Forget Puglia, Pisa or Palermo: Pabianice in Poland is the world’s top spot for pizza!
The Zielona Górka restaurant, which lies at the heart of the small city near Łódź in central Poland, has been named the best at making Neapolitan-style pizza in a survey of over a thousand pizzeria owners across the world.
“I never ever expected to be give such an award. It’s great publicity for the restaurant, which I run with my wife, but also a great boost for Pabianice and the area,” Jędrzej Lewandowski, the pizzeria’s founder said.
Like others inspired by techniques developed in the southern Italian city of Naples, Lewandowski’s restaurant is part of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN), a worldwide organization dedicated to promoting authentic Neapolitan pizza.
In a poll of the AVPN’s members – which include around 1,100 pizza makers from 50 countries – Zielona Górka was honored as number one for 2024. It’s only the second time the Best AVPN Pizzeria award has been handed to a company outside Naples.
The pizzeria, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in the upcoming months, got a good slice of publicity last year, when it was named the 20th best in Europe by a group of Italian experts.
This had a positive impact on business, said Lewandowski, a former architect who abandoned his previous work to follow his dough-throwing dreams.
“Success in the world rankings has made us a household name – we get clients from all over Poland and from abroad,” he told the Polish press agency, PAP.
“Recently we had an American customer from New York. He lived in Krakow but came to Pabianice on the train twice to eat our pizza.
“This is why I feel such great responsibility for what we do.”
Poland is better known for the humble pierogi: a dish that recently received a star-studded endorsement by pop queen Taylor Swift’s entourage.
The quintessentially Polish dumpling is also set to reach the stars – astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski is hoping to take some pierogi with him when he blasts off on a mission to the International Space Station this spring.
But for pizza lovers it is Pabianice pizza that is out of this world.
“I never ever expected to be give such an award. It’s great publicity for the restaurant, which I run with my wife, but also a great boost for Pabianice and the area,” Jędrzej Lewandowski, the pizzeria’s founder said.
Like others inspired by techniques developed in the southern Italian city of Naples, Lewandowski’s restaurant is part of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN), a worldwide organization dedicated to promoting authentic Neapolitan pizza.
In a poll of the AVPN’s members – which include around 1,100 pizza makers from 50 countries – Zielona Górka was honored as number one for 2024. It’s only the second time the Best AVPN Pizzeria award has been handed to a company outside Naples.
The pizzeria, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in the upcoming months, got a good slice of publicity last year, when it was named the 20th best in Europe by a group of Italian experts.
This had a positive impact on business, said Lewandowski, a former architect who abandoned his previous work to follow his dough-throwing dreams.
“Success in the world rankings has made us a household name – we get clients from all over Poland and from abroad,” he told the Polish press agency, PAP.
“Recently we had an American customer from New York. He lived in Krakow but came to Pabianice on the train twice to eat our pizza.
“This is why I feel such great responsibility for what we do.”
Poland is better known for the humble pierogi: a dish that recently received a star-studded endorsement by pop queen Taylor Swift’s entourage.
The quintessentially Polish dumpling is also set to reach the stars – astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski is hoping to take some pierogi with him when he blasts off on a mission to the International Space Station this spring.
But for pizza lovers it is Pabianice pizza that is out of this world.
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