Alley-oop!
Authentic Naples pizza from his own backyard kitchen
AS you walk up the narrow cobbled alleyway that runs behind a row of terraces, you wouldn’t think you’re yards away from one of Greater Manchester’s top-rated takeaways.
The first clue is the sight of the huge stone pizza oven over a wall. Beyond a creaky wooden gate is the small backyard where incredible grub is being knocked up.
For the past year or so, Italian food fanatic Mark Fellows has been rustling up traditional Neapolitan pizzas. He’s taken Stockport by storm.
Every weekend the alleyway behind Mark’s home in Edgeley has queues of people waiting to get their hands on his food.
Mark makes his pizzas from scratch using ingredients imported from northern Italy. He’s earned a perfect five-star rating on Just Eat.
Mark, 51, was a plasterer by trade until around four years ago.
Before the pandemic, Mark decided he wanted a change and made his hobby into a vocation, founding NAPOLeZZA.
“My knees were going, my elbows were going, my back was going,” he added. “I was approaching my 50s, so more as a retirement plan I decided to go into business doing pizza. I started off doing pop-ups – outside pubs, campsites, weddings, parties... that sort of thing. People were loving it and asking when they could get another one.
“I decided to set up here, more for repeat custom. It also meant I didn’t have to fork out in pitch fees, which can run to a few hundred quid a week if you’re out every day.”
He uses his home on Bloom Street – which he shares with his daughter,
her husband and his grandchildren – as his base.
He set up a sterile catering kitchen in his cellar so the council could accredit him. He was awarded a fivestar hygiene rating.
Mark’s £18,000 Gozney Master oven cooks pizzas in under two minutes, with temperatures of more than 500C. A gazebo covers the area where he stretches his handmade dough and finishes the pizzas.
Mark added: “Once a few people started posting photographs, I had queues of people out the gate and into the street. I’m doing 100 pizzas a night at weekends and about half that in the week. This is harder graft
than plastering.”
Mark’s neighbours have helped him along the way. “When I was setting up the oven, they were asking what it was as it looked like a spaceship,” he added.
“Once it was up, I put 50 to 100 pizzas through it to test it and I gave them away to everyone, which endeared me to them. Now they love it and all buy them, so it’s great.”
Mark makes his pizza according to the standards of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN). He imports San Marzano tomatoes, grown at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, Fior Di-Latte mozzarella cheese and spianata piccante, the original version of what we know as pepperoni.
He makes his own dough using Italian flour, yeast, salt and water.
He also offers white pizza, without the tomato base, and a dessert pizza – made by folding dough over chocolate hazelnut spread.
“When I started I just hoped that the pizza and ingredients would speak for themselves,” he added. “I think they are doing.”
The takeaway is open every day, except Mondays, from 4pm until 11pm and is on Just Eat, Deliveroo and https://napolezza.com