Pizza with Neapolitan brothel sauce

This is the story of a Neapolitan prostitute, Rita.

Naples. The 1950s. A city roaring with life, with all the elegance of a malfunctioning coal stove. In the alleyways, washing hangs between crumbling buildings, scooters belch smoke, and traders shout as though that would make their tomatoes any less ripe.

And then there are the quartieri spagnoli, where morals lose their way faster than tourists on a rainy evening.

At the end of one of those alleyways, behind a creaking door painted a red that had seen the war (and plenty else), worked Rita. A woman like Naples itself: flamboyant, exhausted, insolent. Her profession? Let us just say Rita did not spend her nights reciting the catechism.

She entertained men. Lots of them. And these gentlemen, after their paid acrobatics… were ravenously hungry.

Rita noticed this and calmly considered how to get more money from her customers. Rita was no fool. So she started boiling pasta and frying a little onion when she had some, to extract a few extra lire from these champions of bedroom gymnastics.

Except one evening, there was nothing left in her cupboard. No meat. No basil to make it look pretty. Just two tomatoes rinsed in hope and an onion that had seen better days.

She gritted her teeth. She might be a puttana, but she had a reputation to uphold.

So she ran down to the port of Naples. She bargained with the fishermen (by shouting, because this was Naples). She came back with some salted anchovies, some capers and a handful of olives.

She threw everything into a pan. La salsa alla Puttanesca was born…

Puttanesca = “the whores’ way”

The next day, the whole neighbourhood was talking about it. “Go to Rita, the puttana who cooks!”

At La Corte Segreta, our Pizza Puttanesca di Napoli captures the true DNA of the dish.

One bite and you are back in Naples: beautiful, noisy and bloody alive.

Go to the Pizza Menu HERE