This Italian dish dates back to late antiquity. The word "pizza" is thought to have appeared for the first time in 997. Its origin is controversial: for some, the word comes from the German bizzo, meaning "piece of bread"; for others, from the Greek pitta, meaning "fouace" (a ball of bread dough cooked in a wood-fired oven) or "galette."
This flat, cooked dough resembles many of the ancient flatbreads still eaten today across the Mediterranean basin. Early cooking methods were simple: bread dough, baked over an open flame, then topped with whatever ingredients were locally available. Making pizza in this early form had little to do with the dish we know today, but over the centuries, and depending on the region, this humble bread began to change.
One of pizza's oldest ancestors is thought to date back to ancient Rome, around the 1st century, when peasant communities in what is now called Lombardy and central Italy used a mixture of millet, barley and spelt with salt and herbs to make a flat, roman-style bread. There is no single city of origin for pizza, but it was in Italy, during the Middle Ages, that it truly began to take shape.
With the first trading posts and trade routes between countries, tomatoes and buffalo (whose milk is used to make mozzarella) arrived in Italy (more specifically in Naples). The Neapolitans were the first to top their bread with tomatoes, and this simple dish was soon sold on the streets of the city, cooked in wood-fired ovens.
It was in 1780 that the first modern Italian pizza saw the light of day: the Margherita pizza (bread, tomato, mozzarella), made by Raffaele Esposito in honour of Queen Margherita, who loved her pizzas. The Margherita has the colours of the Italian flag: red (tomato), white (mozzarella) and green (basil), a true work of art, and a classic you can't miss in any good pizzeria today.
It wasn't until the second half of the 19th century that pizza crossed Italian borders with the first waves of immigrants. Hundreds of thousands of Italians who landed in France and the United States introduced pizza to their adopted countries. Over time, pizza became part of a Western lifestyle, embracing different cultures and local tastes without ever losing its identity. At the end of the Second World War, Italian labourers introduced their national dish to the rest of Europe.
As pizza travelled, it evolved into distinct regional styles. In New York, thin, foldable slices became an everyday street food. In Chicago, deep-dish pizza turned the dish into something closer to a savoury pie. In France, wood-fired, Neapolitan-style pizzerias flourished in port cities like Marseille. Today, pizza is eaten and reinvented all over the world, with toppings ranging from marinated vegetables and olive oil to cured meats and local cheeses, each city and each pizzeria adding its own signature style.
The first mention of pizza appeared in 1903, in the heart of Marseille's old harbour, where Neapolitans ate pizza bianca rather than rossa (with tomatoes).
Pinsa, sometimes called "white Roman pizza," is one of pizza's earliest ancestors, dating back to ancient Rome. It was originally made by Italian peasant communities using a mixture of millet, barley and spelt with salt and herbs, very different from the pizza dough used today.
Pizza is a traditional Italian recipe, originally from Naples, based on a slice of bread dough topped mainly with olive oil, tomato sauce, mozzarella and other ingredients, then baked in the oven.
It was at the end of the 19th century that Raffaele Esposito, considered the father of modern pizza, decided to dedicate a pizza to Queen Margherita of Savoy. Esposito had opened his pizzeria "Pizzeria di Pietro e Basta Così" in 1780. The Margherita pizza became the most famous and popular pizza in the world. The dish was both ingenious and easy to make, as it symbolised the new Italian flag: basil representing green, mozzarella white, and tomatoes red, a true work of art.
Yoann Mormile, a French chef from Bourg-en-Bresse, already French champion of Neapolitan-style pizza in 2021, won the title of Neapolitan pizza world champion in Las Vegas in March 2023.
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