L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele Ebisu
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One thing that sets me apart from most people is that I really love pizza. Unlike your standard American who basically never eats this strange Italian delicacy, I eat it as often as I can. Unfortunately, Japan has some really strange pizza, expensive delivery, and cheese that often makes me sick. I’m always on the lookout for an authentic Italian joint that can deliver a proper marinara that doesn’t have anchovy paste on it. Up until this past week, my favorite pizza in Tokyo was Gino Sorbillo, an outpost of a famous restaurant in Napoli. But there’s another Neapolitan favorite that has a Tokyo shop, and this one is a must-visit.
L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele in Ebisu
L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele is one of the most famous pizza places in the world. Their Napoli location has super long lines, and if you’ve ever watched a food show about pizza in Napoli, you’ve probably seen them. It’s apparently in the movie Eat, Pray, Love. We’ve chosen not to wait in line when we’ve visited Napoli, so the Tokyo store is the first one we’ve visited.
The restaurant is located in the Ebisu neighborhood, just a couple minutes’ walk from Ebisu station. We had a reservation, but we didn’t need one. There were plenty of open tables at around 12:30pm on a Wednesday. The decor was nice, a bit Italian but mostly just well-spaced and comfortable. The menu has some lunch deals where you can get a pizza and drink for a reasonable price.
The one thing we knew about this place was that the pizzas are big. So, instead of each getting a pizza, we ordered one marinara along with a salad. We then ate those things.
Salad and drinks at Pizzeria da Michele
I got an iced coffee, and Eriko got a mandarin orange juice. The juice was pretty tart, and fairly small. My iced coffee was basic, but just fine.
The salad was way better than I expected. It had a ton of delicious parmesan cheese on top, and the ingredients tasted fresh, with no one thing overpowering anything else. Pizza places are known for crappy salads, but that wasn’t the case here. We took down that whole salad quickly. I absolutely recommend our system of one salad and one pizza vs. two pizzas that will probably ruin your afternoon because you’ll be too stuffed to move.
Pizza marinara at L’Antica Ebisu
As I said, Japanese cheese often makes me sick, so when I’m not in Italy (and sometimes when I am), I usually order pizza marinara. This type of pizza is very simple: tomato sauce, garlic, oregano, olive oil. That’s it. You’d be surprised how easily this can be screwed up, especially when I forget to read the menu and don’t notice that a Japanese place puts anchovy paste squeezed out of a tube on it, a big ring of gray to ruin my favorite pizza.
L’Antia doesn’t do that nonsense. They do the standard ingredients, along with a little basil. And look how much garlic and oregano they put on there! This pizza was huge, definitely big enough for the two of us.
I took a single bite, and was in heaven. The tomato sauce, oregano, and garlic were all delicious and high-quality. Instantly, this was the best pizza I’d ever had in Japan. There was just enough oil on there to be tasty but not so much as to weigh it down.
The real star here was the crust. It was crispy but not burnt, thick enough to hold as a slice but not so thick that it was chewy or overpowered the toppings. Sometimes you get a pizza that’s nearly all crust, or a crust so thin that it falls apart while you transfer it to your plate. It’s tough to make a perfect pizza, and this was honestly the best crust I’ve ever eaten. Superb.
Verdict: should you visit L’Antica Pizzeria in Tokyo?
I can’t speak for this place’s other pizzas, but as a marinara guy, I can confidently say this is the best pizza I’ve had in Japan, one of the best I’ve had anywhere. It was just perfect. They got right what everyone else gets wrong. And the lunch deal means you get a pizza and drink for 2,100 yen. That’s under $13.
The answer is yes, it’s better than the Gino Sorbillo in Tokyo. In fact, I think it was better than the Gino Sorbillo in Napoli. There was just so much flavor packed into every single bite of this pizza.
If I lived in Ebisu, I would come here for lunch every day. I’m already scheming for how I can go back. It’s cheap, delicious, and of the utmost quality. There’s really not much else to say about it. You won’t find a more authentic Italian pizza than this one. Go there. I don’t care if you’re on vacation and you think it’s silly to eat Italian food in Japan. Eat this thing.
Where to find L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele in Tokyo
Address: 〒150-0013 Tokyo, Shibuya, Ebisu, 4 Chome−4−7 第６伊藤ビル １階
Hours: 11:30am-3pm, 5:30pm-9:30pm M-F, 11:30am-9:30pm Sat-Sun
Instagram: Pizzeria da Michele
If you’re unfamiliar with Ebisu, it’s a trendy neighborhood with tons of Western food and coffee shops. Best of all, it’s only one stop from Shibuya, so you can escape the overpriced tourist food in Shibuya and get yourself some tasty pizza.
