A Neapolitan story since 1870
The history of L'Antica Pizzeria Da Michele begins in Naples in 1870, with the Condurro family and a way of making pizza that would become one of the city's best-known culinary institutions.
It did not begin with a restaurant group or a global brand. It began with a family of pizzaioli in Naples and, above all, a commitment to the craft of Neapolitan pizza.
For generations the family treated pizza not as something complicated, but as something that depends on a few fundamentals: the dough, the ingredients, the bake and the skill of the person at the oven. That philosophy became the character of Da Michele.
The Condurro family
According to Da Michele's own history, the Condurro family's tradition began in the heart of Naples in 1870. Michele Condurro, son of Salvatore, carried the family craft forward, learning from the master pizzaioli of Torre Annunziata, south of Naples, and their knowledge of dough and baking.
He is remembered as a man of humble origins whose life became bound up with pizza. His son Antonio, himself a master pizzaiolo, called him an icon of the art of pizza. Another son, Luigi, described him as a true pizza fanatic.
Michele was not simply a proprietor. He became the centre of the family's pizza tradition.
1906: the first pizzeria
Michele opened his first pizzeria in 1906, on the site where the Ascalesi Hospital would later be built. When the hospital's construction meant the area had to change, the pizzeria had to move, and that move led to the address that would become inseparable from the Da Michele name.
1930: Via Cesare Sersale
In 1930 the pizzeria moved to Via Cesare Sersale 1, in Naples. It is still there today.
This was the beginning of the chapter for which Da Michele became famous. After Michele, his sons Salvatore, Luigi and Antonio carried on the work, and the reputation of the pizzeria grew far beyond its neighbourhood. Food writers and journalists came to call it il tempio sacro della pizza: the sacred temple of pizza.
The name stuck. But the more important legacy was less dramatic: the consistency of what happened inside. Pizza was made the way the family had always made it.
Five generations of pizzaioli
Da Michele's own account describes five generations of master pizzaioli continuing the founder's work and keeping to Michele's instructions.
Its identity was not built on constant reinvention. It was built on repetition: learning a method, practising it, passing it on and protecting it. That philosophy also decided what appeared on the plate.
Keeping pizza simple
Da Michele is known for two classic Neapolitan pizzas: the Marinara and the Margherita.
Michele's instruction was to make Neapolitan pizza only these two ways, without the additions the family calls papocchie, which would change the taste and genuineness of the pizza. Natural ingredients and the traditional way of preparing and leavening the dough are, in the family's words, the foundation of its success.
Good dough, good ingredients, a hot oven and an experienced pizzaiolo.
A reputation beyond Naples
For most of its history Da Michele was a distinctly Neapolitan institution. Its reputation still travelled: visitors from far beyond the city came looking for it, drawn not by a concept but by the pizza.
Eat, Pray, Love
In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about her visit to Da Michele in Naples. In 2010 the scene was filmed at the pizzeria for the film adaptation starring Julia Roberts, introducing it to an even wider audience.
For many people who had never been to Naples, Da Michele became the pizzeria from one of the film's most memorable food scenes. But it was a chapter in the story, not its beginning: by then the Condurro family's tradition was already well over a century old.
2012: leaving Naples for the first time
For decades the family was cautious about taking the name outside Naples. That changed in 2012, when the fifth generation of the Condurro family founded Michele in the World to bring the Da Michele tradition beyond the city.
Its first major agreement was with the Japanese group Balnibarbi. On 31 January 2012, Da Michele opened in Ebisu, Tokyo: the first time in more than a century that the pizzeria had opened outside Naples, still serving the Marinara and the Margherita.
The challenge was not to copy a famous name, but to reproduce a method. The Tokyo project meant training the Japanese team in Naples and sending the first Neapolitan pizzaioli to Japan.
Taking the method around the world
Neapolitan pizza does not travel easily. Temperature, humidity, water, ingredients and local rules all change the dough. Michele in the World describes its answer as careful selection and monitoring of suppliers, regular air shipments from Italy, and the training and transfer of knowledge between Naples and every new kitchen.
The pizzeria could travel, but the method had to travel with it.
Tokyo was followed by Fukuoka in 2015 and Yokohama in 2019, while the wider Da Michele project opened in cities including Rome, Milan, London and Barcelona. The original on Via Cesare Sersale remains the reference point for all of them. Da Michele did not become international by leaving its origins behind; its origins are what it carries.
Next: Kuala Lumpur
In 2027 the story arrives in Kuala Lumpur, with the same two pizzas and the same method.
A tradition that continues
More than 150 years after it began, Da Michele rests on the same idea: Neapolitan pizza does not need to be complicated to be extraordinary.
Pizza begins with the dough. It depends on the ingredients. It is finished by the oven and the hands of the pizzaiolo. And above all, it depends on respecting the tradition that came before. That is the history carried by the name Da Michele: a family, a craft and a pizza tradition that began in Naples in 1870.
From Naples, to the world.
