The Italians invented it, the whole world loves it, and now restaurants are churning out hundreds of it everyday.

Pizza has so much sparked the Filipino’s creativity that, you’ll be amazed at the countless flavors available for it.

However, our delicious pizza tradition didn’t only come from the Italian and many pizza joints in fact, we have our own history of how pizza was formally introduced here in Manila.

The very first pizza that our parents and grandparents enjoyed were from Di’ Mark’s Pizza Garden, opened in 1957 by a Filipino family that shares a passion for food.

“ I was smelling pizzas from our kitchen since I was four,” recalls Nina Fernandez-Assad, one of the daughters of Arturo and Lita Fernandez, who opened Di’ Mark’s 46 years ago. After more than four decades, Nina is now serving the same home-cooked pizza goodness she learned from her parents, as she and her children recently opened Di’ Mark’s pizza restaurant in its new location in Greenbelt 3, Makati.

“ We’re still serving my mothers original pizza recipe and our old patrons can attest to this,” Nina adds it was in fact upon the insistent request of their old customers that Nina decided to re open Di’ Mark’s.

The Di’ Mark’s pizza venture actually started as a neighborhood affair back in New York in the 50’s where the Fernandez family used to live, Nina was accustomed to the habitual Friday gathering wherein her mom and dad-together with their Italian neighbors –would prepare plates of pizzas for dinner. Arturo would knead the dough while Lita would prepare her rich, thick tomato sauce. The wonderful smell of pizza coming from the kitchen often lured many of the neighborhood children to play in their yard and, needless to say, allowed them to sample the delicious pizza of Nina’s mom.