This famed London pizza spot is launching a new tasting menu
Tasting menu? More like tasty menu...
Pizza isn’t exactly a unique thing to be dishing up, and there’s famously a whole heft of competition across the city over who plates up the best doughy delicacies, from traditional trattorias, to NYC style innovations. However, food aficionado or not, you’ll probably have heard of Napoli on the Road, a west London spot which recently got crowned the best ‘za in Europe for the third year running.
Now, the spectacular spot has launched something a little more unusual: a pizza tasting menu. Traditionally, you’ll hear “tasting menu” and immediately think of tiny portions in a glitzy Michelin starred joint, with words like sous-vide, seaweed foam, and emulsion, feeling like you need a dictionary as well as Grace Dent in the corner translating it all for you. Napoli on the Road will be doing it a little differently though, serving up a celebration of “slow eating, childhood memories, and the versatility of an Italian favourite.”
The tasting menu will launch at Napoli’s latest branch in Soho this August, which only opened up in February 2026, and is the chain’s sixth branch to date. The tasting menu itself starts with one of the most crucial parts of Italian food: the tomato. The first course kicks off with a glorious celebration of the humble and juicy tomato, showing it at four different stages of preparation, highlighting how proper good produce changes as it cooks, in true Jamie Oliver / Hugh Fernley Wittingstall manner. According to Napoli, this is to help guests slow down, and appreciate how time can transform the simplest of ingredients. Sort of like watching endless TikTok videos of people making sun-dried tomatoes and other dried fruit on their balconies in these recent heatwaves.
The next courses showcase a selection of fritti, pizzas, palate cleansers (think sorbet) before rounding the evening off with dessert. The tasting menu will include four different kinds of pizza as well as a range of other dishes, authentically Italian of course, and close to founder Michele Pascarella’s childhood memories.
As well as a delicious tasting menu which will no doubt leave you more stuffed than a cannoli, there will be a carefully paired wine menu which has been curated to compliment each dish. The menu will explore reds, whites, desert wine, and even a drop of sake.
Talking about the creation of the tasting menu, Michele Pascarella said that it was “not created with the idea of making something complex or “starred.” We did not want to impress with techniques for their own sake or build a journey that feels distant from people, but to do exactly the opposite. We want to tell a story made of memories, seasonality, ingredients, and flavours that everyone can understand from the very first bite.”
Given they were going for classic and delicious over complicated and fancy, it’s perhaps not surprising (and a welcome relief) that the tasting menu isn't in the eye-watering price bracket that a lot of them can be. It will cost £65 per person for the standard tasting menu, with the wine pairings an additional £40 if you fancy it. It’s only running at their stunning Soho site, and you can head to their website to find out more information, including when bookings open up.
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