Eating our way through Napoli!

On Friday March 23, we had a bit of sun and the high was 12C.  It was a good day for our Culinary Backstreets tour.  For folks who have followed our blogs, you will know that we have taken food tours with this company in Barcelona, Athens and Lisbon.  The tours usually last around 5-6 hours, address some of the history related to the food of the city, and we visit restaurants, shops and producers of food that are often off the beaten track.

For every city except Barcelona, we have been the only people on the tour, which has been a real treat.  Our tour guide on Friday was Chiara who was originally from Sicily, but has lived in Naples for many years.  She was an excellent guide and had a great rapport with the people we met during the day.

Our meeting place was Capriccio, a third generation pasticceria (cake shop) about a 12 minute walk from our apartment. It was located just outside the old walls of the historic centre of the city.  Chiara explained that we would be spending most of our tour in this often forgotten working-class area just outside the walls.  We would be visiting some traditional food shops, local markets and meeting producers of typical Neopolitan food.   Capriccio was the most updated/modern looking place we visited, though the shop had been established in 1917.

Outside of Capriccio-- almost every food store and restaurant in Naples has a street section

Capriccio is famous for its baba au rum, one of the two most famous Neapolitan desserts (adopted from the French).  The other is sfogliatella, a pastry first created in a convent near Naples.

The famous baba with different fillings on the left and Zeppole on the right (a special treat for the feast of St. Joseph)

In the kitchen

Beautiful cake display

Chiara with the baba, and two different types of sfogliatella
(we had the plain baba which is light as air, as even with lactaid pills, a cream filling would be too much for me)

We then started our walk through the neighbourhood of Porta Capuana which is very old and full of very small, often dark apartments.  There are many outdoor shrines on the walls of these streets.  As our guide explained, Naples is a city of the holy and the profane.

One of the many shrines on the streets in this neighbourhood

Our next stop was a baccaleria, where salt cod is the specialty.  It was another multigenerational shop  (5th generation) with a lovely young man from the latest generation running the store.  He prepared us a plate of cod (like a ceviche) with lots of lemon and a plate of green olives.  It was delicious.

Outside Antica Baccaleria 

Gorgeous looking cod

Our treat of cod with lots of lemon

Chiara our guide and moi

We passed by one of the four remaining city gates that surround the Centro Storico.  There was a red heart on the top of one of the towers.  There are a number of these stylized red hearts all around the city.  We found out it is a yearly project run by art students where people are supposed to communicate why they love Naples.

Porta Capuana 

We passed many death notices on the streets- the posting of these notices are still very much part of Naples' customs.

We stopped for a moment at a kiosk near the outdoor market.  We were given a  sample of the "healing waters" of Vesuvious--a rather foul sulphurous concoction.  Very strange and not for the faint of heart.

The kiosk

The owner in the background urged us to go inside for a photo

The outdoor market was great-- lots of excellent fruits and vegetables.  It is artichoke season and Alain and I bought a few.  The prices in this part of town were less than in the centro storico.  Chiara told us that we would be visiting the man who hand painted the market signs in red script.

Great veg-- artichokes only 5 for 1.50 or 2.00 euros, depending on the size

Fresh fish

Lots of great looking fruits and vegetables

Our next visit was to Antica Freselleria, a small family-run bakery that makes a special bread called freselle that is used as a base in Naples' famous mussel soup (often made with added seafood) or used for sandwiches with tomatoes, olive oil, basil and mozzarella.  It is made with different flours and is crispy.  In a soup, it will soften a bit, but keeps a bit of a crunch.  The bakery does everything by hand and the seventh generation of the family is running it today.  It has been in operation since 1834!  The bakery is gearing up for a busy week, as next Thursday evening just before Good Friday, mussel soup is served as part of the pre-Easter tradition.

It was so interesting to visit a number of these multigenerational businesses.  Each one had a wall with family pictures and they are very proud of their heritage. 

Chiara with one of the two types of freselle made here (for the sandwiches)

Freselle for mussel soup

Bread drying

Wall of old tools

We were treated to freselle topped with the best tomatoes we have had on the trip- they are piennolo tomatoes from the volcanic soil near Vesuvious ( just outside of Naples).  A bit of olive oil, mozzarella di bufalo and some salami on the side.

Delicious treats

We then went to meet Pasquale, the last traditional sign painter of the market.  His small studio was in a ground floor apartment where 8 people used to live when he was growing up.  He is in his mid-70s now and showed us a picture of his son, who now lives in Barcelona and works in IT.

Street where we were meeting Pasquale

Very old neighbourhood

Where Pasquale works-- once an apartment for 8 people

He made us a sign while we waited.  We also talked about crazy Trump and politics-- Chiara did the translation.  Pasquale has a unique script and we can now spot it on the signs in the markets.

