Georgina Campbell's Book Review

Where to Eat Pizza, by Daniel Young (Phaidon, hardback; 14 b/w illustrations; 576pp; £16.95/€24.95)

Subtitled variously ‘The Last Word on The Slice’ and ‘The Experts’ Guide to the Best Pizza Places in the World’, this cheerful, chunky hardback is certainly not a pocket guide but it weighs much less than its 2-inch spine would lead you to expect - so no fancy art paper or atmospheric food shots here, which is just as it should be.

But why a world guide to pizza at all, you may ask. Well, the author, pop-up pioneer Daniel Young - the London-based food critic behind the cleverly named youngandfoodish.com and author of the hugely successful international restaurant guide, Where Chefs Eat - is mad about pizza (among other things) and he has no shortage of evidence to suggest that plenty of other people are too, Michelin-starred chefs, food writers, critics, bloggers, bakers and pizzaioli among them.

And no, he didn’t eat in all of the 1,705 recommended pizzerias in 48 countries himself, he used local knowledge to do the legwork for him. Calling on the knowledge of 121 regional experts, who then chose 956 ‘pizza informants’ in their regions, he put together the first ever ‘comprehensive insider's guide to the best pizza places around the world’.

Organised by continent and then by country, region or city, the recommendations reflect the diversity of the pizzas themselves (‘thick and thin, round and square, pan-baked and stone-baked, wholesome and trashy’) and the pizzarias, which range from’ old-school family establishments, restaurants devoted to craft pizza, food trucks and holes-in-the-wall’.

The content is mainly made up of brief summary style entries - sometimes just a sentence, each with a by-line. But there are also some of Daniel Young’s own pieces scattered through the text, on topics of burning interest to pizza obsessives - custom-crafted brick ovens, repurposed Citroen trucks, house-made mozzarella, pizza boxes, and pizza folding etc - and some of more general interest (a piece about Pizza Tours, for example) and the book ends somewhat wistfully with the story the oldest pizzeria in Sao Paulo: “To eat at Casteloes is to visit a Sao Paulo that now lives in black-and-white photos…”

Like anyone who gets their hands on a guide that might have something of local interest, I hunted out the Irish section, where there are just eight entries (and, as far as I could see, none at all in Northern Ireland). Ireland’s ‘pizza informants’ - the regional expert, restaurant critic Tom Doorley of the Irish Daily Mail, assisted by Gillian Nelis (Sunday Business Post), Ailbhe Malone (BuzzFeed UK) and Niall Harbison (Lovin Dublin) - picked a good cross section including Osteria Lucio on Grand Canal Quay and Camp de’ Fiori in Bray - but it does seem a tiny number, and almost all in or near Dublin (the exception is the excellent La Cucina in Limerick).

Maybe I missed something in the small print of the criteria for inclusion (or perhaps it was simply that space ran out) but a few missing gems outside Dublin that come to mind right away include Luna, in Dromahair, Co Leitrim (run by Bernadette O’Shea, author of Pizza Defined, who introduced gourmet pizzas showcasing local artisan ingredients in the 1990s); The Ballymore Inn at Ballymore Eustace, Co Kildare, where Georgina O’Sullivan has been doing the same with style for decades; The Twelve in Barna, Co Galway, where Pizza Dozzina is a destination in itself; Rathmullan House, Co Donegal, where affianados flock to The Tap Room for Scarpello & Co’s stone baked pizzas to wash down with Kinnegar beers….and there are plenty more.

No doubt readers in all 48 countries are poring over the entries and wondering where some of their local favourites are - that goes with the territory in ‘comprehensive’ guides. And real pizza-heads may also be wondering where this chunky tome will be when they need it on tour (not in the handbag, that’s for sure), but the solution for that is simple - happily I noticed a note on the inside back cover, stating that it’s available as an app. Problem solved - buon appetito!