Pronto in the news – read all about it!

News of the opening of Pronto – Edinburgh’s newest pizzeria which offers the most authentic pizza to be found in Scotland – caught the attention of the national media.

The story – which outlined how the new site in Portobello provided Belmonte Catering with its first ‘bricks and mortar’ operation – featured in four articles.

Edinburgh Evening News’s coverage told how Belmonte Catering owner Michael Notarangelo was excited to share the food of his childhood.

Michael said: Making authentic Neapolitan pizzas is a way of tapping into my roots from growing up in Italy. I was always around real Italian food where everything was bought from the market and all pizzas were woodfired. When I was younger I didn’t realise how good that was but as you get older you realise it’s hard to emulate that flavour.

“But that’s customers will get at Pronto Pizza. We’ve got a great supplier in Cibosano who import top quality Italian ingredients – better than you can find anywhere else. We want to make sure everything we use is authentic, DOP stamped, so customers get the best experience.”

The article by Edinburgh Live told how the opening of Pronto allowed Michael to fulful a ‘family dream’ to open an pizzeria in Portobello.

Michael said: “It’s always been a pipe dream in the family to open a pizzeria. I’ve lived in Portobello for over 20 years, I know the market really well and I’m excited to bring authentic Italian pizza to the area and look forward to being part of such a tight community.”

“We are proud to have painstakingly researched and trialled different doughs until we finally settled on a recipe that was as close as I could get to replicating the pizzas I used to have growing up and taking holidays in Italy.”

The Edinburgh Reporter focused its article on Michael’s Italian heritage.

Michael said: “I grew up eating great pizza during trips to my grandparent’s home in Italy and my aim is to emulate that nostalgic taste in all the pizzas we do. I always knew I wanted my own pizza place. But it had to be right, serving proper, authentic log-fired pizza that I remember from my childhood.”

“I was always around real Italian food where everything was bought in season from the market and all pizzas were wood-fired with juicy, ripe tomatoes and locally-sourced mozzarella. When I younger I didn’t realise how good that was but as you get older you realise it’s hard to emulate that flavour.”

Finally, Deadline News hailed the arrival of Pronto as further proof of the growing success of Belmonte Catering.

It reported: “The launch of Pronto – on Brighton Place – provides Michael with his first ‘physical’ premises for his fast-growing Belmonte Catering business, which was formed in 2021 after starting as a bespoke street food operation in 2017. Michael named the business after Belmonte Castello, the Italian hill-top village in the Lazio region, between Rome and Naples, where his grandparents originated from.”