Pizza has become a staple item in London, with eateries across the city ranging from New York by-the-slice diners to sourdough spots and street-food traders, but where did it all begin? The Neapolitan brand Santa Maria Pizzeria made its mark as one of the pioneers of the city’s pizza revolution in 2010, with a cozy site on Ealing’s St Mary’s Road – hence the name. “Our ultimate dream was to have a local pizzeria like you have on every corner in Naples,” Pasquale Chionchio tells La Cucina Italiana, referring to himself and fellow co-owner Angelo Ambrosio. “Pizza for us is a way of life, it’s a philosophy, and something that represents our heritage,” he adds, smiling.
Santa Maria owners Angelo Ambrosio (left) and Pasquale Chionchio.
The co-owners saw the potential for their brand during what Chionchio calls a “food revolution” in the city, with the boom of low-cost flights flooding the capital with new cuisines. “The turning point was [in 2008] when we saw queues at [sourdough pizzeria] Franco Manca in Brixton Market. At this point it was very niche, we saw that London was ready for this new product on a larger scale,” Chionchio says. They were certainly on the right track, and Santa Maria now counts sites in Ealing, Chelsea, Fitzrovia, and Fulham.
Commenting on the competition in the city, Chionchio says: “Our strength was always to stick by our principles: providing 100 percent authentic Neapolitan pizza. We never compromise.” The Neapolitan influence extends to the restaurant’s logo, which features a modern illustration of Santa Maria di Merino, the patron saint of the town of Vieste in Puglia. “It’s an homage and tribute to my dad who is from Puglia. Whenever I tell him that we are doing well, he always says that it’s thanks to Holy Mary looking out for us, not because we make great pizzas,” Chionchio jokes.
Santa Maria Pizzeria has opened its fifth location in London, on Upper Street in Islington.
The brand has now joined Islington’s bustling Upper Street, with a 60-cover split-level restaurant on the former site of Middle Eastern restaurant Baba Boom. “It’s one of those areas that we always wished we could open in, but it’s always been very expensive,” Chionchio says. While lockdown was understandably a difficult period, it did provide more affordable opportunities in the area. Nonetheless, it’s still an uphill battle for the industry due to the unfortunate combination of Covid-19 and Brexit. “The constant turnover of people has literally stopped overnight. Everyone is understaffed, there’s no one coming over,” he says – a remark that I’ve heard repeatedly across the hospitality industry. “London has always been relying on many cultures. That’s why I love it and the reason I came here. You don’t want to lose that.”
Santa Maria Pizzeria has the same menu at each site, with a range of soft pillowy pizzas and sides of bruschetta, burrata Pugliese, and friarielli (a type of broccoli grown in Naples). Ingredients sourced from Italy include San Marzano tomato sauce and fior di latte from Campania, while the meatballs are made from free-range rare breed North Yorkshire pork. The drinks list is also predominantly Italian, the only exception being its Santa Maria Blood Orange IPA – a beer created in collaboration with Bermondsey-based brewery Bianca Road.
Pizza from Santa Maria in London.
In keeping with the theme of the restaurant, the pizzas are given saint monikers – from the Sant’Anna with cotto ham, artichokes, black olives, and parmesan to the Santa Filomena with a mushroom and truffle cream base, smoked mozzarella, and pork – and come with extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil leaves. Chionchio always recommends the simplest pizzas to his customers, whether that be the cheese-free marinara, a classic margherita, or a richer option with buffalo mozzarella and parmesan. “The pizza is all about the dough. Everybody can buy the toppings, but the dough is the real craft. It requires skills and love,” he says. The brand abides by a Neapolitan cooking method, using 100% Italian Type 1 Petra flour wheat and a proofing time of approximately 36 hours, but the chefs at each site look after their own dough. For this reason, there’s a running joke amongst the staff not to upset the chef in case this sours the dough.
Inside Santa Maria's Chelsea location.
Now that the Islington site is up and running, the co-owners have turned their attention to the opening of a vegan pizzeria inspired by Chionchio’s plant-based diet. Vergine Maria – a clever play on the brand’s name – will open at the St Mary’s Road site in the coming months, with the original pizzeria now at bigger premises in Ealing. While there’s no menu yet, vegan options at the existing sites give a hint of what’s to come. The San Diego pizza, for instance, features pumpkin cream, vegan mozzarella, courgettes, wild rocket, tomatoes, and fresh chili.
Looking back on the past 10 years, the co-owners take pride in helping to build London’s pizza scene. “We’re so proud that it’s become such a global food,” Chionchio says. It looks like the holy Santa Maria is doing her job, as are the pizza maestros in the kitchen