Gennaro Luciano is the fifth-generation owner of Antica Pizzeria Port´Alba (the world's first pizzeria, founded in 1830). First established in 1738 as a stand for street vendors, Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba opened in 1830 in the city center at Via Port’Alba 18. The restaurant replaced the street vendors who made pizza in wood-fired ovens and carried it out onto the street, keeping it warm in small tin stoves balanced on their heads. The pizzeria soon became a popular meeting place for the people of the neighborhood.
Most of its patrons were artists, students and others with very little money, so the pizzas made were usually simple, with toppings such as oil and garlic. A payment system called pizza a otto was developed, allowing customers to pay up to eight days after their meal. This later gave rise to a local joke that a meal at Port’Alba might be someone's last free meal if they died before paying.
Regular customers even wrote poetry in honor of the pizzas. Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba is still in business today, nestled among a row of bookshops. It is widely considered to be the first pizzeria in the world.
