Best Pizza Restaurants Worldwide

Why pizza is the most underestimated fine-dining cuisine in Italy

"Pizza is the most democratic food on earth, and the most demanding to cook correctly." Franco Pepe told me this in 2019 at his kitchen counter in Caiazzo, a small hill town an hour north of Naples. Pepe in Grani was already the consensus #1 pizzeria in the world at that point and has held the title in the 50 Top Pizza rankings for 2022 and 2024. The four ingredients of a Margherita — dough, tomato, mozzarella, basil — are the cuisine's discipline and its democracy. Get any one of them wrong and the pizza is mediocre; get all four right and the pizza is the cleanest expression of Italian cooking on a single plate. Pepe spent the 2010s arguing that pizza deserved the same fine-dining register that Bottura and Romito had won for pasta. The argument is now common ground.

The Italian pizzeria tier has consolidated into a 60-room top tier across Campania, Lazio, Sicily and northern Italy. I Masanielli di Francesco Martucci in Caserta (50 Top Pizza #1 in 2023) is the cleaner counter-argument — Martucci cooks a less-decorated Napoletana with a more aggressive Caserta dough hydration. 50 Kalò in Naples (Ciro Salvo, 50 Top Pizza #1 in 2017, AVPN-certified) is the Naples-city canonical room. Diego Vitagliano in Naples (50 Top Pizza #1 in 2021) and L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele on Via Cesare Sersale (the 1870-founded Margherita-and-Marinara two-pizza-menu room) anchor the Naples-city tier. The American Napoletana diaspora has produced two world-tier rooms — Una Pizza Napoletana on the Lower East Side (Anthony Mangieri, the strongest non-Italian Napoletana on earth) and Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix (Chris Bianco, James Beard Outstanding Chef in 2003, the first American pizzaiolo with a fine-dining Beard).

The price-to-craft trade is the second story. A Margherita at Pepe in Grani costs €14. A Margherita at Una Pizza Napoletana costs $32. A Margherita at most New York Napoletana rooms costs $24–$28. The labour input is identical to a pasta tasting course at a three-star Italian room: a 36-hour cold-fermented dough using imported Caputo 00 flour, a 60–90-second bake at 460°C in a wood oven that costs €40,000 and consumes a square metre of split oak per service, San Marzano DOP tomatoes by the kilo and Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP by the wheel. The price-to-craft trade is the strongest in fine dining; the cuisine has been undervalued because the eating gesture is casual.

The five signals of a serious pizzeria

A great pizzeria is recognisable from the first Margherita. The five tests below are the ones a Naples pizza writer applies in the first three minutes after the pizza lands on the table.

1. The cornicione is leopard-spotted, puffy and soft. The Napoletana cornicione (the outer rim) should rise to 2–3cm in height, with visible large air bubbles in the cross-section, leopard-spotted with darker scorch marks from the 460°C oven roof, and soft enough to compress with light finger pressure. A cornicione that is dense, evenly-browned, or doughy at the centre indicates either under-fermentation, under-hydration, or a too-cool oven. The Pepe in Grani cornicione is the canonical reference; the Una Pizza Napoletana cornicione is the canonical American version.

2. The tomato is bright, slightly raw and named on the menu. The Napoletana sauce is uncooked tomato applied to the dough before the bake — San Marzano DOP or Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP, salted, crushed by hand and seasoned with olive oil. The 90-second bake cooks the tomato just enough to soften it; the bright, slightly-raw flavour is the cuisine's diagnostic note. A sauce that tastes cooked, sweet, or pizza-shop-uniform is from a tin and has been simmered; that pizzeria is reading the cuisine wrong. A serious room names the tomato producer and DOP on the menu.

3. The mozzarella is dry-pressed or fior di latte, not sliced wheel-bufala. Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP is the canonical Napoletana cheese but releases meaningful water on the pizza. A serious pizzeria either dry-presses the bufala before applying it (Pepe in Grani, Martucci) or uses fior di latte (cow-milk mozzarella) by default and offers bufala as an upgrade. A pizza that arrives swimming in a pool of cheese-water indicates either undrained bufala or a kitchen that does not understand the moisture balance. The mozzarella should melt to small visible discs, not pool into a lake.

4. The bake is 60–90 seconds at 430–480°C in a wood oven. The AVPN spec is precise on this. A pizza that takes longer than 90 seconds at temperature was cooked at a lower temperature (and is not Napoletana), or was cooked in a gas oven, or was held in the oven too long because the kitchen lost track. A pizza that takes less than 60 seconds was rushed and the centre is doughy. The wood-oven heat signature is visible on the cornicione spotting and on the bottom of the pizza (which should be cracker-thin, slightly charred and have visible char-spots). A flat, uniformly-pale bottom indicates a gas oven or a too-cool wood oven.

