"Look how beautiful it is!"
You can bring the Neapolitan pizza you want there!
exclaims Karim Dehdouh, as he kneads his dough in the garage that serves as his lab.
“Naples is the Mecca of pizza but Marseille is the capital.
» It's true that in the Mediterranean city the pancake filled with pastry and cooked over a wood fire is a religion.
“The recipe arrived in the city in the 1930s with Neapolitan immigration, explains Alessandra Pierini, owner of the Italian grocery store Rap, in Paris, and co-author of the gastronomic bible We will taste Italy (ed. Marabout, 2021).
In the 1960s, it was the inhabitants of Marseilles who had the idea of preparing and baking pizzas in a truck and selling them in the street.
»
The pizza truck was born.
At the corner of Boulevard Baille and Cours Gouffé, Karim has just parked his vehicle.
"It's part of Marseille's heritage to create joviality around us", announces Karim Dehdouh.
And the few hours we spent in his company for this video report were enough to convince us!
“Neapolitan pizza… yes!
It's the pizza of Naples… But in Marseille they have a palate: you don't do them upside down”, launches, Karim, who is a local figure.
The “verace pizza napolitana” vs the rest of the world
Obviously, when passing customers are asked in front of the truck what their favorite pizza is, they all give the same answer: Marseille!
If half and half, half anchovies, half emmental, is the most emblematic recipe of the city, there is actually no established recipe.
The only pizza in the world protected by a charter is the Neapolitan pizza.
And not just any version: only
margherita
and
marinara.
Only ten restaurants in France have received the anointing of the association La "verace pizza napolitana" to have the right to sell "real Neapolitan pizza".
And one of these addresses is located in Marseille, on Cours Julien: Papà Fredo.
We had a chef taste their
margherita
, half and half Karim Dehdouh and a Domino's pizza to find out which one she found the best.
To know his verdict: press “play”!