Like 99% of people with a blog and a twitter account, I think of myself as an expert food critic.  

My zeal for this topic is most likely grounded in the fact that I love cooking and therefore have a critical eye for quality of ingredients, technique and consistency, while the fact that I was a restaurant waiter at some point around 16 years old means that I'm also highly critical of service.  In a nutshell I am a JOY to eat with.  Never eat with me.

I didn't realize it at the time but Tokyo is amazing for pizza.  I'm not talking about those daft fast-food corn, mayo & still-moving tentacle pizzas  that you read about on BoingBoing.  I'm talking about authentic neapolitan style pizza that you seem to be able to find in abundance, because Japanese chefs have an innate drive towards the delicate art of NAILING IT.  You see this all over Japanese culture in general, but I see it in their pizza.  Perfectly crispy and chewy, high quality ingredients, drizzled with a little olive oil, baked in seconds in a tremendously hot brick oven.  These places seemed to be everywhere in Tokyo.

Which is why, when I arrived in Singapore I wasn't afraid.  I was complacent - I thought if pizza that good was a birthright to any Tokyo-ite then surely Singapore - a nation whose #1 pre-occupation is shoving food into its throbbing maw - would be able to one-up it.  Good pizza would be everywhere, ubiquitous.  People would feed it to their pets.  Oh how I was wrong.  I have, since landing on May 1st, been on a quest to find the best (neapolitan style) pizza in Singapore.  Here are some places suggested to me, along with my ANGRY BLOGGER EXPERT (TM) thoughts.

(no pic, sorry!)

Someone (a famous food blog, dun-dun-dunnn) recommended this place and when it arrived, even before I tasted it, I knew I wasn't going to like it.  One thing I consider a cardinal sin is to use dry herbs on a pizza. It's lazy, tastes bad and makes it feel like you're eating sawdust.  Sole Pomodoro's pizza was liberally covered in dust-like dried herbs.  You take a bite, they stick to the roof of your mouth, it's just an awful mouthfeel and looked like something a child might make at home after discovering the parents spice rack for the first time.  It's a shame because in terms of vibe, I loved the place - open to the road, warm but not hot, exactly how I like to eat.  And you know, the dough base itself wasn't that bad.  But those herbs were such a huge fail that I won't be going back.

I'm British and tend to avoid conflict at all costs due to our cowardice-thinly-veiled-as-pacifist nature.  But Bella Pizza is one of the only restaurants I've been to in the last TEN years where I have actually sent food back to the kitchen.  I ordered a margherita with buffalo mozzarella and waited, rubbing my hands together like a cartoon villain.  When it arrived, it was a bright shade of yellow.  It doesn't take a smarmy git to know that buffalo mozzarella is WHITE and in fact the only type of mozzarella that is yellow is that hideous, non-mozzarella that you can buy in supermarkets, sometimes pre-grated to remove the flavour further.  I asked the waitress (quite politely) why the pizza is not white on top, and that I believe the kitchen have not used the cheese that is stated on the menu.  To her credit, she said she would get another one for me right away - and about 10 minutes later I received a similarly-yellow pizza (they still insisted on using the yellow stuff!) with some blobs of half-melted buffalo mozzarella strewn on the surface.  And, quite likely, spit, sneeze and jizz.  I won't be going back for their pizza, but they have a decent wine list at least.

I had been hearing a lot about this place and even met the owner by chance at an event who seemed to take great pride in his menu.  When I showed at their Boat Quay restaurant up my expectations were very high after seeing this video:

Which is the very definition of the art of NAILING IT.  They have the right oven, they use fresh ingredients, they don't overload the pizza, it's cooked in literally seconds, and they use olive oil.  When I uncontrollably rubbed my face on the screen, I could even almost taste it.  Arriving at L'Operetta you might be taken aback by the auspicious, fine-dining setting.  There's table cloths and amuse bouches - it's not really the kind of setting I like to enjoy my pizza in but I went there with an open mind.  When the pizza arrived, I could see at-a-glance that they had nailed it.  This is neapolitan style pizza and it tasted exactly as I remember it back in Tokyo at all the amazing pizza places there.  Guess what nationality the chef is?  Japanese.  This restaurant was written and directed by M Night Shyamalan.

My one criticism of L'Operetta is that despite the fact they serve perhaps the best example of neapolitan style pizza in Singapore, they seem to be trying really hard not to be branded as a pizza restaurant.  When I went the first time, pizzas were relegated to the back of the menu - giving priority to the pricey and frankly boring (but well-executed) modern Italian cuisine at the front. When I went the second time the pizzas had disappeared off the menu and I was told that you have to ask for the pizza menu separately in a kind of puppy-dog-eyed Oliver Twist fashion.  Strange behavior in my opinion.  Singapore has a bunch of competent Italian restaurants but if L'Operetta embraced the fact that they do some of the best pizza in Singapore they could own the market and become THE place for neapolitan-style pizza.  But I'm not in charge, I'm just a guy who likes pizza.

I'll start by saying that I think Mario Batali is awesome.  He cares about food and is an encyclopedia of all things Italian and rustic - so again, I had high expectations.  There are some quirks to eating at Mozza:

1) Utensils come in an envelope on your table.  I'm not sure what the idea behind this concept is, other than making it feel like a tacky theme restaurant.

2) You must order EVERYTHING at once.  We were told that adding things onto your order at a later time will result in your WHOLE order going to the back of the queue in the kitchen.  This must be the stupidest rule I've ever heard! There are no winners in that situation.  It's bad for the customer as they feel pressured to order right the first time and can't order more if they see something they like later and it's bad for the business as it discourages add-on orders (i.e. MORE MONEY for the business).  The only thing it seems to benefit is the kitchen's convenience, which is strange to prioritise over the customer or business earnings.

That said, the pizza at Mozza is excellent - but has a personality of its own.  It's not classic neapolitan-style, it's a crackly concoction with gigantic bubbles.  It was rather fun to eat and I would definitely go again.  But if you go, remember the rules or it's No Pizza For You.

There are still some places for me to discover I'm sure.  But out of the above places, L'Operetta wins my cold, black purist heart. It's the closest I have had to really good Neapolitan-style pizza in Singapore which requires high quality ingredients and the right hardware (read: massive brick oven).  Mozza however is a close second - but is not true Neapolitan style, it's just delicious in its own original way.

It turns out that L'Operetta has a much more casual outlet that IS focused on pizza - it's called Pizzeria L'Operetta and it's located at Icon Village in Tanjong Pagar.  I tried it out and the pizza is perfect, and the menu is very much all about the pizza.  Unfortunately what it makes up for in pizza and celebration of the pizza, it loses in ambience as the environment is a little too clinical for me to enjoy; it's in an indoor shopping mall, opposite a salon.  It was also very quiet when I went.  But still, great place for a neapolitan pizza fix!