LONDON – Between the first murals of a still little-known Banksy, now a place of pilgrimage in the Shoreditch neighborhood, and the tall skyscrapers of the City, the financial heart of the English capital, a new culinary phenomenon has exploded in the last few months involving one of the historic products of Neapolitan tradition: the pizza a portafoglio. Slightly smaller than the classic margherita, folded in four and served on a sheet of paper specifically to be eaten while walking, hundreds of white-collar workers who come down specifically from the nearby offices for their lunch break and tourists from all over the world, queue up for up to half an hour to eat one. Behind the shovel, the boys from Southern Italya small food truck inside the famous Spitalfields market, where an average of 50 people are served from a 1960s Citroën H Van, recovered from an old French farm where it was used to transport animals, brought to London and converted into a pizzeria on wheels. 600 pizzas a day to reach over 1,000 at weekends, at a cost of £5 each, just under 6 euros.
A phenomenon which, as we are increasingly accustomed to seeing in recent times, is exploded thanks to social mediawhen some food bloggers discovered this particular culinary proposal, first time in London, telling about it on their profiles with a video walk among the murals of Shoreditch. A success that actually has older roots, when Southern Italy itself had started to propose it as soon as they opened in 2016, but with poor results.
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“Initially it was our main product, as an alternative to the many traditional pizzerias that had already opened in London – he says Silvester Morlando34 years old originally from Pescara, founder of Sud Italia -. My wife Micaela and I had thought that it could be a curious alternative to offer customers, especially because, by opening inside a food market, eating pizza while walking could be more convenient. Instead it was a small disaster: when Micaela folded the pizza in four and served it on the sheet, customers asked her to open it and cut it into slices to eat it sitting along the shared tables. Since we couldn’t afford to insist too much, also for economic reasons, we decided to adapt to the public: we switched to standard sizes by serving the classic pizza already divided into slices in a take-out box: from marinara to margherita, through pumpkin and gorgonzola, capricciosa, nduja, sausage and friarielli”.
As good people from Abruzzo, Silvestro and Micaela However, they never abandoned the project of the pizza a portafoglio, always leaving it as a choice on the menu board, even if only Italians, and even more tourists and emigrants of Neapolitan origin living in London, ordered it, appreciating both the taste and the original proposal almost two thousand kilometers away from where it was invented. Until, returning to the present day, the pizza a portafoglio has become, thanks to social media, the new Italian phenomenon in the streets of London, just as the young couple from Abruzzo had imagined it about eight years ago.
The Southern Italy Team
“It all happened suddenly, thanks to the reel posted by a very popular food blogger – Silvestro recalls -. In less than 24 hours, her video had about a million views, so much so that in the following days there was an increase in customers who specifically asked for the ‘pocket pizza’, as they called it. A week later, the flow of requests was still constant. I thought I would also take advantage of the situation, publishing a themed video directly on our social media. Four days later we had recorded 12 million views but, even more impressively, we went from serving a few pocket pizzas a day to an average of 600 with peaks of over 1000 on weekends, with lines that can even last 40 minutes, given that we are still a small food truck and our capacity is still limited”. On social media, nicknames invented by users from all over the world who are keen to share, through photos and videos, selfies and stories, their new culinary experience are being wasted; some write using the original name ‘a portafoglio’ and some use the anglicized versions ‘pocket’, ‘viral’ and ‘folded’. Some have also renamed it ‘hot’ because the shape reminds them of something a little spicy.
Given the growing success, but also to better manage the constant queues, the owners of Spitalfields Market, one of the oldest and best-known in London, gave the green light to Silvestro and Micaela to open another location a few dozen metres away. A small corner inspired by the characteristic ones along the streets of Naples, where you order your moment of take-away enjoyment from the window. “We called it Sud Italia Grab & Go and it is dedicated exclusively to the pizza a portafoglio and other ready-to-go products such as the red round pizzas, the same ones I ate as a child under the umbrella in Pescara. And not only that, because thanks to the team, which has expanded over the years, and with the support of my uncle Antimowho now deals with the dough, and of Mattia our right arm, from the beginning of September we will also offer a classic Neapolitan fried food, such as pasta frittatine and potato croquettes from Avezzano (L’Aquila, ndr), up to the classic fried pizza”. The all-London adventure of Sud Italia does not end here, however, because from September 16th they will open a new point also in front of the Arsenal stadium. The challenge this time will be much more ambitious: to convince the over 60 thousand spectators of one of the most iconic places in the Premier League that it is nicer to celebrate a goal by eating a more original pizza a portafoglio instead of a monotonous hamburger.