If you are looking for Neapolitan-style pizza in a peaceful piazza in the center of Tokyo then Gino Sorbillo is the place for you. The outdoor seating looks out over a quiet square with verdant trees and colorful sculptures, with no traffic. Best of all, the square is covered by a glass canopy jutting out from the third story, so it stays dry even in the rainy season.
The menu offers a choice of a dozen pizzas, many classics and a few rarities. Prices range from 1,700 to 2,700 yen, but the pizzas are larger than the typical Tokyo size. Those in the know order two pizzas between three and share. For those unable to finish the whole thing, the staff will happily wrap the left-over slices in tinfoil for take-out.
The ingredients are generally so plentiful it's hard to pick up the pizza. The Salsiccia Friarielli is absolutely loaded with sweet sausage, mounds of tart friarielli (turnip-rape) greens, as well as provola and mozzarella cheeses. There are piles of salami slices on the Salame too, swimming in a gooey mess of mozzarella and tomato.
Along with the classic Margherita (called Antica Margherita here), the Margherita Bufala adds buffalo mozzarella and parmesan cheese to the heavenly combination of tomato, basil and mozzarella. Pizza Calabrese comes with the smoky spicy Nduja Picante sausage (although not quite as generously as other pizzerias in town), tomato sauce, red onions, and parmesan cheese. The Pesto di Basilico combines cherry tomatoes, Genovese sauce and mozzarella in a very appealing threesome.
Specials include the Pizza Fritta, deep-fried folded pizza with salami, ricotta, tomato sauce; and Provola e Speck, provola cheese and basil topped with speck (smoked ham). In the summer, they offer a controversial Pizza Ananas (pineapple pizza!), a blasphemy that would to bring out mobs with pitchforks and torches in Italy.
The drinks menu offers several Italian beers including Moretti, Baladin and Antoniana, house red, white and prosecco, and liqueurs such as Limoncello, Aperol, etc.
Budget about 2,000 to 3,000 yen for lunch, and 5,000 to 6,000 yen for dinner with drinks.
by Richard Jeffery