Looking for a Pizza Hut Near You in Larnaca? Here Is What Neapolitan Pizza Is Instead
You typed a chain name because it was the word you had for pizza. This page gives you the other word, without asking you to know anything first.
Why that search can land you here
Most people who type a chain name into a search box are not looking for that chain. They are looking for pizza, and the chain name is simply the word that comes to mind first. Search engines know this, which is why a page like ours can show up for a question it does not literally answer.
So here is the plain answer to the practical half of your search. Filomena is a Neapolitan pizzeria at 1 Aristotelous in Larnaca. We are open Tuesday to Sunday, from 18:00 to 22:00. Monday we are closed. We are not part of a chain, and we have nothing to say about any other place in town.
Neapolitan is a method, not a mood
Neapolitan pizza is one of the few foods with a written standard behind it. The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana publishes a disciplinare that sets out how the dough is made, which ingredients belong on the pizza and how it is baked. You can read it yourself at pizzanapoletana.org. In 2017 UNESCO added the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, which is listed at ich.unesco.org.
That is the background. Here is what it means on our bench. Our dough starts as a biga, a stiff pre ferment, and then takes 48 hours at 77 percent hydration. The tomatoes are San Marzano. The mozzarella is fior di latte. Both come from Italy. The pizzaiolo is Daniele, born in Naples in 1989.
You do not need to remember any of those words to eat here. They are here so that the pizza in front of you has an explanation if you want one.
400 degrees, and what heat does
A chain pizza is usually baked in a conveyor oven, slowly enough that the dough dries as it cooks. Neapolitan pizza works the other way around. The heat is high, the bake is short, and the dough keeps its water. That is why the centre stays soft and the rim puffs up with dark spots on it.
Our oven is copper and gas fired, and it runs at 400 degrees. We say gas rather than wood because it is gas, and a page that fudges that would be a page you could not trust on anything else. What the heat does to the dough is the point. What fuels it is a detail we would rather state correctly than dress up.
Why we write about grapes and not about tonight
Next to the pizza there is a natural wine list, and it changes. Because it changes, we do not publish what is open on any given evening. A page that promised you a specific bottle would be wrong within the week.
Instead we write a page for a bottle or for a grape, and we keep those pages honest about what the grape tastes like and where it comes from. Xynisteri, for example, is Cypriot. If you have never ordered natural wine and are not sure whether you like it, that is a normal place to start. Ask at the table. Not knowing is allowed here.
If you were only looking for dinner
Filomena is at 1 Aristotelous, Larnaca. Tuesday to Sunday, 18:00 to 22:00, closed Monday. The site is written in English, Italian and Greek, so you can read it in whichever of the three is easiest. Pictures of what came out of the oven are on Instagram at @filomena.pizzeria.napoletana.
Questions people actually arrive with
Q.Are you a Pizza Hut?
No. Filomena is a Neapolitan pizzeria at 1 Aristotelous in Larnaca. We are not part of any chain, and we do not comment on other places in the city.
Q.When are you open?
Tuesday to Sunday, from 18:00 to 22:00. We are closed on Monday.
Q.What actually makes the pizza Neapolitan?
The method. A biga dough fermented 48 hours at 77 percent hydration, San Marzano tomatoes and fior di latte from Italy, and a short bake in a copper oven at 400 degrees.
Q.Can I ask which wine is open tonight?
Yes, at the table. The list changes, so we do not put an answer to that question on a fixed page where it would go stale.