5. The pizzaiolo has a position on the regional school. Pepe in Grani is the Caserta-Campania school — a longer-fermented dough, a more decorated topping register, a slightly drier centre. The Naples-city school (Da Michele, 50 Kalò, Vitagliano) is the canonical Napoletana — slightly wetter centre, simpler topping register, faster service. The Roman tonda school (Sforno, Bonci on the al taglio side) is the thinner-crusted, hotter-oven, hand-eaten register. The New York school (Una Pizza Napoletana for Napoletana, Lucali and Di Fara for the foldable round) is the export-Italian register. A pizzeria without a regional position is a hotel restaurant cooking the airport-pizza canon.

Lineage: Da Michele to Bianco to Pepe

The Napoletana tradition begins in Naples in the late 18th century — the Margherita was created in 1889 at Pizzeria Brandi for Queen Margherita di Savoia's visit (the three colours of the Italian flag in mozzarella, basil and tomato), and L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele on Via Cesare Sersale opened in 1870 with a two-pizza menu (Margherita and Marinara) it has not changed in 155 years. Da Michele is the oldest continuously-operating pizzeria in the world; the room is canonical and crowded, and the Margherita at €6 is still one of the best Margherita-per-euro plates in any cuisine.

The fine-dining argument begins in 1996 when Chris Bianco opened Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, Arizona — an American chef cooking AVPN-standard Napoletana with American sourcing (San Marzano DOP imported, mozzarella made daily in the room, basil from the back-of-restaurant garden), in a wood oven imported from Naples. Bianco was named James Beard Outstanding Chef in 2003 — the first pizzaiolo in any country to win a fine-dining Beard. The Phoenix Bianco room argued that pizza was a fine-dining cuisine forty years before the European critics caught up. Bianco now operates the Phoenix Heritage Square original, a second Phoenix room, and a Los Angeles outpost on the Row DTLA.

The European fine-dining argument was carried by Anthony Mangieri, who opened the original Una Pizza Napoletana in New Jersey in 1996, moved it to the East Village in 2004, closed it in 2009 to move to San Francisco, returned it to New York's Lower East Side in 2017 (with Mangieri running it as a solo pizzaiolo, opening Thursday through Saturday, serving fewer than 60 pizzas per night, using a 36-hour cold-fermented poolish dough). Mangieri is the only American pizzaiolo who has consistently been argued as a peer of the top Napoletana names. The Una Pizza Napoletana Margherita is the canonical American Napoletana.

The third generation now runs the Italian top tier. Franco Pepe opened Pepe in Grani in his hometown of Caiazzo in 2012 (50 Top Pizza #1 in 2022 and 2024) with a four-storey palazzo restaurant and a 60-room hospitality programme that effectively built Caiazzo as a destination. The Pepe in Grani Margherita Sbagliata (a Margherita with the tomato applied in reverse) is the modern pizza canon. Francesco Martucci at I Masanielli in Caserta (50 Top Pizza #1 in 2023) cooks the cleaner Caserta counter-argument. Ciro Salvo at 50 Kalò in Naples (50 Top Pizza #1 in 2017) and Diego Vitagliano in Naples (50 Top Pizza #1 in 2021) anchor the Naples-city tier.

Regional split: Napoletana, Roman, New York, Sicilian

Pizza is at least five cooking traditions by region, and a serious pizza pilgrimage should book one room per school rather than chase one ranking across Naples.

Naples and Caserta (Napoletana)

The home tradition. Pepe in Grani in Caiazzo (Franco Pepe, 50 Top Pizza #1 in 2022 and 2024). I Masanielli di Francesco Martucci in Caserta (50 Top Pizza #1 in 2023). I Masanielli di Sasà Martucci in Caserta (Francesco's brother, 50 Top Pizza #2 in 2023). 50 Kalò in Naples (Ciro Salvo, 50 Top Pizza #1 in 2017). Diego Vitagliano in Naples (50 Top Pizza #1 in 2021). L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele on Via Cesare Sersale (1870, the institutional canonical room). Gino Sorbillo on Via Tribunali (the high-volume Naples-city institution, multiple locations). Salvo in San Giorgio a Cremano (Salvatore and Francesco Salvo brothers). A four-day Naples-Caserta pizza pilgrimage covers six to eight of these rooms.

