‘Hotter than ever!’ How pizza conquered Britain – leaving its rivals in the dust

In 2004, when Daniel Young first arrived in London, he encountered a problem. “I’m from New York. I don’t understand a world where pizza is not a life essential,” says the food writer also known as Young & Foodish. “In New York, we go from the mother’s breast to pizza. It’s our first solid food.”

By contrast, Britain had “no inherent pizza culture or style”. Popular chains such as Domino’s and Pizza Hut existed, but few people were passionate about pizza. It did not excite debate.

Twenty years later, things are very different. “Pizza is hot, hotter than ever,” says Young who, as the author of global guide Where to Eat Pizza and organiser of the London Pizza festival, has actively encouraged that heat. Having transformed beer, coffee and burgers, what Young calls UK foodie “geek-culture” is now in its pizza phase. All amped-up on YouTube dough tutorials and Reddit pizza chat, it is propagating an ever-expanding multiverse of new styles.

Once pizza was pizza, usually Rome’s round tonda style found at Pizza Express. Now it comes in myriad forms, from Young’s beloved New York slice (huge and triangular with a reasonably stiff base; the toppings evenly distributed through a low-lying cheese screed), to soft, foldable Neapolitan-style pizzas (blistered and swollen at their cornicione rim).

Such styles provoke opinions, too. They engender tribal loyalty. You may be a new convert to thick, rectangular slices of Detroit-style pizza, AKA “red top”: focaccia-like slabs with crispy bottoms, dressed with toppings, then cheese and finally tomato sauce. Or cheesy Chicago-style deep dish pizza, in which ingredients are layered in a flan-shaped crust and finished with tomato sauce. Or you may swear by Domino’s 13.5in American hot. Whichever way, Young says: “People self-identify by their pizza choice.”

Fun, familiar and informal, pizza is how modern Britain wants to eat. “Street cred is not in going to a blingy, Michelin-starred place. No one wants to unless you’re very rich. Hip is to go to a great pizza restaurant nobody knows about,” says Young.

The recent restaurant industry narrative has been one of doom, gloom and closures, but not in pizza – which, according to market analysts Lumina Intelligence, now accounts for 21% of all main courses on chain restaurant menus. Pizzerias sell that rare product that, even at a time of spiralling costs, can be produced consistently and sold at a competitive price, profitably. They are benefiting accordingly.

In September, after “record order numbers and an acceleration of new store openings”, Domino’s announced it was recruiting 5,000 staff at its 1,300 or so UK and Ireland outlets. The number of general Italian high-street restaurants is falling, but dedicated pizza brands continue to expand. Pizza Pilgrims served 27% more pizzas in 2023 than in the previous year. Neapolitan-style rival Rudy’s Pizza saw like-for-like sales rise 23% in the Christmas run-in.

In a cost-of-living crisis, pizza’s affordability is key. Be it Bogof offers on collection orders or its current “price slice” campaign (large pizza, £12), the vouchers, combo deals and discounts come thick and fast at Domino’s, maintaining what market analyst Mintel describes as its “value proposition”. Similarly, paying £12 or £13 for a Neapolitan-style pizza (sourdough base, sophisticated toppings, residual aura of cool) compares well when other restaurant main courses hover about £20.

But pizza’s popularity is about more than just cost. A flexible, customisable food, it also suits the increasingly personalised way people want to eat, with kitchens expected to accommodate various dietary preferences. You can swap toppings, dip your crust in sriracha mayo if you like and, at many restaurants, choose from a gluten-free base, halal meats or vegan cheeses. To borrow Burger King’s famous slogan, with pizza you really can have it your way.

This food you can eat with one-hand while scrolling your phone (a habit for 81% of gen Z Americans, according to the Chicago pizza brand Home Run Inn) is simpatico with many smaller trends, too. For instance, in an increasingly abstemious Britain, pizza pairs as well with soft drinks as it does craft beer or hip wines.

Pizza is also popular as a grazing snack in experiential leisure venues such as Junkyard Golf Club. Not least because, given pizza’s propensity to give such good #cheesepull, it is such a photogenic hit on TikTok and Instagram. “Pizza can look great. It’s got very tactile, visual qualities,” says Jonny Heyes, whose Manchester-based Nell’s venues sell NY-style slices and huge 22in pizzas.

As food fashions accelerate, pizza is also well-placed to endlessly mutate, using new toppings and imported or hybrid styles. “It’s vibrant. There’s a lot of innovation,” says Heyes. But equally: “You don’t have to explain it too much. It’s pizza.”

