Fifteen kilos of flour and water go into the mixer at 9A Devonshire Road a full day before anyone eats them. The next afternoon that preferment takes another 10 kilos of flour, and the 25-kilo batch that comes out is the working dough for the night at Napoli on the Road, the Chiswick kitchen that 50 Top Pizza ranked No. 1 in the world for 2026. "Usually we do finish it every night," says Francesco, the head pizzaiolo on the Chiswick bench.
Naples, on wheels
The name is the original business plan. Michele Pascarella grew up in Maddaloni, near Naples, and was folding pizza boxes in a local pizzeria at 11. He moved to England at 19, worked in Cornwall and then at Sartori, an Italian restaurant in central London, where he noticed customers loved pizza without ever seeing the work behind it. He could not afford a restaurant, so in 2016 he took the pizza to them: a three-wheeled Piaggio Ape, fitted with a wood-fired oven, parked at farmers' markets and outside office buildings. The markets also set the menu's rule of cooking to the season, a habit that outlasted the van.
The first bricks-and-mortar shop opened in Chiswick on September 23, 2019. Richmond followed at 12 Red Lion Street, then Soho at 140 Wardour Street in February 2026, and a cookbook with the same name came out in 2025.
A run of trophies from 50 Top Pizza
Pascarella was 50 Top Pizza's Pizza Maker of the Year in 2023. His pizzeria topped the guide's Europe list in 2024, 2025 and 2026, finished fifth on the world list in 2025, and in September 2026, at the Teatro Mercadante in Naples, took first place ahead of Anthony Mangieri's Una Pizza Napoletana in New York (No. 1 for the two previous years) and Francesco Capece and Mario Ventura's Confine in Milan. A west London kitchen beating Naples and New York at a Neapolitan game, with the verdict read out in Naples, will be argued over for a while. For the rest of the city's pizza map, see our London pizza guide.
The dough, stage by stage
The flour is a bespoke blend of type 0, type 1 and prima macina (flour from the first breaking of the grain, which keeps more of the wheat's flavor), milled by Molino Denti. Hydration sits between 70 and 75 percent, and the ferment runs about 36 hours from first mix to the peel. On the day, the extra flour goes in on second speed, then the mixer drops to first so the dough can relax and the bubbles start to show. A film of olive oil keeps the surface from drying while it rests five to 10 minutes in the bowl.
Then the bench work. Folds by hand tighten the gluten: before them, a pulled strand tears; after them, it stretches without breaking. Every ball is cut to the same weight so every pie on the pass is the same size, and the balls need two to three hours before they open well. Francesco's rule is that good dough is only a third of the job. A bad stretch, a ball left out long enough to overproof, or a scorched bake undoes it.
The pizzas are cut with scissors, not a wheel. A clean snip through the cornicione shows the crumb, the open web of gluten that held the yeast's CO2, and the kitchen likes that the customer gets to see it too.
Ricordi d'Infanzia and an uncooked tomato
The signature pie is Ricordi d'Infanzia ("childhood memories"), £19.50: slow-cooked beef ragù, a Parmigiano Reggiano DOP fondue, a heavy snow of grated Parmigiano, basil and olive oil. 50 Top Pizza named it Pizza of the Year in 2025, and it anchors the pizza tasting menu in Soho.
The red base goes the other way. The sauce is plum tomatoes and salt, nothing else, and it is never cooked before the oven. Basil is torn by hand at the pass rather than cut, to release the oil, and doneness is read off the color of the cornicione and the dryness of the base, not a timer. A Margherita with fior di latte and Parmigiano is £13.90. The Cheesewick, a pun on the neighborhood, piles buffalo ricotta, Puglia stracciatella, Parmigiano crisps and Blue Stilton under a Piennolo tomato jam. Soho adds a Padellino section, including the Triple Crunch: a pan pizza steamed, fried and then baked, topped with Calabrian salame and chili jam.
The pizzaiolo on the Chiswick bench
Francesco left school at 16 and started as an apprentice at 17, unpaid apart from a €50-a-month "gift". He landed in London 12 days after his 18th birthday, spent a year there and a year in Frankfurt, came back, and stayed. He was running a kitchen at 20, has cooked for a private event at Mukesh Ambani's home in India, and at 28 runs Chiswick. His pitch for the place is that it was one of the first in the UK to bring this style of high-hydration dough to London, and that the dough has to hold its consistency from the first order of the night to the last.
Three addresses, one dough
The original, on Devonshire Road, is where the preferment starts each day and where the 2026 ranking was earned.
Napoli on the Road
€€€€ · 2,030 reviews
Great doughy, award-winning pizza with creative toppings like Cheesewick. Deserts were just okay.
Richmond, on Red Lion Street, runs the Chiswick menu and the same dough for the southwest.
Napoli on the Road Richmond
€€€€ · 815 reviews
Reviewers praise the eggplant parmesan and friendly service. However, some complain of cramped seating, refusal of extra toppings, and finding the starters very average.
Soho, at 140 Wardour Street, is the only one of the three with the padellino section and the pizza tasting menu.
Napoli on the Road
€€€€ · 574 reviews
Loved the diavola pizza, garlic bread, and light, well-fermented dough. Service is efficient, though one found it just ok.
Soho opens daily from noon to 10:30 pm, with no dogs and children under 10 welcome until 6 pm. Chiswick and Richmond open at 5 pm Monday to Thursday and from noon Friday to Sunday, and both take dogs.
