Neapolitan pizzas: by exporting to Paris, Da Michele attracts customers

Article reserved for subscribers

The legendary pizzeria, founded in Naples in 1870, opened its first Parisian restaurant on Tuesday, September 2, at Place de la Bastille. "Libé" met delighted Italians there.

A small address with 80 seats, with the look of a chic dive and in the same colors as the first restaurant opened in Naples in 1870. (DR)

As monomaniacal margherita obsessives, we immediately felt embarrassed by refusing a slice of marinara, thinking it was a fish pizza . Wrong: the dough in front of us had only tomato sauce, basil, garlic, no cheese—in short, the basics. But the Italians around the table didn't hold it against us, delighted as they were to rediscover the taste of "real" Neapolitan pizza and to explain its subtleties to the newbies while tucking into samples of just about the entire menu. Welcome to Da Michele, a historic Italian restaurant founded in 1870 in the center of Naples, which has just opened its first franchise in France, near the Place de la Bastille in Paris.

A gourmet but spiteful, the head of department who sent us there assured us that Neapolitan pizza was downright old-fashioned, that the hype dated from ten years ago, and that we were going to taste the original, straight from the capital of pizza, but just one more in the Parisian ocean of food. The first response that came to us was very Coco Chanel: to retort that