The hordes of pizza lovers who descend on Naples usually head for Via dei Tribunali in the city’s historical center, famed for its parade of pizzerias. If they arrive by train, they will exit the central station, go straight through Piazza Garibaldi and head right for the Centro Storico, where the guidebooks they carry always (erroneously) say they will find the best pizzerias. Locals in the know, meanwhile, head ten minutes in the opposite direction, towards an area that has less foot traffic and appeal for tourists, but that is home to Carmnella – truly one of Naples’s best pizzerias. Evidence of this can be seen in the pizzeria’s dining room; by noon, Carmnella is already full, unusual in a city like Naples, where locals are used to having lunch between 1 and 3 p.m.

Neapolitan cuisine encompasses such a variety of dishes, ingredients and preparations that sitting down for lunch in Naples is always a feast of smells, tastes, colors and sensations. Menus here are populated by numerous meat dishes and equally many seafood options, and the extraordinary variety of vegetables are complemented by unique dairy products, preserves and sweets steeped in history and quality. Restaurant kitchens know how to be baroque (as demonstrated by menesta maretata, a complex soup that “marries” a variety of vegetables and cuts of meat), sumptuous (as in eggplant parmigiana), or deceptively simple (as in the classic spaghetti aglio e olio, which combines the basic trio of pasta, garlic and oil to great effect).

Dozens of urban legends swirl around the city of Naples – strange stories repeated a thousand times that, somewhere along the line, become credible. One of those urban legends concerns biscotti all’amarena, or black cherry cookies: people often say that they are made from day-old cakes. To create this typical Neapolitan sweet, bakers chop up pan di spagna (sponge cake) – the bit that is supposedly reused – and then mix it with black cherry syrup, cocoa and cinnamon. The mixture is then covered with a short-crust pastry shell and baked as a loaf, after which they’re cut into small rectangles.