The 50 Top Pizza guide published its 2026 list at a gala in Naples - that is, in the place that considers itself the source of pizza. First place goes to London, to Napoli on the Road, whose owner Michele Pascarella is a born Italian who married Neapolitan tradition to English and seasonal ingredients. So: the world's best Neapolitan pizza, according to an Italian guide, is baked in London.

Spain enters with six restaurants, and the only one in the top ten is Madrid's Baldoria, in eighth place. Its owner Ciro Cristiano, also Italian, opened the place in the Salamanca district to bring Neapolitan dough to the Spanish capital. He works with long fermentation, light dough, fresh ingredients and fast baking in an oven brought from Naples that reaches 420 degrees.

The rest of the Spanish list: Sartoria Panatieri in Barcelona at 29, Fratelli Figurato in Madrid at 69, Oura in Santiago de Compostela at 76, Demaio in Bilbao at 83 and Balmesina in Barcelona at 87. Two places in Madrid, two in Barcelona, one in Bilbao and one in Galicia.

There is a detail here worth knowing before anyone boasts about a "top 50". The guide is called 50 Top Pizza, but it actually ranks a hundred restaurants. So a place at number 87 is on the list - that is true, and it is good - but it is not in the top fifty. The difference between that and what you will read in a marketing post is a full fifty places.

The guide began as an Italian project in 2017 and expanded internationally in 2022. That shift from a national to a global ranking is why a London restaurant can take first place and a Spanish one can enter the top ten. When the criterion stops being geography and becomes craft, the map changes.

What holds practically from all this: long fermentation, light dough, very high heat and a short bake. That is not a secret, it is a technique, and it does not require an Italian passport. It requires an oven that holds its heat and dough that is given time. Those two are the rarest ingredients in any kitchen.