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| Home of the Margherita Pizza |
Guest story by Lulu
For our first dinner in Naples I was happy to try a pizza at a random place we thought looked nice from the street. Don’t get me wrong - it was excellent. But for Saturday night, after a long day of hiking up Mount Vesuvius, I wanted something with a bit more atmosphere (and menu choices). So I asked the concierge for a recommendation that was within walking distance of our hotel. I am always a bit leery of those recommendations - you hear about kickbacks - but it was getting late and I didn’t feel like using Yelp or TripAdvisor and wading through all the snarky comments. Our host recommended a restaurant near the main plaza called “Brandi.” With that name I was expecting maybe an exotic floor show to accompany our meal. But off we went and found Brandi after a 15-minute walk through very crowded streets. The Neapolitans like to get out and enjoy themselves with their families on Saturday nights.
Harry was humoring me but he bought into the restaurant as soon as we went in the front door and he spotted a framed letter from Bill Clinton who had visited the restaurant. We were escorted upstairs to our table and proceeded to order our entrees of rigatoni and spaghetti. Pizzas were plentiful on the menu too. In fact, a little pamphlet on history of Brandi (founded in 1780) claims that the margherita pizza was invented there. The story goes that the queen of Naples - Margherita - liked the Brandi brothers’ pizza of tomatoes and mozzarella so much that they named it after her.
We did get our floor show too. A duo of guitar and mandolin players and singers serenaded us. If you ever go to Naples, I highly recommend Brandi.
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| Bill Clinton Letter in Brandi's. |
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