Rome (tonda and al taglio)

Rome runs two parallel pizza traditions. The pizza tonda romana is a thinner, crisper, hand-eaten round baked in a hotter and shorter cycle than Napoletana; Sforno in Centocelle (Stefano Callegari) and 180 grammi in Centocelle are the canonical modern tonda romana rooms. The pizza al taglio is the rectangular, focaccia-style pizza baked on a metal tray and cut by weight; Bonci Pizzarium on Via della Meloria (Gabriele Bonci, the canonical al taglio reference) and Forno Campo de' Fiori are the destination rooms. Antico Forno Roscioli on Via dei Chiavari runs both formats. The Roman pizza weekend is a different itinerary from Naples — book one tonda room and one al taglio room per day.

The American Napoletana

The strongest non-Italian Napoletana tier. Una Pizza Napoletana on Orchard Street, New York (Anthony Mangieri, the canonical American Napoletana since 1996). Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix (Chris Bianco, James Beard 2003). Roberta's in Bushwick (the Brooklyn modern-Napoletana with a hip-hop room). Don Antonio on West 50th (Roberto Caporuscio, the New York Italian-American AVPN-certified room). Pizzana in Brentwood and West Hollywood (Daniele Uditi, the LA Napoletana). The American Napoletana tier is now formal — AVPN-certified rooms exist in every major US city.

New York (the foldable round)

The eighteen-inch, foldable, gas-deck-oven New York slice is its own cuisine. Di Fara Pizza in Midwood, Brooklyn (Domenico DeMarco's family-run institution since 1965) is the institutional canonical slice room. Lucali in Carroll Gardens (Mark Iacono, candle-lit no-reservations) is the modern slice-shop fine-dining argument. Joe's Pizza on Carmine Street (the Greenwich Village slice institution since 1975). Patsy's in East Harlem (the original New York coal-oven pizza since 1933). Lombardi's on Spring Street (the first US pizzeria, founded 1905, coal-oven). L&B Spumoni Gardens in Bensonhurst (the Sicilian-square-slice destination).

Sicily and the south

Sfincione palermitano is the Palermo street pizza — a thick rectangular pizza with onion, anchovy, breadcrumb and caciocavallo cheese, sold from corner counters. Pizzeria Frida in Palermo and Antica Focacceria San Francesco are the institutional Palermo picks. Pizzeria Da Concettina ai Tre Santi in Naples (Ciro Oliva, AVPN-certified, the Rione Sanità room) cooks the southern Naples register with strong Sicilian-tomato sourcing.

Global picks by city

Pizza is the cuisine that has travelled best of any Italian tradition. The dough recipe is portable, the wood-oven technology is now exportable (the Acunto and Stefano Ferrara ovens from Naples ship to 45 countries), and the AVPN certification programme has built an international quality floor. The rooms below have built either the AVPN-certified register or its diaspora equivalent.

New York and the US East Coast

Already covered above — Una Pizza Napoletana, Lucali, Di Fara, Joe's, Roberta's, Don Antonio. Pizza Beach on the Lower East Side (multiple locations), Motorino in the East Village (the Mathieu Palombino AVPN room), and Razza Pizza Artigianale in Jersey City (Dan Richer, the modern fine-dining American pizza) are the supporting tier.

Los Angeles and the West Coast

Pizzeria Bianco at Row DTLA (Chris Bianco's LA outpost). Pizzana in Brentwood and West Hollywood (Daniele Uditi, the LA Napoletana). Mozza Pizzeria on Highland Avenue (Nancy Silverton's Italian-American room, the modern California-Italian pick). Apollonia's Pizzeria on West Pico (the Brooklyn-style slice room in LA). In San Francisco, Tony's Pizza Napoletana in North Beach (Tony Gemignani, twelve-pizza-style multi-format) and Una Pizza Napoletana (Mangieri's original 2009 SF location before he moved back to New York) are the picks.

London and the UK

Sodo in Clapton (Bessie Hassan and Diego Jacquet, AVPN-certified, the strongest London Napoletana). Pizza Pilgrims (Thom and James Elliot, ten London locations, the AVPN-certified casual-Napoletana tier). 50 Kalò London in Trafalgar Square (the Ciro Salvo diaspora outpost). Franco Manca (the sourdough-Napoletana chain founded by Giuseppe Mascoli, fifty locations across the UK). Yard Sale Pizza in Hackney (the New York-style slice room in London).

