Self-taught yet AVPN-certified, Hironori Noda has turned rural Magazzino in Kashiba into the first True Neapolitan Pizza house in Nara. Bronze at the Naples Pizza Olympics 2012 and a Michelin Bib Gourmand every year since 2017, he cultivates his own produce for a rigorously field-to-table.
Born among Kansai rice paddies, Hironori Noda opened Magazzino with his father in 2001 inside an old warehouse ringed by family farmland. A pivotal stage at Sakuragumi in Akō—Japan’s pioneering Neapolitan pizzeria—taught him long fermentations and 485 °C wood-firing.
He then immersed himself in Naples, training with the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN), working in the Spanish Quarters and competing at PizzaFest 2009. In 2011 he earned AVPN diploma no. 184; the next year he won bronze at the inaugural Naples Pizza Olympics (Classical category), sealing global credibility.
Back home, Magazzino became the **first True Neapolitan Pizza address in Nara, its wood oven numbered “275” in the AVPN register. From 2017 through 2025 the Michelin Guide has awarded it the Bib Gourmand for crust fragrance and value.
Because landlocked Nara lacks a coastline, Noda doubled down on agriculture. With his mother he founded “Mamma Farm,” raising San Marzano-type tomatoes, basil and seasonal vegetables that underpin his field-to-table pizzas; imported buffalo mozzarella arrives from Caserta only twice a month to limit freight impact.
Today the menu spans forty creations, from Margherita DOP to autumn pies topped with Hokkaido squash and Japanese pecorino, and the Michelin-recommended Quattro Formaggi with acacia honey. All bake in 90 seconds at 485 °C, strictly to AVPN rules.
Noda mentors new pizzaioli through monthly workshops and school projects that turn unsold bread into sourdough starter. “Pizza is agriculture taking shape in the oven,” he says, summarising a philosophy that fuses Neapolitan technique with Japanese terroir while championing sustainability.
