Sourcing San Marzano

The sauce on a Margherita is almost aggressively simple: tomatoes, a little salt, nothing else. Which means the tomato has nowhere to hide.

Grown in volcanic soil

San Marzano tomatoes are grown in the mineral-rich volcanic soil near Vesuvius. They're longer and thinner than a standard plum tomato, with fewer seeds, lower acidity and a natural sweetness that means we never reach for sugar to balance the sauce.

We buy them whole and crush them by hand on the day, rather than using a pre-made passata. It's slower, and the texture is better for it — a sauce with body, not a purée.

Honest, not exotic

We're wary of provenance theatre. A tomato doesn't need a flag on it to be good; it needs to be grown well, picked ripe and treated gently. That's the whole story here — and it's enough.