by Emma Biginelli Macchia

It’s National Pizza Day on Saturday 9^th February, and Italian food has never been more popular in the UK. Italian food trucks selling street food are also becoming more famous, especially in London. To celebrate Pizza Day, I went to the Old Spitafields Market in London to find out about their stories and the food they make.

Silvestro Morlando just turned 29 and he owns a food truck called Sud Italia. He makes the original Neapolitan pizza, with all fresh products he imports from Naples and Southern Italy. People wait up to 40 minutes to eat his pizza. He was born in Pescara, but all his family is from Naples and he’s very proud of his origins. 

He came to London because he was tired of following his father’s steps. After working in Italian restaurants for a couple of years, he decided to open his own business and put a wood-fire oven in a small truck. He said: “I decided to make pizza because when you’re making it you can smell all the fresh products and you can feel where they come from. Making pizza for me is like being in Naples, I feel like my truck is in Naples and in London at the same time.” He loves his job now, because it makes him feel like a true Neapolitan guy.

Francesco Desantis, 48, from Umbria, and Federico Iodice, 58, from Naples, own a small truck called ‘Tre Rote’, which means three wheels. They make traditional Italian pasta, like Carbonara, Amatriciana or Boscaiola. They too import all their products from Italy, their cheese comes from Rome and their pancetta from Modena. They said: “Pasta is the most important food for Italians, we eat pasta every day, at home and in restaurants. We want to offer customers the real Italian experience, eat the pasta like we do in our families.”

But Italian street food isn’t only about pizza and pasta. Giovanni Calvagna, 23, makes sandwiches. His truck is called Mamma’s Goodies. He and his brother designed the truck, an Ape Piaggio, in Catania and brought it to London in 2015. He too serves the best original Italian products, like Parma ham, Rovagnati ham, Parmesan cheese, pecorino cheese and mozzarella. He decided to make sandwiches because that’s what his mother used to make him whenever he was hungry back at home. “She was always making me sandwiches with anything she had in the fridge,” he said.

Costumers come to his truck and choose what cheese they want, what bread, and what ingredients, and Giovanni makes a fresh sandwich in front of them. “I can guarantee the most important ingredient in my sandwiches is love. You can’t cook without love,” he said. And made me a sandwich.