Cheap Eats in Naples That Punch Far Above Their Price

Naples has an unusual relationship with money and food: the two are barely connected. Some of the most memorable things you will eat here cost less than a bus ticket, and the city has built an entire street-food culture around that fact. This is what to order.

Key facts

• Where: Naples, Campania, southern Italy
• Best areas: the historic centre around Via dei Tribunali, the Pignasecca market district, and the Quartieri Spagnoli
• Cash: useful for small counters and market stalls
• Best months: fried counters are busiest late morning and early evening

Pizza a portafoglio

The wallet pizza: a margherita folded twice and handed over in paper to eat while walking. It is the cheapest genuine Neapolitan pizza you will find and, from a good oven, every bit as good as the seated version. Look for the counters near the historic-centre pizzerias that sell straight to the street.

Pizza fritta

Before wood ovens were everywhere, Naples fried its pizza. The dough is stuffed — typically ricotta, provola, pork cracklings and tomato — sealed and dropped into hot oil. It is enormous, absurdly satisfying and still one of the great budget meals in Italy.

The cuoppo

A paper cone of fried things: small fish, calamari, courgette flowers, potato croquettes, arancini and zeppoline of seaweed dough. Sold by weight or as a set cone, it is the ideal aperitivo hour purchase — eat it on a step by the sea.

Street classics from the friggitoria

Frittatina di pasta is a bound, breaded, deep-fried disc of pasta with béchamel and peas. Crocchè are potato croquettes. Both cost very little and both are better than they have any right to be.

The pastry counter

Sfogliatella comes two ways: riccia, with its shattering ribboned shell, and frolla, a softer shortcrust version. Have one warm, standing at the bar. Then there is babà, a rum-soaked sponge sold everywhere, and taralli 'nzogna e pepe, the peppery almond-studded rings sold from carts along the seafront.

Coffee, the Neapolitan way

Espresso here is short, strong and often pre-sweetened — say amaro if you want it without sugar. It is one of the cheapest things you can buy in the city, and the tradition of the caffè sospeso, paying for a stranger's coffee in advance, still survives in some bars.

Where to buy

The Pignasecca market is the city's best-value food street, with fish, produce, fried counters and bakeries in a few noisy blocks. Via dei Tribunali delivers the pizza. Between them, you can eat magnificently all day for very little.

Tip: Order one seated pizza and let everything else be street food. That single trade-off is what makes Naples the best-value eating city in Italy — and prices are approximate, so check the board before you order.