Savoy Azabu-juban

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Tokyo Institution Built on Neapolitan Principles

Savoy opened in April 1995 with a single clear purpose: to honour the origins of Neapolitan pizza while adapting to Japan's four distinct seasons. Nearly three decades on, the Azabu-juban location remains the heart of what has grown into the Savoy International group — and its reputation is backed by a Gambero Rosso 2 Slices award, the Italian food bible's stamp of approval for pizza done right.

The Dough, the Fire, the Philosophy

The foundation of every Savoy pizza is a dough made from carefully selected flour and yeast, with water, salt, and fermentation time and temperature adjusted by hand to match the season. Extended fermentation pushes the dough to its limit, resulting in what the kitchen describes as naturally low in sugars. It then goes into a wood-fired oven at 500°C for roughly one minute — long enough to blister the surface to a crisp while leaving the interior soft and pillowy.

At that extreme heat, olive oil, the moisture in the dough, and the tomato base emulsify almost instantly. The result, according to Savoy, is a pizza that is not only flavourful but genuinely light on the body.

Ingredients That Don't Cut Corners

The mozzarella is made fresh each day from milk pressed the same morning — mild, milky, and good enough to eat on its own. The tomato base is sourced from Italy: bright, slightly acidic, and balanced with a natural sweetness that, the kitchen notes, you can only really find at a specialist.

More Than a Meal

Savoy's stated concept is simple and quietly ambitious: food that is delicious and healthy, for guests of every age, that leaves people smiling when they walk out. The staff, in turn, are meant to feel that happiness reflected back at them. It is an unpretentious loop of hospitality that has kept this corner of Azabu-juban busy through lunch, dinner, and takeaway for three decades — and earned it a place among the pizza addresses that Gambero Rosso considers worth seeking out.