Pronto Slice.

Pronto Slice

A pizza counter opened by a street-food operator whose test kitchen was a five-month dough factory in Portobello.

Why go

Michael Notarangelo's family come from a village in Lazio, the region with Rome at its centre, where the neighborhood pizzeria sells by the slice off a tray.2 He spent months on the dough before opening this counter in November 2023, working at high hydration until the base came out light with a crisp underside.1 Al taglio bakes in a large rectangle, and the counter cuts it to order with scissors or a blade, which is a different discipline from a round pie. The dough proofs long, bakes in a tray under its own oil, and the counter sells it inside ten minutes of the tray coming out. The shop is the first fixed premises for Belmonte Catering, the street-food business Notarangelo set up in 2017, and it sits at 541 Castlehill a few steps from the Castle esplanade.3 The route in was sideways: Pronto Pizza started as an Edinburgh Zoo pop-up in April 2022, the Royal Mile site arrived as an offered partnership, and the Portobello unit he bought the same day ran five months as a dark kitchen making this shop's dough before it opened to the public.1

Order this / avoid

• Order: margherita, the reference slice, and the one that shows whether the tray bake is any good. It was one of the two toppings on the launch card.4
• Order: the pepperoni, the other topping the operator listed at launch.4
• Order: whichever cured meat is on the tray. 'Nduja, piccante spianata and mortadella with mozzarella were all named as coming after launch, and none has been confirmed as current since.4
• Avoid: arriving at the end of a bake. Al taglio is at its best straight out of the tray and goes leathery under a heat lamp, which is the trade-off of the format.
• Avoid: repeating the first in Edinburgh line as a present-tense claim. It was accurate in December 2023 and The Skinny's 2026 city guide now files Pala on Jane Street as the al taglio shop.6

What locals & experts say

• Michael Notarangelo, on the dough (December 2023): That's meant endless research on traditional Roman style pizzas, working with high hydration dough and tweaking the recipe until I was able to recreate the pizza I remember from my childhood. On the format itself: It's a way of life for Italians to stop for slice, or have it wrapped up to take home.2
• Michael Notarangelo, on the buying (March 2024): We've got a great supplier in Cibosano who import top quality Italian ingredients, better than you can find anywhere else. We want to make sure everything we use is authentic, DOP stamped, so customers get the best experience. He said that about the Portobello opening, so read it as a group standard, and not as a claim about this counter specifically.1
• No critic has reviewed it. The Skinny's sixty-venue Edinburgh guide does not list it.6 The List's Edinburgh pizza roundup does not list it. Everything published about this shop is launch reporting from two outlets in the same week of December 2023, plus one retrospective paragraph in March 2024.
• Awards: none recorded. A 2025 Scottish Italian Awards Best Pizza finalist placing exists in the Evening News, and it belongs to Pronto Pizza in Portobello, a different premises. It also comes from a public-vote gala programme, and it was a finalist placing rather than a win.

Good to know

• Status rests on the hygiene record. No independent source names this shop as open later than 21 March 2024. The FSA inspection of 30 July 2024 is the most recent evidence that the door was open, and nothing anywhere reports a closure. On the Royal Mile in August that gap is worth closing before you walk up the hill.7
• Hygiene: rated Pass by the Food Hygiene Information Scheme, inspected 30 July 2024, which is about 24 months old as at 4 August 2026 and therefore past the eighteen-month bound. A Pass is not a safety finding and no caution attaches.7
• No website of its own. The operator's own domain is Belmonte Catering's; prontopizzaedinburgh.com belongs to the Portobello sibling; and the ordering subdomain that carries the name is a third-party platform. None of the three is this venue's own site.
• Hours and prices are unverified. Nobody publishes either.
• Sites: the counter on this page is 541 Castlehill. The siblings are Pronto Pizza on Brighton Place, Portobello, which took over the old La Favorita and opened on 29 March 2024 doing Neapolitan in the evenings, and the original Pronto Pizza pop-up at Edinburgh Zoo from April 2022. Belmonte's other concepts are Rollys Ice Cream, Dog n Bon and StikWaffle.3 A second food business is registered at the same street number, and it holds a failing rating. The hygiene register lists Equi's Edinburgh at 541 Castlehill (FHRSID 1515872) as Improvement Required, inspected 18 December 2025, which is about seven and a half months old and therefore current information. Equi's is the long-running Scottish ice cream name and this is a separate registration from Pronto Slice's own, so the rating does not transfer and Pronto Slice's own record is a Pass. Both names sit at the same street number, so check which one you are reading.5
• Getting there: the top of the Royal Mile, on the Castle esplanade side, next to the Camera Obscura stretch. It is a tourist pitch and prices itself for the walk-past trade.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Status: he has not said whether he has been.

Verdict

could-visit — Michael Notarangelo's family come from a village in Lazio where the corner pizzeria sells off a tray, and he spent months on high-hydration dough, with flour imported from Naples and San Marzano tomatoes, before opening this counter in November 2023 as the first place in Edinburgh selling pizza al taglio. The route in tells you how seriously he took it: the Portobello unit he bought the same day he was offered the Castlehill partnership ran five months as a dark kitchen making this shop's dough before it ever opened to the public. That is real intent behind a slice, and a slice counter fifty steps off the Castle esplanade is worth stopping at if you are already walking down the Royal Mile. It goes no higher for three reasons. No critic has published a word about the pizza, across eight query shapes, three best-pizza guides from three outlets and a scoped sweep of ten review domains, so every claim about the dough is the maker's own. The format novelty has expired: The Skinny's 2026 city guide gives the al taglio slot to Pala on Jane Street, so the one can't-get-it-elsewhere argument is history rather than a reason to walk. And nobody names this shop trading later than 21 March 2024, with the status resting on a July 2024 food-register inspection. A separate business at the same street number, Equi's Edinburgh, carries a failing rating from December 2025; it is a separate registration and does not transfer, and Pronto Slice's own record is a Pass, but a reader at that door cannot tell two registrations apart and deserves to know. There is still no verified price anywhere, which on the busiest tourist stretch in Scotland is the number that would decide it.