Hungarian Pizza Shop Creates Ancient Roman Recipe Using 2,000-Year-Old Ingredients

A Budapest pizzeria has developed a unique pizza using only ingredients available during ancient Roman times, inspired by a 2023 archaeological discovery in Pompeii. The experimental dish excludes tomatoes and mozzarella, instead featuring ingredients like fermented fish sauce, duck confit, and olive paste.

BUDAPEST, Hungary — A pizzeria in Hungary’s capital has created an unusual culinary experiment that takes diners on a journey back 2,000 years, long before ingredients like tomatoes and mozzarella ever reached European shores.

Neverland Pizzeria’s owner Josep Zara and his culinary team have developed a special pizza recipe that exclusively uses ingredients that ancient Romans would have recognized, creating a dish from an era when modern pizza didn’t exist.

“Curiosity drove us to ask what pizza might have been like long ago,” Zara explained. “We went all the way back to the Roman Empire and wondered whether they even ate pizza at the time.”

Technically, ancient Romans didn’t consume pizza as we understand it today. Tomatoes didn’t arrive in Europe until centuries later from the New World, and mozzarella cheese hadn’t been developed yet. Historical accounts suggest that mozzarella’s creation directly led to pizza’s invention in Naples during the 18th century.

However, Romans did consume flatbreads baked in ovens and topped with various herbs, cheeses and sauces — the true predecessors of today’s pizza — commonly sold at ancient Roman food stalls known as thermopolia.

The inspiration for Zara’s creation came from a 2023 archaeological find in Pompeii, where researchers discovered a fresco showing a focaccia-style flatbread garnished with what appeared to be pomegranate seeds, dates, spices and a sauce resembling pesto. This discovery captured international attention and sparked Zara’s creativity.

“That made me very curious about what kind of flavor this food might have had,” he noted. “That’s where we got the idea to create a pizza that people might have eaten in the Roman Empire, using only ingredients that were in wide use at the time.”

Zara dove into extensive research on Roman food culture, working with a German historian and studying the ancient cookbook De re coquinaria, believed to have been written around the 5th century. His research produced a comprehensive list of historically authentic ingredients for the restaurant’s head chef to work with.

“We sat down to imagine what we might be able to make using these ingredients, and without using things like tomatoes and mozzarella,” Zara said. “We had to exclude all ingredients that originated from America.”

Head chef László Bárdossy explained that these limitations led to months of testing and several unsuccessful attempts.

“We had to discard a couple ideas,” Bárdossy said. “The fact that there wasn’t infrastructure like a water system at the time of the Romans made things difficult for us, since more than 80% of pizza dough is water. We had to come up with something that would have worked before running water.”

Their breakthrough came from using fermented spinach juice to help the dough rise. The base incorporates ancient grains like einkorn and spelt, which were commonly grown during Roman times, resulting in a denser texture than contemporary pizza dough.

The completed pizza features toppings associated with wealthy Roman dining, including epityrum (an olive paste), garum (a fermented fish sauce that was essential in Roman cuisine), duck leg confit, toasted pine nuts, ricotta cheese, and a grape reduction sauce.

“Our creation can be called a modern pizza from the perspective that we tried to make it comprehensible for everyone,” Bárdossy explained. “Although we wouldn’t use all its ingredients for everyday dishes. There is a narrow niche that thinks this is delicious and is curious about it, while most people want more conventional pizza, so it’s not for everyday eating. It’s something special.”

According to Zara, this experimental dish embodies Neverland Pizzeria’s overall approach to food.

“We’ve always liked coming up with new and interesting things, but tradition is also very important for us, and we thought that these two things together suit us,” he said.

Despite their willingness to experiment, Zara noted there’s one modern ingredient the restaurant refuses to use.

“We do a lot of experimentation with our pizzas. But of course, we definitely do not use pineapple,” he said.