Making our sign

Posing with our sign-- the struggle continues

His signs on wonderful looking tomatoes and peppers

As we continued our walk we noticed a newspaper kiosk where the men stood around and read the front pages without buying the papers.

At the newspaper kiosk

We had seen lots of laundry hanging outside in the streets, but in some streets it is actually hung across the road and there are pullies where the neighbours across the street from each other can arrange their clothes.

Wash day-- first bit of sun in a few days

It was now time to head back into the centro storico.  We walked down Via Tribunale, which is the main street we had walked up to meet Chiara.

Obelisk we had passed the other night

Chiara pointed out the mermaid on this obelisk-- part of the Greek myths surrounding Ulysses.

Mermaid- another symbol associated with Naples

In the square we noticed a number of people chatting.  Chiara went to talk to the woman on a motorcycle.  It turned out they were checking out one of the locations for the shooting of a TV miniseries based on Elena Ferrante's first book- My Brilliant Friend.  The locations woman said that they had created a set of the real working-class neighbourhood, which is located behind the railway station, but were using other locations for the filming.  They will be back in this square on Monday for the shoot.  Very exciting.

Locations people

Around the corner was a piece of art by Banksy.  The pizzeria beside the picture had preserved it in a glass frame, but had also posted a promo for the pizzeria-- very controversial.

Banksy in glass

Chiara then took us into a beautiful church--Basilica San Lorenzo Maggiore.  It the first Franciscan church in Naples and had a beautiful original gothic interior.  Baroque features had been added over the years but most were destroyed during WWII.  There was still one baroque wall.   The ceiling had to be redone as the church had been heavily bombed.  It was an incredible mashup of styles all in one location.

Gothic section

There was also glass over a section of mosaics dating back to the time it was a Roman church in the 1st century-- fascinating history.

Mosaics dating back to Roman times

Baroque side of church

A bit of both

We then went to eat pizza at the famous Sobrillo pizzeria.  There was a line up outside, but Chiara got us in right away.  It really was worth it.  They use organic flour and the tomatoes and mozzarella di bufalo were excellent.  The place is very nicely decorated and there are a number of rooms- all packed with people having their pizza at 2:15 p.m.  The menu had pizzas named after the 21 members of the Sorbillo family.  Gino and Toto run this branch of Sorbillo and there are other pizzerias run by other members of the family.  Pizza in the genes!!

At Sorbillo

Family run since 1935

WOW!

View down at the main floor

Around the corner, we posed with Pucinella.

Pucinella-- looks like a lot of people rub his nose

We then stopped at a small limoncello factory where we were shown how limoncello is made.  In Naples, smaller lemons than those used on the Amalfi Coast are peeled and only the lemon peels boiled in alcohol.  A potato peeler is used to hand peel the lemons.  Chiara gave us a bottle of limoncello as a gift and I bought a chocolate bar with lemon.

Showing us how limoncello is made

Chocolates with lemon

We had one more coffee and pastry at Mazz to end our food tour.  We highly recommend Culinary Backstreets to anyone travelling to Naples or any of the other cities they offer the tours.  The stories and meeting a number of the producers as well as the fantastic food are what makes the tours special.

After a short stop at the apartment, we headed out to the shopping area.

Walking through Dante square near the Metro

We walked down Via Toledo, the main shopping street until we reached Galleria Umberto I, a public shopping gallery, built between 1887-91.  It was the cornerstone in the rebuilding of Naples called the risanamento (making healthy again) that lasted until WWI.  It is almost the same design of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan and both were built as symbols of a unified Italy.  The Galleria was named for Umberto I, the King of Italy at the time of construction.  It is still in the process of being refurbished and is a gorgeous building.

Galleria Umberto I

Another view

We stopped at Gran Caffe Gambrinus, a historic café on the Piazza Trieste e Trento very near the Galleria.  Gambrinus is a legendary, somewhat tipsy figure of joviality.  The café was founded in 1869 and refurbished by the next owner beginning in 1889-90.  There are elegant Art Nouveau interiors.

Outside of Gambrinus

Elegant interiors in main room

Alain with his macchiato in a beautiful cup, at the bar 

Moi aussi-- still only 1.20 euros for a coffee at a very fancy place

Across the street there was a chocolate shop with a wonderful Easter display of chocolates.

We spent a few hours Friday night wandering around the fancy shops of the Chiaia neighbourhood. It was a nice night and many people were out for a stroll.

Lovely Via Chiaia

We walked back to our apartment at around 8:30 p.m. and had a modest bite to eat as we had a lot of food on our tour.  It was a wonderful day, eating and learning more about Naples.