The history of the Neapolitan sfogliatella: where to eat the best ones?

Neapolitan culinary tradition has made a remarkable contribution to Italian gastronomic culture: just think of pizza, pastiera or sfogliatella, the quintessential symbol of Naples.

by Silvia Semonella

But how was this pastry born, and what are its origins?

A poem dedicated to it goes:

“Tra Amalfi e Positano, mmiez’e sciure
nce steva nu convent’e clausura.
Madre Clotilde, suora cuciniera
pregava d’a matina fin’a sera;
ma quanno propio lle veneva‘a voglia
priparava doie strat’e pasta sfoglia.
Uno ‘o metteva ncoppa,e l’ato a sotta,
e po’ lle mbuttunava c’a ricotta,
cu ll’ove, c’a vaniglia e ch’e scurzette.
Eh, tutta chesta robba nce mettette!
Stu dolce era na’ cosa favolosa:
o mettetteno nomme santarosa,
e ‘o vennettene a tutte’e cuntadine
ca zappavan’a terra llà vicine.
A gente ne parlava, e chiane chiane
giungett’e’ recchie d’e napulitane.
Pintauro, ca faceva ‘o cantiniere,
p’ammore sujo fernette pasticciere.
A Toledo nascette ‘a sfogliatella:
senz’amarena era chiù bona e bella!
‘E sfogliatelle frolle, o chelle ricce
da Attanasio, Pintauro o Caflisce,
addò t’e magne, fanno arrecrià.
So’ sempe na delizia, na bontà!” (a Neapolitan dialect poem recounting how Sister Clotilde created the pastry in a convent between Amalfi and Positano, and how the innkeeper Pintauro later brought it to Naples and turned it into the famous sfogliatella).

So we find ourselves around 1600, between Furore and Conca dei Marini, on the magnificent Amalfi Coast, in the enclosed convent of Santa Rosa. Here, on a day like any other, one of the nuns, Clotilde, decided to find a way to make use of leftover semolina soaked in milk. She thought of mixing it all with ricotta, candied fruit and lemon liqueur, wrapping the filling in a sheet of pastry shaped like a hood (recalling a monk’s cowl) and baking it. The pastry, which also began to be sold to the local people in exchange for a few coins, was given the name Santarosa and .

This delicacy, in fact, arrived in Naples a good 200 years later, in the early 1800s (precisely in 1818), thanks to the famous pastry chef Pasquale Pintauro, who at the time was simply an innkeeper, owner of a tavern on Via Toledo.

It is not known how Pintauro came to have the original recipe but, once he had it, he turned his tavern into a workshop and decided to devote himself to the art of pastry-making, also reworking the recipe of the nuns from the Santa Rosa convent: he did away with the custard and sour cherries and made the pastry thinner, removing the monk’s cowl shape and giving it the shell-like form that has made it famous the world over.

Today, sfogliatella comes in two varieties, frolla and riccia, but a tasty Santarosa can still be enjoyed in its birthplace, on the coast.

The best sfogliatelle in the city

Pintauro itself, on Via Toledo, is one of the best pastry shops where you can enjoy a fragrant sfogliatella, along with many other famous pastry shops around the city.

Definitely worth trying too are those from the famous Pasticceria Mary, whose only historic branch is in the Galleria Umberto, and those from Carraturo at Porta Capuana, another cornerstone of Neapolitan pastry-making tradition.

Also very famous are the sfogliatelle from Sfogliatelab, located in Piazza Garibaldi, which also offers the delicious sfogliacampanella, a cross between sfogliatella and babà.

Finally, definitely worth mentioning are those from the Antico Forno delle Sfogliatelle Calde dei Fratelli Attanasio, near Naples Central Station, from Pasticceria Bellavia, which has several branches across the city, and from Scaturchio, a historic pastry shop in the old town centre, once frequented by figures of the calibre of Totò and Eduardo de Filippo, with its only branch in Piazza San Domenico Maggiore.

All that's left to do is choose!