Two pizzas and it’s delivered right to you！Tianmu’s takeout handmade pizza shop brings the taste of Italy

Text and photos byBurnt-out Nurse

If you’re in Tianmu and craving pizza, you’ll find it’s incredibly easy—there are pizza shops everywhere. But if you’re looking for truly delicious handmade pizza, made with imported Italian flour, Italian mixers, Italian fermentation tubs, and baked in an Italian oven called PapaVito, you’ll become a regular after just one bite.

PapaVito is a shop named after the owner’s father-in-law.

The owner, Monica, is married to a German man. After they got married, they lived in Spain. As a newlywed who didn’t know the first thing about cooking or even the “three treasures” (knife, cutting board, and stove), she encountered her super-skilled Italian father-in-law (her husband’s stepfather) from Florence, who came to Spain to help them. He taught Monica a lot about cooking, sparking her passion for it. Naturally, her Italian father-in-law could make pizza too—and since pizza is more freeform and less restrictive in cooking style, she developed a huge passion for making it.

Twelve years ago, Monica moved back to Taiwan from Spain to her children’s Mandarin education and settled in Tianmu. After returning to Taiwan, she worked for many years at a rental agency that specialized in helping foreigners find housing. Unfortunately, due to the poor market conditions, she decided to switch careers. Though she passed the exam and completed training for a foreign tour guide license, no one was willing to give her a chance because of her “age.”

Because she loved making pizza, she often made it for friends while living in Tianmu, and it was always a hit. Since changing careers didn’t work out, she decisively dove into the world of pizza. She spent a year researching ovens, flour, and equipment online, as well as visiting different pizza shops. During this time, she also obtained a Level C Chinese cuisine license and learned from a professional Neapolitan pizza master alongside her son, who was studying food science. She stepped into the competitive Tianmu pizza scene but focused mainly on delivery and takeout, offering a service where two pizzas would get you free delivery—making it easy for her former hospital-worker friends (like the overworked “Burnt-out Nurse”) to simply call and get pizza delivered.

This shop’s menu is simple. Aside from homemade soups, the pizzas are divided into crispy Roman-style and thick-crust Neapolitan-style. Although the flavors may seem diverse, regular customer Burnt-out Nurse always comes in asking the owner to make custom double or quadruple combos that aren’t even on the menu.

Why offer takeout-style pizza? Just walk into this shop and you’ll see why—it only has eight seats.

But also because the shop is so small, all the ingredients are visible, and the owner has nowhere to hide—everything is out in the open. For everyone’s health, they use imported Italian food-grade fermentation boxes, and they don’t cut any corners when it comes to food.

Besides the dough, which is made entirely by hand using Italian flour, natural sea salt, and fresh yeast, and is fermented for over 8–10 hours before being baked in a 400–480°C wood-fired oven, how could the pizza not be delicious?

In addition to using imported Italian tomato sauce, even the sun-dried tomatoes are imported from Italy.

After all this rambling, let’s introduce the dishes. This year, Papa Vito started offering three different weekly soups: spinach, mushroom, and Italian tomato. All the soups are thickened without starch or potato powder, instead using potatoes for a rich, natural flavor in every bite.

The green one is spinach soup, made with fresh spinach, potatoes, and onions. The gray one is mushroom soup, made with fresh mushrooms, potatoes, onions, and celery. The red one is Italian tomato soup, made with imported whole Italian tomatoes, organic carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and seasoned only with a little pepper, Italian sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil—so simple and healthy.

Besides the winter soups, they also offer seasonal salads in the summer.

Speaking of Papa Vito’sLasagna (pork) —this is truly a limited-menu item. Made with tomato paste, cheese, pork, and Italian herbs, this lasagna requires a reservation, and the limited daily quantity sells out quickly to hungry foodies.

Every time you order a pizza, you can watch Monica start kneading the dough, then pile on the toppings before sliding it into the oven.

This pizza, baked at 450°C in a wood-fired oven, is truly amazing. Watch as the dough puffs up in the oven, and the high-protein Italian flour gives the crust a delicious caramelized edge.

Sitting at the counter, the aroma is so intoxicating it makes you hungry every time—which is why this shop was selected for the food festival’s pizza recommendations and is being shared with everyone.

Mediterranean PizzaThis pizza flavor is vegetarian.

Today we’re introducing a thick-crust, chewy and Q-textured hand-tossed Neapolitan-style pizza, made with tomato paste, Mozzarella cheese, onions, green olives, black olives, imported Italian sun-dried tomatoes, purple onions, yellow peppers, and extra virgin olive oil. Meat lovers can add anchovies for a richer flavor.

Although it’s a vegetarian pizza, the taste is really fantastic—especially with the generous cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, paired with that Q-textured, chewy crust.

Zhanyide PizzaThe pizza named after the shop is naturally their signature.

It includes fresh Mozzarella cheese, Italian sausage, German sausage, cherry tomatoes, yellow bell peppers, onions, oregano, and is finished with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Today’s version is the crispy Roman-style, but what makes Papa Vito’s pizza so good is that even the crispy ones have a slight chew and a crispy texture—especially the Italian sausage, which tastes amazing. Sometimes, Burnt-out Nurse just orders the sausage flavor straight away.

Neapolitan-style smoked salmon, made with mashed tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, smoked salmon, onions, capers, fresh tomato slices, black olives, and dill. It’s also drizzled with virgin olive oil after baking. The flavor is really hard to describe—Pangpang absolutely loves it, but Baogan thinks it’s just okay, mainly because smoked salmon isn’t for everyone~

But every friend who came along ate it with a look of pure happiness, so this dish has a pretty high ordering rate. It just depends on whether you like smoked salmon or not.

Don’t assume pizza is only for savory flavors—Papa Vito also offers sweet pizzas, likeBanana Oreo Pizza, with a crispy Roman-style crust topped with mozzarella cheese, bananas, Oreo crumbs, and honey. It’s perfect as a dessert.

After reading the above, you can see why Baogan is a regular here, right?

The dough here is made in limited quantities every day, and even many foreigners become loyal customers after just one bite. Words can’t compare to you trying it yourself—you’ll understand why fans of Baogan even come all the way from Shanghai to Taiwan for a visit just to eat pizza. As for the person who comes all the way from Zhonghe every week, well, no explanation needed.

Papa Vito Pizzeria Zuan Yi De Tianmu Pizza
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Location: No. 92, Section 7, Zhongshan N. Road, Taipei City
Phone: 02-2873-2872
Business Hours: 11:30–14:00; 16:30–21:00
★ Free delivery service for orders of two or more pizzas in designated areas; delivery fee of NT$100 applies for orders under two pizzas
★ Self-pickup loyalty program: Earn one point for every pizza purchased. Collect ten points and get any one pizza for free on your next visit. Also, get one drink (excluding beer) for every pizza bought when picking up in-store.

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