The Best Pizza Place In All Of London, According To Travel Host Stanley Tucci
There are around 2,000 pizza restaurants in London. How does one even come close to finding the best one? After all, London is a city renowned for world-class cuisine, offering everything from traditional British fare to international delicacies with its diverse culinary landscape. Picking the best pizza slice is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but luckily, acclaimed actor and travel host Stanley Tucci has done the work for us all. In a recent TikTok with @topjaw, Tucci named Arte Chef, now known as Arte Pizza, in Barnes as the best pizza place in all of London.
@topjaw None other than Stanley Tucci giving his Best of #London – We all manifested this! #cityguide Ep.129
Stanley Tucci, beloved for his roles in film and television, has also made a name for himself as a connoisseur of fine, authentic, and genuinely good food and drink, especially with the CNN series "Searching for Italy." When Tucci declares a place as his favorite, food aficionados take notice. So, why this spot out of all of London's 2,000 pizzerias? Tucci says that the "pizzas are excellent."
To anyone who knows a thing or two about pizza — we're talking real pizza here, that is, Italian Neapolitan pizza — what makes a good pizza is the dough. It is the very foundation. Everything else, from cheese to sauce, is secondary and will not redeem a lousy pizza dough. Stanley Tucci explains that the chef "makes a really, really lovely dough." So lovely is the dough at Arte Pizza that Tucci sometimes buys the dough alone to prepare it into a pizza at home!
Arte Pizza, formerly known as Arte Chef, in Barnes
The pizzeria is owned by Napoli-native chef Livio Te and his business partner Aristotile Candito, both born, raised, and traditionally trained in Italy. The restaurant specializes in Neapolitan-style pizza, a UNESCO-declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, which has some defining characteristics. Neapolitan-style pizzas are small in size — you cannot get them by the slice. The crust is thin and soft, made from highly refined Italian type 0 or 00 wheat flour, and baked quickly for just a little over a minute in 800-degree heat. Toppings are minimal, not fancy. The result? A perfect, handmade pizza with an irregular, fragrant crust (and a touch of char), topped with fresh, simple ingredients. The must-visit destination of Naples in southern Italy is the birthplace of pizza, and Livio's family even has a pizzeria there to this day.
Arte Pizza is an unassuming Italian joint that puts food first, bringing culinary traditions from the motherland with a Neapolitan focus to Barnes, a quaint neighborhood in southwest London. It's part-café, part-deli, part-restaurant, combining the best of all worlds, making it family-friendly and perfect for a relaxed, cozy, and delicious occasion from breakfast to dinner (who says you can't have pizza for breakfast!?). Plus, you know you're going to have good pizza somewhere that boasts a traditional wood-fire brick oven (with a blue mosaic exterior, no less, a nod to Napoli's color). The restaurant has indoor as well as outdoor seating in a lovely garden for some al fresco dining.
What pizza should you order?
Arte Pizza has been visited not only by Stanley Tucci — Tom Hardy, Joe Tempest, Olivia Rodrigo, and Louis Partridge have also come in for some pizza time while in London. Despite the star quality, the pizzeria remains true to its roots. The prices on their menu reflect that as well, with the cheapest and most quintessential Margherita ($14) to the most expensive pie, the eponymous Arte Chef ($18). Which brings us to the great question: What pizza should you order?
For the quintessential Neapolitan pizza experience, you must get the Margherita. Tomato sauce, fior di latte mozzarella, and fresh basil grace the face of this pie, embodying the colors of the Italian flag: red, white, and green. The history of Margherita pizza dates back to 1889 when Queen Margherita of Savoy visited Naples, and chef Raffaele Esposito created a pizza to honor her. It was named after the queen and has since become a classic.
Otherwise, try the Maradona pizza, an Arte Pizza invention named after Diego Maradona, an iconic Argentine footballer (soccer player) renowned for his extraordinary skills and successful club career with, you guessed it, Napoli. Maradona is the de-facto "God of Naples," with murals, shrines, and even the city's stadium named after him — you have to see it to believe it! This unique pizza is topped with tomato sauce, anchovies, black olives, and garlic. Finally, Arte Chef, a pizza topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella, pancetta, rocket, and burrata, is also a must-try. Buon appetito!