Best Pizza in Amalfi: Where to Eat It and What to Order

What pizza in Amalfi looks like

The Amalfi Coast is fish country first, and the brick oven sits in a supporting role. The pizzas at our pick, Il Piennolo in Cetara, are contemporary Neapolitan, while the pizza named for the coast itself, the Amalfitana, dresses fior di latte and confit tomato cream with stracchino, almonds, crisp speck and rocket pesto. Somewhere in between sits the classic margherita, built on tomato, mozzarella and a scatter of basil.

That means you plan pizza as a meal out, not a snack grabbed between sights. Il Piennolo runs table service at lunch and dinner, so a pie arrives as a course in a leisurely lunch rather than a slice from a counter. If you want a quick bite instead, look to a bakery or a pastry shop for something savoury and save the oven for the evening.

Our pick: Il Piennolo in Cetara

Il Piennolo sits on the small seafront of Cetara, at Piazza Cantone, and the kitchen is run by Carlo Fiamma. The pizza list runs from a marinara topped with anchovies to the layered Amalfitana, with a simple caprese for anyone wanting less on top.

Cetara is a working fishing village, and the menu leans on what the sea gives it, with a tuna pizza keeping faith with the local catch. The trade-off is travel. Amalfi town's own eating concentrates on seafood and pasta, so the pizza worth planning around means heading to Cetara rather than a stroll from the cathedral square. If you are staying in Amalfi without a car, treat lunch as the outing and plan the journey to Cetara in advance.

For the rest of Amalfi's tables, from seafood trattorias to the harbour front, see our guide to The Best Restaurants in Amalfi, Chosen by What You Want to Eat. If you are drawn to the coast's lemons, our Amalfi Lemons guide explains why the fruit tastes different here.

What to order at Il Piennolo

Start with the marinara with anchovies, a simple pie and a useful test of any oven. If you want the full house style, order the Amalfitana: fior di latte, confit tomato cream, stracchino, almonds, crisp speck and rocket pesto, a nutty, layered combination that is more inventive than a standard margherita.

The Nerano is the other pie worth knowing, and the tuna pizza keeps the Cetara theme. The classic margherita here is described as very good, which matters if you want to judge the dough rather than the toppings. Add a caprese if someone at the table wants something light and unfussy.

How Il Piennolo works

This is a full restaurant with table service, not a slice counter, so treat it as a lunch or dinner booking rather than a pit stop. Per 50 Top Pizza, it serves both lunch and dinner and has no weekly closing day.

Because it is a proper sit-down meal, slot it into the middle of a beach day or the start of an evening rather than squeezing it between ferries. Cetara's seafront setting rewards a slow lunch, and the village is small enough to walk off a second slice before the ride back.

Pairing pizza with an Amalfi seafood dinner

If you have one day for both, take pizza at lunch in Cetara and keep the evening in Amalfi town for fish. Trattoria Da Maria on Via Lorenzo d'Amalfi, steps from the cathedral, is the kind of family trattoria that gives you the coastal cooking the area does best.

Da Maria began with grandmother Colomba cooking from the garden and the sea, and the kitchen stays close to that brief. The menu changes with the season and the catch, so what appears on any given day depends on both. If you want a sit-down breakfast before heading to Cetara, our breakfast in Amalfi guide covers where to eat in the morning.

What to order from the sea at Da Maria

The kitchen's own descriptions run to linguine with fresh anchovies or with limpets, and tubetti with baby octopus, a small pasta shape that holds the sauce well. Marinated pesce bandiera, a long flat fish, appears as an antipasto, and aubergine boats (melanzane a barchetta) and a pan of courgette and potato offer vegetable-based plates.

The menu follows the territory, between mountain and sea, and the season, with its changing produce. The room began with just five tables. For more of the town's simpler tables, our guide to trattorias in Amalfi covers where else to sit down for a plate of pasta.

Choosing between pizza and seafood with one evening

If you have a single night in Amalfi, choose the seafood dinner and leave pizza for lunch or another day. Amalfi town is built around its fish and pasta, and a plate of linguine with anchovies eaten near the cathedral tells you more about the place than a drive to Cetara at dusk.

If pizza is the point of the trip, take the Cetara lunch and keep the evening simple: a plate of pasta near the harbour or a plate of cured fish. The two meals complement each other better when the pizza comes in daylight, when you can see the village and the sea it faces. For an evening that starts with a drink and a snack before dinner, look at where to take aperitivo in Amalfi.

The Amalfitana explained

Two names on the menu at Il Piennolo tell you what you are getting. The Amalfitana is the house pie, built on fior di latte and confit tomato cream with stracchino, almonds, crisp speck and rocket pesto for a layered, nutty profile. The tuna pizza, meanwhile, keeps faith with Cetara's fishing tradition.

The Amalfitana is a contemporary house invention rather than an old local style, and worth ordering as such. If you want a simpler pie that leans on the sea, the marinara with anchovies is on the same list. Cetara's anchovy trade runs deep, and the pizza reflects it.

Is the Cetara pizza detour worth it?

Yes, if pizza is part of your plan for the trip rather than an afterthought. Il Piennolo is a sit-down restaurant in a fishing village, and the ride west from Amalfi buys you the Amalfitana, the anchovy marinara and a seafront lunch you will remember longer than another plate of pasta in the town centre.

Keep the evening in Amalfi for seafood at a family trattoria, and the day shapes itself. If you have walked into town with no plan at all, start from the cathedral square and work down the lanes towards the harbour, where the eating and the sea are closest together.