Pizza as we know it was born on the streets of Naples in the 18th century, where vendors sold flatbreads topped with tomatoes, garlic, and oil to the city's working class. The dish was cheap, fast, and eaten with your hands — street food before the term existed.
The defining moment came in 1889, when pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito reportedly created a pizza for Queen Margherita of Savoy during her visit to Naples — topping it with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil to mirror the colours of the Italian flag. Whether or not the legend is perfectly true, the Pizza Margherita stuck and gave the dish a royal stamp of approval.
In 1984, seventeen master pizzaioli in Naples founded the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN) to protect the tradition. Their strict rules specify everything from flour type to oven temperature (430–480°C) to maximum bake time (90 seconds). In 2017, the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list — the only pizza style with that distinction.
Fun fact: A true AVPN Neapolitan pizza must be no larger than 35cm in diameter and no thicker than ⅓ of a centimetre at the centre. The cornicione (rim) should be 1–2cm tall, puffy, and slightly charred — what Neapolitans call "leopard-spotting."