat my pizza. I called my mom, crying and I vented for a half an hour with my foot elevated on a trash can. I ran my ankle under cold water, and finally, at around 10pm Italy time (4 am in Maine) I had my first bite of lukewarm, soggy pizza. Still, it was incredible. It was delightfully burnt in spots on the bottom and you could taste the heat of the oven. It was foldable but not limp. The sauce was fresh and acidic. The cheese had stopped melting, but it was deliciously salty and chewy.

So, me being me, I put on a tv show on my laptop which froze every 10 seconds in the new wifi, and I ate the entire thing. After the second slice I nearly threw up because I was so full. Nevertheless, I would not let this pizza go to waste, and there was no mini fridge in sight. I fell asleep that night with a full belly. Trying to rationalize how I was in Italy and had eaten real pizza for the first time. I had much better pizza after that, and my ankle healed miraculously. 

I developed this homemade Neo Neapolitan pizza recipe over the months since returning home to America. With a new Ooni pizza oven and special Italian 00 flour in hand, I’ve been testing ratios, fermentation times, cook times, and toppings. The best pizza by far, in my opinion, is Margherita, and it has to be your first flavor when making it homemade. I would highly recommend eating it fresh out of the oven, hot, without your ankle elevated on a trash can, for optimal flavor. 

Thursday Pizza Nights

Since developing this recipe I’ve made it almost every Thursday. Our homemade pizza night. Occasionally when the weather changes or the humidity differs the water amount in the dough is a little off. But it’s always delicious. Even after months and months of practice now I occasionally flub one into the back of the oven. All the toppings fall off and it burns and I have a meltdown. But, most of the time it goes well. And what a first-world problem to have. I even tried making calzones recently with the same dough, which were hard not to burn but delicious.

The trick for the dough is to start with adding about 3/4 of your water. Bring the dough together a little bit, then check the consistency. Add the rest of the water, and knead away. For some reason this helps me keep from adding too much water at the start. But, if you do, you can always add a little flour. Make sure to invest in 00 pizza flour for a good Neo Neapolitan pizza taste. I’ve also tried adding a little wheat flour, about 20%, which makes the dough taste incredible. While not authentic, I would encourage you to dive down the pizza dough rabbit hole and see what you like best.

Thank you for reading! Check out my Margherita pizza recipe card and print on Etsy! Use code THEFORKEDRING for 25% off.