L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele

• Margherita (€6.50): tomato, fior di latte, oil and basil. This is the one to order if you order one.
• Marinara (€6.50): tomato, oregano, garlic and oil. No cheese, and at Da Michele it costs the same as the margherita.
• Cosacca (€6.50): tomato, pecorino, oil and basil. Pecorino instead of mozzarella gives it a sharper, saltier taste.
• Marita (€6.50): half margherita, half marinara on one base.

Drinks are basic: Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite at €3, still or sparkling water at €2, Nastro Azzurro at €3. A couple sharing two pizzas, a beer and a water pays €20 including cover. For how this style compares with the rest of the city, see our pizza napoletana page.

Go to the door first, before you join any crowd. Staff hand out numbered tickets and call numbers as tables free up. If you stand in the lane without a ticket, you are not in the queue. Stay within earshot of the door so you hear your number.

The pizzeria does not publish waiting times. The quietest moments are the obvious ones: just after the 11 a.m. opening and the gap between lunch and dinner. Evenings, weekends and cruise days are the busiest. If the crowd is large, our queue comparison lists equally good pizzerias with shorter waits.

This page covers the historic room at Via Cesare Sersale 1. The family's own site lists further branches in Salerno (since 2021), Aversa and Pompei (since 2023) and Caserta (since 2024), plus franchises in Rome, Milan, Barcelona, London and Japan. Closest of all is a second room at the corner of Via Sersale and Via Pietro Colletta: it opened on June 13, 2024 with 84 seats, a wider menu and, unlike the original, bookings, according to Fanpage at the launch. Michelin's 2026 listing confirms the second room; we could not confirm its current booking policy, so ask at the door. The queue you see on Via Sersale is for the original.

The family's Pompei branch, at Via Lepanto 213, is an option if you are visiting Pompeii and want the name without the Naples crowd. We did not check its menu.

Via Cesare Sersale runs off Corso Umberto I on the edge of Forcella, a short walk from the station district (see Piazza Garibaldi and the station). From the Centro Storico and the Duomo it is downhill and close. It works well as a first or last meal on a day that starts or ends with a train from Napoli Centrale.

For a sweet afterwards, a pastry shop near your next stop beats anything near the pizzeria: Scaturchio is on Piazza San Domenico Maggiore in the old town.