Recently back from Italy...

An Italian Margherita usually has a pair of basil leaves, right in the centre.

David - I don't think that the pizza in Italy is almost NYC style but rather NYC pizza is almost Italian style. Having grown up in New Jersey in the early 1950's many evenings were spent at a neighborhood pizzeria run by an older gentleman from Naples. The pies were hand-tossed, extremely thin crust with homemade sauce and hand cut slices of fresh mozzarella garnished with fresh basil. I hadn't had pizza like that since leaving NJ/NY area until we travelled to Italy 4 years ago. I couldn't get enough pizza! I envy you living in NY!

David - I don't think that the pizza in Italy is almost NYC style but rather NYC pizza is almost Italian style. Having grown up in New Jersey in the early 1950's many evenings were spent at a neighborhood pizzeria run by an older gentleman from Naples. The pies were hand-tossed, extremely thin crust with homemade sauce and hand cut slices of fresh mozzarella garnished with fresh basil. I hadn't had pizza like that since leaving NJ/NY area until we travelled to Italy 4 years ago. I couldn't get enough pizza! I envy you living in NY!

I too am back from a Med cruise, 4 nights in Rome and 4 nights in Lake Como. I hear that different parts of Italy have different types of pizza. The famous Naples pizza is thinner. The pizza in Roma was thicker. I think each area has their own specialty. I too like a lot of Basil on my pizza and I was surprised when very little if any was on it.(Margarita ). We left on April 21st and returned home May 10th. We had three days of rain but the last 4 nights in Varenna were perfect. About 75 degrees. Varenna is beautiful!

I believe that for a pizza to be authentic Neopolitan, the crust has to be thin enough to cook in 3 minutes.

I had my first (and last) pizza in Rome over 10 years ago and it reminded me of the hard-tac that we got in the army in Korea. I now stick to the medium crust with lots of toppings.
As they say: "to each their own".

If you want to be sure you're getting a lot of basil on your pizza, just say "Con basilico". Some places don't bother or just put so little that you can barely taste it.

David, we had similar experiences w/ pizzas in Rome. Ordered at two different small restaurants. Ingredients listed basically were presented on the pizza as one piece of each ingredient. We did find it rather odd, because on a previous trip to Italy pizza in Volterra and the Cinque Terre had ingredients generously across the top of the pizzas. All pizzas (both trips) were ordered at charming-looking restaurants with pretty outdoor seating, etc. And, a note to others who may have not experienced pizza in Italy, a single-size pizza is plenty for two hungry people to split, especially when gelato calls afterward.

I respectfully disagree with Margaret: one pizza is often not enough for two hungry people to split. It's usually so good, why would you want to do that? And also you can get two different pizzas . . . No matter how much I eat (and I'm not a big eater), there's always room for gelato!

Just curious about something regarding the method of eating pizza....Having grown up in New Jersey, we always folded our slices, never used a fork and knife. I was just wondering what Italians do and if it differs from region to region??

Mostly no paws from what I've noticed - - but how do you tell an Italian from anybody else?

I always thought a Margherita pizza was just sauce and cheese. I was just in Italy 3 weeks and had pizza in Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre and Rome. I was with a group in Venice everyone ordered their own pizza's. I never saw people sharing a pizza which were mostly the size of 2.5-3 NYC slices.

I agree on the pizzas not being enough to share between two hungry people, maybe as a snack, but not a meal. The pizzas we had provided four average size slices. For a meal we would share a pizza and an entree and maybe even an antipasto.