Zia Esterina Sorbillo: the story of pizza fritta

She made the history of Neapolitan pizza and, even after her death, in the various shops bearing her name, you can still enjoy an excellent pizza fritta (fried pizza), cooked to perfection and filled with quality ingredients.

In Naples, eating a good pizza fritta (fried pizza) means going to Zia Esterina Sorbillo.

The story

It all began with Giuseppe Sorbillo, who had 36 children by four different wives, nine by each. Each of them, naturally, went their own way. One of these was Luigi Sorbillo, born in 1907, who, at 17, found work in a pizzeria in the Carmine district and, in 1935, decided to open one of his own at Via dei Tribunali 35. He married Carolina, with whom he had 21 children, the eldest of whom was Esterina herself who, at 14, was already involved in the family business.

During the war, the pizzerias sold their pizzas with a particular arrangement, invented by the Sorbillo family themselves: “oggi a otto” (“today, paid in eight days”), a form of credit that allowed people to eat their pizza and pay for it eight days later.

Esterina Sorbillo spent almost her whole life in the pizzeria: in the morning she would prepare the dough in the back room, then go to the Sant’Antonio market to buy tomatoes and to Porta Nolana to buy fiordilatte cheese. And when she came back, she was ready to fry pizzas in her one square metre of space for the whole neighbourhood. Her fixed goal was always to keep prices low, so that anyone could afford to eat her truly special pizza. She carried her name and that of her family forward with honour to the very end, and beyond. On 23 March 2010, indeed, Esterina Sorbillo passed away, but her memory lives on in what were, and still are today, the best fried pizzas in Naples. Everyone who knew her remembers her as a woman of great respect and an iron-clad work ethic.

Today it is still possible to remember Zia Esterina through her passion and her art. In Naples, in recent years, several pizzerias have opened bearing her name, where you can still find the taste of pizza made the proper way, with quality ingredients and a dry, non-greasy fry. Recently, a shop has also opened in Milan.

Dove: Piazza Trieste e Trento, 53
            Via dei Tribunali, 37
            Via Luca Giordano, 35