The big change in the last decade, arguably traceable to the 2008 Brixton launch of Franco Manca, now a sizeable restaurant chain, has been Neapolitan-style pizza’s seemingly unstoppable rise. There are naysayers who find Neapolitan pizza too wet, floppy and limp. But after decades of dry, cracker-like or greasily stodgy pizzas, the Neapolitan base is, for many, revelatory: light, elastic, easily digested. At its best (see Manchester’s Honest Crust), that painstaking dough preparation goes hand-in-hand with sweet, pulped tomato sauces and a restrained composition of toppings to create a fresh, vivid interplay of flavours.

How authentically Neapolitan such pizza is varies. Pizzerias with Neapolitan owners, such as Peckham’s lauded 081, or those, such as York’s Cresci, that adhere to the exacting rules of certifying body Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, are vastly outnumbered by kitchens that, having nailed an outline Neapolitan pizza, take it in their own direction.

To enhance the base’s flavour, many pizzerias use 36, 48 or 72-hour proved sourdough doughs, which are not traditional in Naples. So-called “leoparding” – tasty spots of char on the crust – would be considered a flaw by pizzaioli (pizza chefs) working on Naples’ Via dei Tribunali. UK pizzerias, says Young, “are influenced by these styles, but find their own personal voice”.

Others go further. “We’re not Italian and neither are our pizzas,” announces the website of south London restaurant group Four Hundred Rabbits, part of a … Britalian? … wing that in their creative toppings reflect the globalised, multicultural variety of British food.

“Is there such a thing as ‘London pizza’?” Foodism magazine asked in 2019. Yard Sale’s restaurants – which serve a Neapolitan-inspired margherita, use an Italian-American-style cooked tomato sauce, carry Londoner the Rib Man’s Holy F*ck hot sauce as a dip and last year collaborated with east London Pakistani grill masters Tayyabs on a lamb keema pizza – would seem, in that distinctive confluence of influences, to provide the answer: yes.

In Margate, the Great British Pizza Co takes inspiration from everywhere to create pizzas such as blue cheese and pear on a ricotta base, or beef salami, rocket and horseradish cream. “Like any dish, pizza is about a balance of flavours,” says its owner, Lisa Richards. A popular vegan special of roasted tomatoes, hummus, pickled red onion, rocket, tahini and sesame seeds is “essentially a flatbread. But we’re OK with that.”

There are still many styles, such as the opinion-splitting St Louis pizza (loaded toppings on a very thin, unleavened base, often described as cracker-like), or Detroit pizza’s close cousins, the Long Island grandma-style or Sicilian sfincione, that remain largely unexplored in Britain. Very few venues serve Naples’ other pizza, montanara. These 7in pillows of fried pizza dough are traditionally topped with ricotta and ciccioli, a kind of Neapolitan pork scratching. In his cookbook Jamie’s Italy, Jamie Oliver describes pizza fritta as: “The lightest pizzas I’ve ever eaten.”

Making Neapolitan-style pizza is, says Neal Bates, the managing director of Rudy’s Pizza, “a real art”. Trained pizza chefs are now in high-demand and growing brands, such as Rudy’s, are opening academies to train chefs in-house. Pre-Brexit, says Bates, a “steady stream” of Italian pizza chefs worked in Britain, filling positions and sharing knowledge. They are fewer now.

Nonetheless, there is a streamlined efficiency to pizza restaurants. Generally, they are less complex and less expensive to operate than standard restaurants. Fine-tune processes, such as dough recipe and toppings prep, and with the right staff and ovens, you can work fast and reliably. Diecast in Manchester uses a double-layered conveyor belt-style oven that means it can serve 300 an hour of its “NeoPan” Neapolitan-Detroit hybrid pizzas at peak times, and has the capacity to do more than double that number. “There are not a lot of products that can do that,” says its chef and co-owner Dan Mullen.

Pizza in pubs still has “massive potential”, says Young. Gregg’s apart, options for on-the-go slice pizza also remain limited. Expect more there, too. Among aficionados, there is talk about crispy pizza bouncing back, and people are flocking to the New York-influenced Crisp W6 in Hammersmith for inspiration.

“People want a satisfying crunch. Audible pizza,” says Young. But, distinguished by its thin, well-baked base and charred rim, could Conneticut’s New Haven pizza also surge through? Stateside interest in the style has “gone bonkers”, the local expert Colin M Caplan recently told the New York Times. St Albans pizzeria Gracey’s is a notable British supporter. Its 16in “crispy, crunchy” New Haven pizza with tomato, garlic, mozzarella, pecorino-romano and oregano is its homage to the classic.

Young is still hungry for change. This former “New York pizza chauvinist” is fascinated by pizza’s endless variety. Naples opened his mind, and every tasty discovery since: “It’s renewed my love of pizza.”

• Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.