Going to a pizzeria is becoming an increasingly less accessible luxury. According to a recent survey by Altroconsumo – conducted on thirty Italian cities through data from the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy – the average cost of a pizza with a drink has grown by 4.4% in the last year and by more than a quarter compared to 2021.
The city by city ranking
The strongest price increases since 2021
The five-year comparison reveals very different situations from city to city. Palermo records the most significant increase – almost 60% in five years – followed by Naples with over 50%, a paradoxical figure for the world capital of pizza. Significant increases also in the North, with Bolzano and Udine among the most affected. Ancona and Perugia are the exceptions, substantially stable, and above all Parma, the only city in the sample to even show a decline.
The price gap is widening
An element that emerges forcefully is the growing lack of homogeneity within the same cities: there is no longer a “standard” price for a pizza. In Palermo, for example, you can spend from 9 to 28 euros for the same meal, depending on the restaurant. Milan and Florence also show similar differences. On the contrary, Reggio Calabria remains the most uniform city, with a difference of just 2 euros between the minimum and maximum detected.
In the end, pizza remains a symbol — but less and less within everyone’s reach. What for decades represented the democratic meal par excellence, the simplest way of being together without thinking too much, is turning into something that requires a budget, a choice, almost planning. And when even Naples – the city that invented pizza – sees an increase in prices of 51%, there is little to console oneself. The ritual is still there, but the bill that arrives at the end of the evening tells of a country in which even the simplest pleasures are becoming a privilege.
