How to Choose the Best Extra Virgin Olive Oil for Pizza

Extra virgin olive oil deserves the same attention paid to tomatoes, cheese, and any other pizza topping. In Italy’s best pizzerias, they know it well.

Margherita pizza at Pizzeria Salvo photo credit Aurora Scotto di Minico

Imagine a sumptuous, tempting Italian-style Margherita arriving on your table, ready to be devoured: if you mentally list the ingredients you can see and smell, you’ll probably mention tomato, buffalo mozzarella cheese (or rather fiordilatte, which is the drier and more sapid cow’s milk fresh cheese and is often considered more suitable to be shredded and baked on the crust) and basil, the iconic products matching the colors of the Italian flag. You would be missing an essential one, though, maybe less visible – exaggerating in quantity is never a good idea – yet definitely perceptible on the nose, whether it is one of good quality and carefully chosen to match the pie’s aromas or a very bad one, spoiling the bliss of the overall result: extra virgin olive oil (EVOO).

For Taste & Nutrition

Margherita del Vesuvio photo credit Aurora Scotto di Minico

EVOO is as an important ingredient of pizza as any other. It can add precious nuances of flavors enchanting the senses even before biting the pie, bring some pungency and freshness to mild topping when added right out of the oven – the ideal choice to make the most of the scent – and help the ingredient to harmonically merge if poured before baking. And, in the latter case especially, it can even make your pizza healthier: some scientific research based on traditional Neapolitan pizza – such as The “True” Neapolitan Pizza: Assessing the Influence of Extra Virgin Olive Oil on Pizza Volatile Compounds and Lipid Oxidation, led by prof. Raffaele Sacchi, University of Naples Federico II, published on the Journal of Culinary Science & Technology website in 2015 – demonstrated how high temperatures can enhance both the tomatoes and extra virgin olive oils’ anti-oxidant compounds and create new positive key odor compounds. As sometimes happens with scientific research, this is one case where firsthand experience is quite easy even for those who are not scientists or expert tasters.

Seeking out the Best

Pizza al Pomodoro at Pizzeria Salvo photo credit Aurora Scotto di Minico

This is probably why in Italy many pizzaiolos – the smarter ones, who are to be credited for the huge increase in quality and success of this food whose humble origins are rooted in Naples’s alleys – are paying more and more attention to extra virgin olive oil. Nowadays, is more common to see top-quality bottles or elegant, multicolored jars of extra virgin olive oil hailing from the whole country on the shelves of pizzerias than restaurants, and it does not surprise anymore to read the specific oil used for certain pizzas in the menu. Events, initiatives, and awards are dedicated to the subject – AIRO, the association gathering both producers and Italian restaurants active in promoting the extra virgin culture through cuisine, recruits and appoints pizza chefs, too– and olive oil producers often collaborate with local pizza makers to give value to both products.

Pizza Connoisseurs Leading the Way

Among the first to consider extra virgin olive oil a fundamental ingredient for a (very) good pizza, brothers Salvatore e Francesco Salvo are to be mentioned. Inheriting the humble family’s place in the outskirts of Naples when their father prematurely passed away, they decided to devote their efforts – as well as broader skills and knowledge – to make it a successful business, looking beyond the modest boundaries of traditional pizzerias to establish a new, contemporary format. A modern décor, a wide choice of wines and Champagne, and an accurate and professional waiting service matched the tastiness of pizzas, respectful of the “old school” and inspired by the family’s teaching yet improved in a more digestible dough and high-quality toppings. They succeeded, as several awards and recognitions, a growing and loyal clientele, and the opening of a second venue of Pizzeia Salvo in the center of Naples, in 2018, prove.

The Ongoing Quest for Quality

Conscious of the importance of carefully (and ethically) sourcing the ingredients for their pizzas and gorgeous fried bites, they created a sort of network of friends-suppliers credited on the menu, picking the best of their production to create perfectly calibrated toppings. Besides a few different kinds of tomatoes, each with a specific profile, from different areas of Campania regions, and a choice of cheeses, dairies and cured meats also hailing from the rest of Italy, each year Salvatore Salvo personally tastes and selects the extra virgin olive oils to match the pizzas on the menu (which is now the same in both venues), to combine and enhance each topping. And while they use a harmonic blend before baking, he chooses to pour more intense and fragrant oils when the pizza is taken out from the oven, so that its heat amplifies the scents.

Identifying Great Olive Oils

Olive oils favored by Salvatore Salvo — Some of the oils favored by Salvatore Salvo

Salvatore started over ten years ago helped by local experts, and today probably is the most skilled taster among Italy’s pizzaiolos. Every year when the new oils are available, he devotes a few days to accurate tasting and subsequent testing: “We look not only for very good products, which can vary from harvest to harvest, but also for the ideal combination with our pizzas, to achieve an overall harmony and balance where extra virgin can be distinctly perceived without prevailing on other ingredients”, Salvatore explains. “In certain cases, we also consider geography and logic: for our traditional pizzas such as Margherita and Marinara we choose regional extra virgins from Campania, which had a considerable growth in quality over the last few years thanks to the great job made by producers such as Fattoria Ambrosio, San Comaio, Terre dell’Angelo and Madonna dell’Olivo”.

While he loves the scent of a well-balanced Ravece such as the wonderful Zahir by San Comaio on the classic Margherita (they have a whole page of the menu devoted to the “queen of pizzas”, with seven different variants), in other cases he varies his choices to modulate the flavors, explaining, “I like robust oils but of course I aim for a harmonic result that can be appreciated by everybody. On white pizzas with mild ingredients, I want an oil able to add something, such as spicy and bitter notes. While I choose more delicate and round oils with tastier toppings such as bacon. I look for intense yet harmonic oils with tomato, and I choose one with a bold character, neat green aromas, and marked bitter and spicy notes, such as this year’s Titone Dop Valli Trapanesi from Sicily, to complete our Quattro Formaggi.” His Quattro Formaggi is not an average one, bringing together the freshness of fiordilatte, the flavorful creaminess of the aged goat Gorgonzola (with red fruits and roses) and goat robiola cheese, and the pointy intensity of the goat caciotta and flakes of aged provolone. It may be named for the cheese, but as is the case with so many pizzas, the olive oil is not to be overlooked.