Santa Maria pizzeria is celebrated for its simple Neapolitan cooking. Here’s their recipe for the perfect margherita.

The first thing you notice about Mr Angelo Ambrosio and Mr Pasquale Chionchio – owners of Santa Maria pizzeria – is that they neither look nor behave like your typical London restaurateurs: with thick Neapolitan accents, they’re refreshingly unguarded and very well-dressed. In Naples, Mr Ambrosio worked in the fashion business – his family own a clothes shop; Mr Chionchio worked in the music industry – on hip-hop magazines and events. Now, their Neapolitan pizzeria, with two branches in London, serves pizza that is widely considered not only to be the most authentic, but also some of the best in the country.

The pair moved to London and opened their first pizzeria in Ealing on Valentine’s Day in 2010. As much as they saw a gap in the market, this was a project inspired by their longing for something ubiquitous at home, conspicuous by its absence in London. They opened their much-awaited, closer-to-town second outpost of Santa Maria pizzeria in Fulham in the spring of this year. “Our goal was and is about quality: to deliver the product you can get in Naples, that’s it,” says Mr Ambrosio.

Contrary to the zeitgeisty pitch of popular pizzerias in London, like Franco Manca, one of the first things that Mr Ambrosio and Mr Chionchio are keen to point out is that there is no such thing – at least in Naples, the home of pizza – as a “sourdough” base. As militant traditionalists, they consider it as little more than a “marketing gimmick” and are quite confident that their pizzas taste as they should simply because of the fresh yeast in their dough. Nor do they think that a pizzeria should be anything other than a democratic – and therefore affordable – eating experience: “We don’t like the concept of posh pizza; pizza is a poor and popular thing. In Naples, it’s something you grow up with – it has to be cheap. There’s a cultural clash if you deny anyone the right to eat pizza,” says Mr Chiconchio.

They’re obviously doing something right as Santa Maria has been lauded. Mr Daniel Young, a journalist and food critic from New York, and an expert on the subject – he recently published the Phaidon guide Where To Eat Pizza ­– regularly features the restaurant in his roundups of the best slice in London. Perhaps it would not be stretching it to say it’s the best pizza in Britain. But how and why is it so good, when even Messrs Ambrosio and Chionchio admit that there are so few variables? It seems the answer is in using the best Italian ingredients – “we care about the tomato sauce, mozzarella and olive oil, it’s the ABC” – but also, more generally, in their unwavering adherence to Neapolitan best practice and a dough, risen sufficiently and blistered in a hot oven, which is easy to digest. It’s a simple food, and if you forget the basics, “you fuck up the pizza”.

With a philosophy like this (and as denim heads), it is no surprise to learn that they admire classic clothing brands such as Levi’s – a trusted label which “uses the best cotton and the best sewing” and whose quality is time-tested, they say. “We don’t need to do flashy things; the Americans like all the extra chicken, meat, sloppy Giuseppe. Ask any Neapolitan what their favourite pizza is and they’ll tell you it’s the margherita or what we call the Santa Bufalina. The less you put on, the better the result.” Simple.

santamariapizzeria.com

The dough is enough for about 4 – 5 pizzas

**Ingredients: 

**500ml lukewarm water 875g “00” flour  27g salt 0.035g fresh yeast (it's variable according to temperature and humidity)

Per pizza

80g good quality tomato sauce (preferably made from tinned San Marzano tomatoes) 100g buffalo mozzarella Basil leaves Pinch of grated Parmesan Glug of olive oil

Method:

Mix all the dough ingredients together and rest the dough for 45 minutes.

After the inital resting, cut the dough into 250g balls and leave them to raise for 24 – 36 hours.

Once the dough balls are ready, pre-heat the oven on the highest setting, and, if you have one, place a granite stone on the middle or high shelf to heat up for half an hour. (Or, if you’re using a wood oven, light the fire and ensure the oven reaches a temperature of 450ºC.)

Flatten and shape each 250g ball of dough to form a pizza base that is approximately 30cm in diameter. Spread the tomato sauce over the base with the underside of a ladle, leaving a 3cm gap at the edge to form a dry crust. Place the torn buffalo mozzarella across the base, scatter over a few leaves of basil, a pinch of Parmesan and drizzle with olive oil.

Place onto the pre-heated granite stone if you have one, or into the centre of the oven and cook for 4–5 minutes on the highest setting in a normal domestic oven. (Or at 450ºC for 50 seconds if you have a wood oven.)