Italians eat pizza with a fork and knife. Pizza is to be enjoyed straight from the oven and piping hot. Waiting for your dinner to cool down is just not an option – protocol says it should be enjoyed straight away.
In Italy, unless sold on the street or “al taglio” (sold in rectangular or square slices by weight), it's always round and served on a plate. 2. You cut the pizza yourself and then eat it with a knife and fork, the most common way, or fold each slice and eat it with your hands.
1. Italians eat their pizza with a fork and knife. You will most likely get some dirty looks from your waiter if you try eating your Margherita pizza with your hands. First off, the different styles of pizza served in sit-down restaurants in Italy are very thin and flimsy in the middle.
Table manners for eating pizza served as an appetizer. As an appetizer with cocktails, a small wedge of pizza is eaten with the fingers. Table manners for eating pizza served at a table. Large pieces of pizza served at a table require the use of a fork.
It's all right to pick up a slice because pizza is an informal food. The best way to eat it is to loosely fold a slice in half to keep the edges from dripping. That's not to say silverware is forbidden. Use utensils if you prefer; they come in handy when you're eating a gooey deep-dish pie.
“According to many of my Italian friends, it's perfectly acceptable to eat a pizza with a knife and fork.” If you are served a whole pizza, Lucy said you need to cut them into a triangle slice before eating. “Firstly you'd cut a triangle within the pizza,” she explained.
Germans and other Europeans rarely eat with their hands! Especially in a fine restaurant or in a formal/semiformal dining situation, even pizza is eaten with a knife and fork. However, if you are at an outdoor Grillparty or eating informally, it's okay to eat some foods, such as hamburgers or hotdogs, with your hands.
The case for forks and knives
Each bite becomes more deliberate, allowing you to appreciate more subtle flavors than you otherwise might if you just folded the slice into a pizza sandwich -- and while that sounds like the best sandwich ever, it's completely beside the point.
Italy offers sauce that many Americans might not be used to. Instead of slow-cooked tomato sauce like we offer here in the US, Italy uses olive oil, pureed fresh tomatoes, garlic, and oregano. This gives their pizza a herby taste that U.S. consumers may not come across often.
Don't eat with your hands.
Other than the bread and/or french fries, food is not eaten with your hands. For foods like Pizza, burgers, all the meals that we usually think to eat with our hands, French people will use a knife and fork.
Pizza-lovers also love to debate how to eat their slices. While a quarter (28%) eat it the traditional way (tip-first), 18 percent prefer going in crust-first, 17 percent fold it in half, and 14 percent sandwich two slices together. Eight percent actually eat pizza with a knife and fork.
No need pretending, Italians very often cut of the crusts of their pizza. It is not considered offensive or wrong. What happens is that the pizza is cut in slice and then eaten holding it in your hands. Most eat till the crust, before going for the next slice.
It's customary to set the table with a fork, knife, and spoon, and you can use your spoon to add sauce and cheese, and then to mix the pasta. However, pasta is meant to be eaten with your fork alone – no spoons to assist.
Using scissors to cut pizza is common practice in Italy when serving square, Roman-style pizza (or Pinsa-style pizza). So, if you're serving thin-crusted, slab-style pizza, these sheers make it easy to dole out.
1- Don't: Eat with an open mouth or make unnatural noises. While in other cultures, burping or smacking might be a signal that the food was good and enough, in Germany you try to eat as quietly as possible.
Traditional pizzas are thin and light, and each person at a table is served a whole pizza. In this setting, many Italians enjoy a piping hot pizza in the safest manner possible: with a knife and fork. It's considered polite to eat the entire pizza when served this way.
As a general rule eating your pizza with a fork and knife is preferred in Italy for two main reasons: The pizza and pizza topping are served very hot and must be eaten hot, so you would burn yourself if you picked it up with your hands.
But when you're in Italy, you shouldn't handle food with your bare hands so liberally as it's actually considered taboo on certain occasions.
Since the crust is very thin it's a bit sloppy to eat with your hands we use a knife and fork, as with any other food. In square slices on the go the crust is thicker and you eat it with your hands.
Most Italian sources agree that in restaurants, cutlery should be used to eat your (whole, unsliced) pizza, not your hands. That may seem weird for something we think of as street food, but it is not nearly as bizarre as the genuinely WTF method used in Naples by those eating pizza on the street.
Fold. "New York slices are typically large," Weiner says. "They're bigger than the plate on which they're served." That's why you have to fold them. "If you don't give any architecture to your crust," he explains, "you get the flop."
Each day, approximately 1 million pizzas are consumed in Italy. Pizza here is popular both among locals and tourists who want to try a taste of authentic Italian cuisine. There are around 63,000 pizzerias in Italy, employing about 100,000 pizza makers.
How do you eat a traditional slice of New York pizza? It's all in the fold. Hold it at the crust, and pinch together the corners of the crust so you form a U-shape.