I went down a dodgy backstreet and discovered Rome’s best pizza

Lost amid towering industrial buildings and scaffolding, we question our route.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” I ask my fiance, Mak, who squints at Google Maps on his phone. Absent are the charming piazzas I envisioned. Instead, we’re walking along streets with concrete car parks and overflowing rubbish bins.

This isn’t the Rome I pictured, but the man at our guest house insists this is where we’ll find the city’s best pizza.

“There it is,” Mak says. “The big yellow smiley face. We must be here.” A line snakes outside Seu Pizza Illuminati, with a mix of chattering locals and curious tourists like us.

Some of Rome’s best pizza can be found at Seu Pizza Illuminati.

It moves quickly and, despite not having a reservation, we beg our way inside. The server informs us with a smile that we have the table until eight, giving us a precious hour.

I scan the QR code, although physical menus float around the room. Classics such as margherita and bufala tempt me, but it’s the Seu specials that truly capture my attention.

Octopus carpaccio with lettuce? A first for me. Roasted carrot and mustard cream? The menu reads more like a Michelin-starred restaurant meal in London than a pizza restaurant in a Roman backstreet. I opt for the octopus, while Mak dives headfirst into a spicy ’nduja number.

The sun warms our table, though the monochrome interior feels a world away from a traditional pizzeria – and that’s precisely the point, according to owners Pier Daniele Seu and Valeria Zuppardo.

“We didn’t want any of the details connected to traditional pizzerias,” Zuppardo tells me. Seu agrees: “It has to be a cool restaurant where you can eat the best pizzas.”

So what makes a “cool” restaurant? Apparently, no red-and-white checkered tablecloths, no bags of flour in sight, and not even a hint of dark wood. Instead, the dining room is cold, with sleek metals, warmed only by the summer sun streaming in through a wall of windows. Diners wear sunglasses.

The server swings by, setting down a pizza for each of us. Mine is light, almost pastel-coloured, with a mosaic of thinly sliced octopus, bits of light-green lettuce, and small blobs of sauteed escarole cream (endive). Mak, meanwhile, is already dissecting his deep-red ’nduja pizza.

My first bite produces an explosion of flavours. The dough, flawless. Blistered edges yield with a press, while the thin centre retains a satisfying chew, thanks to the wood-fired oven. It’s the kind of pizza one would assume is a family recipe, but it’s not. This dough is a Seu original. “No one in my family makes pizza,” Seu explains.

Seu Pizza Illuminati’s octopus carpaccio with lettuce pizza.Credit: Natasha Bazika

Most of the pizzas on the menu are inspired by his travels and fondest food memories. “I’m always thinking outside the box,” he says.

At the time of dining, the menu is filled with eccentric ingredients you wouldn’t expect to find on a pizza. Cuttlefish ink and Asian-style pork belly are just a few of the daring toppings. But as I look around, I realise it’s not a hipster stomping ground. Local families and cliques of nonnas cackle over zucchini-topped pizzas.

Opening Seu Pizza Illuminati in 2018 was a chance for Seu to share his unique pizza concept with Rome. “We want our customers to have a memorable experience,” he says, “where pizza is the leading actor, and the stage is different from what one might assume of a pizza restaurant in Rome.”

One of the unorthodox pizzas at Seu Pizza Illuminati.

Mission accomplished. Seu Pizza Illuminati has received several awards for their pizza, and was recently named the best pizza in Rome and fifth-best pizza in Italy, according to 50 Top Pizza. Their latest venture, Tac Thin and Crunchy, is Seu’s take on Roman-style pizza. Located slightly outside the city centre in Mostacciano, it promises to be worth the journey, especially if Seu Pizza Illuminati is anything to go by.

The restaurant is at least a 20-minute walk from the heart of Trastevere, where most tourists converge for carbonara at Tonnarello. “Finding a location in Rome is a challenge,” Seu says. “Finding one with parking? Nearly impossible. This place, though? It was perfect.”

For the carless, it’s a walk that requires some faith, but as I savour the last bite, the unexpected location adds to the charm. It just goes to show the power of trusting a good recommendation, even when it leads you down a sketchy backstreet.

The details

Fly
China Eastern operates flights from Sydney to Rome via Shanghai. See oa.ceair.com.au

Eat
Pizzas cost about €9-€18 ($15-$30) each. Make reservations at seupizza.com

Stay
Double rooms at La Riviere Guesthouse Trastevere start from $210 a night. See lariviere.it

The writer dined at her own expense.