who created pizza

Nobody knows exactly who “created” pizza, but historians agree on a few key points about how it began and who shaped the modern pizza we eat today.

Quick Scoop: So…who created pizza?

• Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans were already eating flatbreads with toppings thousands of years ago, so the idea of pizza has very old roots.

• The modern Italian pizza (round dough, baked in a hot oven, topped with tomato and cheese) developed in Naples, Italy, in the 1700s–1800s as cheap street food for the poor.

• The person most often called the “father of modern pizza” is Neapolitan baker Raffaele Esposito , who, in 1889, baked a pizza with tomato, mozzarella, and basil in honor of Queen Margherita of Savoy—this became the famous Pizza Margherita.

• Because pizza evolved over time, many food historians say that no single person truly “invented” pizza , but Esposito popularized the style that looks like what most of us call pizza today.

Mini history: from flatbread to Margherita

• Ancient flatbreads: Civilizations around the Mediterranean baked flatbreads and added herbs, oil, and sometimes cheese or other toppings—an early “pizza-like” food.

• Naples in the 18th–19th century: In crowded, poor neighborhoods, bakers started topping flatbreads with tomato (a New World ingredient) and selling them as quick, filling street food.

• Esposito and Queen Margherita (1889): Esposito baked a tricolore pizza—red tomato, white mozzarella, green basil—to match the Italian flag; the story goes that the queen loved it, and the pizza was named Margherita.

• This royal connection helped turn a poor people’s snack into a national symbol and later into a global icon.

Different viewpoints people discuss

• “Esposito invented pizza” view: Popular articles and pizzeria lore often credit Raffaele Esposito as the inventor, because his Margherita looks closest to the classic pizza we recognize today.

• “Pizza is older than Esposito” view: Food historians push back and say pizza was already common in Naples long before 1889; Esposito refined and popularized it rather than creating it from scratch.

• “No single inventor” view: Many modern write-ups say it’s more accurate to see pizza as an evolution—from ancient flatbreads to Neapolitan street food to the modern dish—rather than the creation of one genius chef.

Why it’s still a trending topic

• Pizza is now one of the world’s most eaten foods, with billions of pizzas sold every year, so its origin story keeps popping up in documentaries, kids’ videos, and food blogs.

• New articles and videos regularly retell the legend of Esposito and Queen Margherita, adding to the “who really invented pizza?” debate that fans love to revisit.

TL;DR

No one person clearly “created” pizza, but the modern pizza most people think of today was shaped in Naples, Italy , and Raffaele Esposito is the baker most often credited as the key figure behind it.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.