History of Pizza: From Naples to Northern Virginia

Pizza as we know it started in Naples — not as a gourmet dish, but as cheap street food for the working poor. Flatbread with tomatoes, oil, garlic, and sometimes cheese, sold by vendors in the narrow streets of the city's poorest neighborhoods. Two centuries later, it's the most popular food on the planet. Here's how it got from there to here — and to Northern Virginia.

Naples: Where It All Started

In the late 1700s, Naples was one of the largest cities in Europe and one of the most overcrowded. The lazzaroni — the city's working poor — needed food that was cheap, filling, and portable. Flatbread baked in wood-fired ovens and topped with tomatoes, garlic, and lard fit the bill perfectly.

Tomatoes were the key ingredient, and they were controversial. When they first arrived from the Americas, wealthy Europeans considered them poisonous. The poor of Naples adopted them anyway, and the combination of tomato on flatbread became the foundation of modern pizza.

The Margherita Legend

The most famous pizza origin story involves Queen Margherita of Italy visiting Naples in 1889. The story goes that pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito created three pizzas for her, and she preferred the one with tomato, mozzarella, and basil — the colors of the Italian flag. He named it in her honor.

Historians debate whether this happened exactly as described. But the Margherita pizza is real, and it remains the benchmark for Neapolitan pizza worldwide. We serve ours the traditional way: San Marzano-style tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, and olive oil.

Pizza Crosses the Atlantic

Italian immigrants brought pizza to America in the late 1800s, landing primarily in New York and New Jersey. The first documented pizzeria in the U.S. was Lombardi's, which opened on Spring Street in Manhattan in 1905. Early American pizza was made by Italians, for Italians — it didn't reach mainstream America until after World War II.

Returning GIs who'd been stationed in Italy came home craving the pizza they'd eaten overseas. That demand, combined with post-war suburban expansion, turned pizza from an ethnic niche into an American staple within a single generation.

Pizza survived because it was adaptable. Every city, every culture put its own stamp on it. But the best versions always trace back to the same principles: good dough, real heat, simple ingredients.

Regional American Styles

• New York-style: Large, thin, foldable slices baked in gas deck ovens. The city's water supposedly makes the dough better.
• Chicago deep-dish: Thick crust pressed into a pan, layered with cheese and chunky tomato sauce on top. More casserole than pizza, but beloved.
• Detroit-style: Rectangular, thick, crispy-edged pizza baked in blue steel pans originally used for auto parts. Cheese goes to the edge and caramelizes.
• New Haven (apizza): Charred, thin-crust pizza from Frank Pepe's, established 1925. Known for the white clam pie.
• Neapolitan: The original. Soft, blistered, wood-fired. This is what we make at Forni.

Pizza Arrives in Northern Virginia

Northern Virginia's food scene has exploded over the past two decades, fueled by the region's diversity. The Falls Church, Arlington, and Tysons corridor is now one of the most food-diverse areas in the country. You can find pizza from virtually every tradition here — New York slices, Neapolitan wood-fired, Roman-style al taglio, and everything in between.

What makes the NoVA pizza scene unique is the demand for quality and authenticity across cultures. Families here expect real ingredients, halal options, and cooking methods that respect the tradition. That's exactly what we built Forni to deliver.

Learn about our approach to traditional wood-fired pizza. Our story →

The Tradition Continues

Every pizza we make at Forni connects to a tradition that's centuries old. The dough ferments for 48 hours. The oven runs at 800°F. The toppings are fresh and simple. We didn't invent any of this — we inherited it from Naples, adapted it for Northern Virginia, and made the entire menu halal so everyone in our community can share in it.