Pleasanton Pizza Named 5th Best In The World

PLEASANTON, CA — Naples, Italy is well-known as the birthplace of pizza, the city where the working classes began combining cheese and newly-arrived tomatoes on flatbread as a quick and filling snack in the 18th century.

It stands to reason that one of its native sons, Locanda Amalfi restaurant owner Francesco Esposito, recently created the “5th Best Pizza in the World,” according to the International Pizza Expo, the premiere pizza judging competition in the world. His winning dish, naturally, was his Pizza Napoletana.

At the Las Vegas competition, Esposito competed against hundreds of other chefs, many from Italy, and prepared three types of pizza. His Pizza Napoletana - one of the oldest, proudest forms of pizza that must use particular ingredients and cooked in a particular way - impressed the judges enough to rank it the fifth best in the whole world.

“You have to do the dough in a certain way, a very specific range, and we were very careful about respecting the standard, and that’s why it was much better this time,” Esposito told Patch. “It was a very nice pizza. I was happy with it.”

That’s a high bar for Esposito, who is one of the world’s few certified Master Pizzauioli, a prestigious designation awarded to master pizzamakers. He grew up in Naples, where he worked in a pizzeria with his aunt. He left Naples for the Bay Area in 2017 at just 22, where he worked as a chef at Locanda Ravello, a sister restaurant in Danville. In 2020, he opened Locanda Amalfi in Pleasanton alongside Locanda founder Enzo Rosano.

“We promote freshness. When you go you get a nice community, it’s very different from the other Italian restaurants. All the servers are from Italy, we serve more traditional, but also modern food,” he said, noting that authentic Pizza Napoletana is rare to find around the Bay Area.

International prize-winning Pizza Napoletana is even rarer.

In addition to that, the restaurant boasts full pizza, pasta, meat, salad, wine and dessert menus that will transport you straight to Naples. See here for more information, or here to follow them on social media, make reservations, order takeout, catering, or private events. Locanda also has locations in Danville, Lafayette, Campbell, Brentwood, and a wine bar in Livermore.

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