Are you a pizza obsessive? It’s no shame if you are. At Cinquecento Pizzeria, we are all pizza fanatics and could talk about this tasty savoury dish for hours on end. In this post, we hope to teach you all about the trendy pizza names we use for the pizzas on our menu. Plus, we will also dive into a mini history lesson on how pizza got its name and how our restaurants in the Cinquecento Pizzeria family got their name.
How Pizza Got Its Name?
Ready for your mini food history lesson? As pizza is an older word, it has a number of possible origins.
Firstly, it could come from ‘pitta’, which is of Greek origins. Or it may come from ‘bizzo’ which is a word from an old Western Germanic language, known as Lombardic, that means to ‘bite’.
Initially (as far as records date), we know that bakers first made pizza in Italy just before the year 1000 AD. But it wasn’t till almost 1600 AD that the word was added to an Italian and English hybrid dictionary. However, the initial definition of the word was a ‘small cake/wafer’. So anyone who time travels from 1600 AD to the present day may be surprised when a caked flat dough covered with tomato sauce and cheese arrives.
The history of the word ‘pizza’ and relating it to the current definition of the bread covered in mozzarella and homemade tomato sauce is tricky to follow and complex. However, we do know that the Margherita pizza came to the public from baker Raffaele Esposito on 11th June 1889. Learn more about the Margherita pizza in our ‘Italians guide to a top tier pizza’.
If only this were an in-person lesson, we could give you delicious slices of pizza to munch on while you learn. But at least you now know the origins of the word pizza and can impress your friends with your newfound knowledge about the word’s etymology when you are out for dinner at Cinquecento Pizzeria.
What is the Italian Name for Pizza?
Italians use the word pizza to describe these delicious doughy, cheesy and tomatoey dishes. However, occasionally you may also see Italians using alternative terms for savoury pies, such as ‘crostata’ and ‘torta’ to describe a savoury dish similar to a pizza. But generally, we call them pizzas too, as this is a universal term which was coined in Italy.
How did Cinquecento Pizzeria Get its Name?
Italian pizza shop names are becoming more creative, and we are so proud of the Italian restaurant names in our community of independently-owned Italian restaurants.
Our restaurants in London called ‘Cinquecento Pizzeria’ got its name from an oven. Or rather, the name comes from the temperature of the stone oven we use in all of our branches in London to cook our thin and crispy Neapolitan pizza bases. Cinquecento in Italian translates to 500 in English, which is the very high temperature we use in our ovens to cook the pizzas in a short time while keeping the ingredients fresh, vibrant and delicious. This high-temperature oven also cooks the thin bases without burning them while creating the crusts crispy and the insides floppy to make the most authentic Neapolitan pizza.
Our pizza restaurant names are unique to our restaurants in London, so if you see the Cinquecento Pizzeria sign outside, you know these restaurants are in the same family. We chose to use these pizza places names consistently across all of our four branches in the city so you can find us easily and know that you can trust our team to provide the pizza you deserve.
Names for Pizza on Our Menu
We tend to name our pizzas after their traditional names or predominant flavour. For example, we offer an authentic Margherita pizza. We also do a Piccantissima pizza which is named after its very hot taste from the spicy salami, fresh chilli and Calabrian ‘nduja (a spicy Italian sausage). We often also name our pizzas after a specific region in Italy. For example, the Calabria pizza is named after a section of South Italy, and the Napoli pizza is named after Naples.
We don’t like to overcomplicate things on the menu and, therefore, we choose the best pizza names for the dishes. This leaves us with more time and energy to focus on making the tastiest pizzas possible and creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere for everyone who dines with us in the restaurants.
What is Best Pizza Name?
We aren’t experts when it comes to funny pizza names, as we tend to name our pizzas by traditional names, locations or ingredients. However, feel free to message us on the Cinquecento Pizzeria Instagram if you have created a list of pizza names ideas for our menu, as we would love to show the team and give them a good laugh. We may even share your creative name ideas on our social media pages and see what our followers think and spread joy surrounding pizza.
Don’t Pie Us!
Don’t miss out on our delicious pizza! Just because Italians use words for pizza that may also mean pie, this doesn’t mean we don’t want you over. So try out one of the tasty items on our menu and decide which of the trendy pizza names you should get next time you join us at Cinquecento Pizzeria in London. We don’t take bookings for tables with fewer than six people, so feel free to just rock up and ask if we have any availability. You can find out more information about our peak times and the best days to visit us on this previous blog post. See you soon!