Don

Don is a recently opened street food spot in Trastevere whose acquaintance I am delighted to have made. Don does one thing and it does it very well: Neapolitan fried pizzas. If you’ve never had one of these (made in the correct way) and you just glanced at the photo, you would be forgiven for thinking that it was heavy, greasy and calorific. It does pack a few calories, but you can forget the other two misgivings. The pizza fryers of Don knows what they’re doing and the result is a delight — to the touch it’s dry, as the golden crust is not a thick layer of batter at all, just a crisp, sealed finish to the pizza dough. For you pizza nerds, the impasto is virtually the same as a regular, Neapolitan pizza, and the effect of frying the well-​sealed pocket of dough in hot oil (changed every day) crisps the outside, leaving it soft in the middle, while heating its filling.
The not so distant cousin of a calzone, these are filled pizzas, and at Don, the regular menu is as heart-​warming as the daily specials. I tried a «Miracolo di San Gennaro», packed with ricotta, tomatoes and sausage sauce. There are «white» variants for those of you who prefer your pizza fritta without tomato, and a host of other tasty combinations. There are also, of course, two sizes: the «sorriso», or smile (known as a «battilocchio» or wink in Naples), and the Oro di Napoli, which is nearly twice as large for just a couple of euros more. The sorriso starts at € 4 while the larger portion starts at € 6, but on Mondays you can have a sorriso and a soft drink for just € 3.50 — great news for your pocket, terrible news for the waistline.