One of the World’s Most Remote Pizzerias Is Real, but Those Wild Food Photos Probably Aren’t

There really is a pizzeria on Pitcairn Island, one of the most isolated inhabited places on Earth. It is run by an islander named Andy Christian, it has served takeaway pizza to residents and visitors, and at least one account described orders being placed a day in advance for Friday pickup. What is much harder to believe are the bizarre food photos now attached to the restaurant on online maps. The location, known as Andy’s Pizzeria, sits near Adamstown on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific. Pitcairn is a British Overseas Territory with fewer than 50 residents, no airport, and no normal commercial ferry terminal. Reaching it typically means flying to Mangareva in French Polynesia and then spending about two nights aboard the island’s passenger and supply vessel. That makes the existence of a pizza shop there strange enough on its own. The apparent menu circulating with the location makes it look completely unhinged. Images associated with the map listing have included pizzas covered with combinations such as hard-boiled eggs, olives and onions, as well as other dishes that look more like improvised internet food experiments than anything coming from a consistent restaurant kitchen. Other images have appeared to show drastically different plates, tables, cooking styles and surroundings. There is good reason to question whether those pictures actually came from Pitcairn. Andy’s Pizzeria itself is not an invented business. A 2019 report from New Zealand news outlet Stuff described Andy Christian as the operator of the world’s most remote pizzeria. According to the report, the shop opened on Fridays and customers were expected to phone their orders in by Thursday night. Older records connected to Pitcairn say essentially the same thing. A historical account preserved by the Pitcairn Islands Study Center describes the island’s supply ship arriving with “pizza stock” specifically for Andy Christian. The island’s own newsletter reported that takeaway pizzas were once again available after the shipment arrived. Visiting Americans were reportedly surprised that an island with roughly 50 people could offer takeaway pizza at all. The same account mentioned burgers, Chinese meals, fish and chips and a cafe operating from various island kitchens. So the pizza is real. The ridiculous-looking online menu is another matter. Pitcairn is exactly the kind of location where an inaccurate map listing can take on a life of its own. Most people seeing Andy’s Pizzeria online will never have any realistic opportunity to visit it. There is no steady stream of customers uploading verified photographs after dinner. A joke image attached to a restaurant thousands of miles from a major population center can remain difficult to challenge because almost nobody viewing it has firsthand knowledge of the place. The real Andy Christian has also been documented independently by people who actually traveled to Pitcairn. In 2019, an international amateur-radio expedition spent time at Christian’s home while operating from the island. Their trip report specifically tells readers to look for Andy’s Pizzeria on online maps to locate where the group stayed. A later interview with expedition member Glenn Johnson praised Christian’s cooking, calling him a terrific chef and joking that the group ate so well that everyone gained weight during the trip. That is a very different picture from the chaotic collection of questionable food photos attached to the online listing. Christian is also a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian, the officer who led the famous 1789 mutiny aboard HMS Bounty. After the mutiny, Fletcher Christian and several other mutineers eventually settled on Pitcairn with Polynesian men and women. Their descendants formed the community that still occupies the island today. Andy’s restaurant is therefore not some conventional commercial pizza shop dropped inexplicably into the Pacific. On Pitcairn, businesses often operate on a scale that would be difficult to recognize in a normal city. A resident can cook food from a home kitchen, take orders from neighbors and visitors, and effectively become one of the island’s few takeaway restaurants. The supply situation also explains why food businesses there have to operate differently. Pitcairn has no airport and depends heavily on ships for imported goods. The government-chartered Silver Supporter runs passenger voyages between Mangareva and Pitcairn and periodically makes longer freight runs involving New Zealand. Current schedules still include dedicated New Zealand freight voyages among the ship’s regular trips. Fresh produce can be grown locally, and residents fish and raise some food themselves, but flour, cheese, packaged ingredients and many other everyday products have to arrive from far away. A pizzeria on Pitcairn cannot simply call a distributor in the morning because it ran out of mozzarella. That reality makes an island pizza shop interesting without needing an invented menu. The journey to eat one of Andy’s actual pizzas is considerably more complicated than the meal itself. There is no flight to Pitcairn. Visitors normally reach Mangareva first, board the Silver Supporter, spend at least two nights at sea, and then transfer to the island by boat. Pitcairn does not have a conventional harbor where the passenger ship simply ties up and unloads tourists. Visitors transfer between vessels offshore before landing at the island. Once ashore, Adamstown is hardly a typical capital city. Pitcairn’s official tourism organization listed the population at only 40 in 2021. The island covers about 47 square kilometers, but nearly everyone lives around the Adamstown area. English and Pitkern, a language derived largely from English and Tahitian influences, are spoken there. There are few concrete roads. Quad bikes are a common way for residents to travel around the steep island, while visitors often walk. Serious medical treatment can require evacuation by sea because the island has only limited medical facilities and no runway. In that setting, a weekly pizza operation makes far more sense than it initially sounds. A person cooks. Neighbors order. Visiting ship passengers sometimes buy lunch. Ingredients arrive when shipping allows. There does not need to be a neon sign, commercial kitchen, delivery fleet or dining room for the island to call it a pizzeria. What should not automatically be believed is every photograph that happens to appear under its name on a digital map. The strongest firsthand accounts of Andy Christian describe real takeaway pizzas and very good cooking. Records from Pitcairn itself confirm shipments of pizza ingredients. Travelers have stayed at his home and eaten his food. The business has been mentioned for years by people who physically reached the island. That evidence is considerably stronger than a collection of strange, user-submitted food pictures on a map listing. So if someone somehow becomes stranded near one of the most isolated settlements in the Pacific, Andy’s Pizzeria probably is not the thing they should be afraid of. Getting to Pitcairn in the first place is the difficult part. And if a pizza covered in burgers, noodles, eggs or some other culinary disaster appears on the screen before the trip, there is a good chance Andy never made it at all.