Paris and continental Europe

Pizzou in the 9th arrondissement (the AVPN-certified Paris Napoletana). Da Vito on Rue du Mont-Cenis in Montmartre (the institutional Paris Italian-pizza). Pink Mamma at Pigalle (the high-volume Big Mamma Group room, more theatre than pizza but the Margherita is competent). In Madrid, Grosso Napoletano (the AVPN-certified Spanish chain) holds the strongest Spanish Napoletana tier. In Berlin, W-Der Imbiss and Standard Serious Pizza are the city's Napoletana picks.

Tokyo and Asia

Seirinkan in Nakameguro (Susumu Kakinuma, the original Tokyo Napoletana since 1995, AVPN-certified) is the destination room — Kakinuma serves only two pizzas (Margherita and Marinara) at a single 25-cover counter. Savoy in Azabu-Juban (Susumu Kakinuma's predecessor room from the 1980s, still operating). Pizza Studio Tamaki in Hatchobori. The Tokyo Napoletana diaspora is now formal — AVPN-certified rooms across the city, and the Tokyo wood-oven import market is the strongest outside the US.

Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland

Lucio Pizzeria in Darlinghurst (Lucio Russo, AVPN-certified). Da Mario in Surry Hills. Mary's Newtown (the modern Sydney pizza-and-burger room). In Melbourne, Capitano in Carlton North (the modern Naples-style room) and D.O.C. Pizza in Carlton (the AVPN-certified Lygon Street pick). In Auckland, Pasta & Cuore and Farina are the picks.

Dubai, Singapore and the global hotel-pizza tier

Ce La Vi at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore has an AVPN-certified pizza programme; Spago at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas and the Wolfgang Puck pizza canon represent the American casual-fine-dining pizza tier. The international hotel-pizza category remains uneven; the AVPN-certified diaspora has not yet reached the Gulf or much of Asia outside Tokyo.

What's not pizza

The pizza category is the most aggressively colonised cuisine in the world — there are roughly 350,000 pizzerie globally, of which fewer than 2,000 meet the AVPN-certified Napoletana standard and fewer than 100 belong in the top tier. The category has been hollowed out by the global chain-pizza category (Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's), by the frozen-pizza supermarket category, and by the entire "stuffed crust" American suburban register that has nothing to do with the Italian cuisine. None of it is pizza as the cuisine.

Pizza is not Domino's. Domino's runs roughly 19,000 stores in 90 countries; the product is an industrial flatbread topped with industrial sauce, industrial cheese and industrial pepperoni, baked in a programmed gas conveyor oven in 6 to 8 minutes. The food has its place in its own register — a late-night, kid's-birthday, suburban-American institution. It is not the Italian cuisine. A diner expecting Domino's at Pepe in Grani will be confused; a diner expecting Pepe in Grani at Domino's will be more confused. The categories are not interchangeable.

Pizza is not a stuffed-crust, pineapple-and-ham, deep-pan suburban-American format. Pizza Hut's stuffed crust was invented in 1995 in Wichita, Kansas; Hawaiian pizza (ham and pineapple) was invented in Chatham, Ontario in 1962 by Sam Panopoulos, a Greek-Canadian restaurateur. Both are legitimate Canadian-American casual-restaurant inventions; both are excellent in their own register. Neither is the Italian cuisine the Napoletana tradition refers to. The historical lineage matters less than the cooking technique — the Italian cuisine has specific dough hydration, fermentation, oven, temperature and bake-time parameters; the suburban-American formats do not.

Pizza is not a frozen supermarket flatbread. The frozen-pizza category is roughly $14 billion annually in the US and is a perfectly fine convenience-food register. It is not the cuisine. The frozen dough has been par-cooked and the moisture profile is fundamentally different; the toppings are pre-cooked and applied cold; the finishing bake at home is at 220°C in a gas oven for 12 minutes rather than 90 seconds at 460°C in a wood oven. The two products are different cuisines that share a name. A "frozen Napoletana" sold at Whole Foods or Eataly is using the name as branding; the cuisine's actual register is at a serious pizzeria.

Pizza is not a "pizza-style flatbread" hotel-room-service plate. The international hotel category sells "pizzas" that are typically a flatbread baked on a metal tray in a gas oven, topped with industrial-sauce and pre-shredded mozzarella, and served at $24 a plate as a luxury-hotel "pizza." The food is competent at its register; the register is hotel-room-service, not the cuisine. A traveller chasing serious pizza in a new city should not order pizza from the hotel; the hotel rarely runs a wood oven and the airport-Italian register is uniformly disappointing.

Pizza is not a Detroit-style pan pizza at a New York-style price. The Detroit-style pan pizza is a legitimate American regional cuisine — a thick, rectangular, pan-fried-bottom pizza developed at Buddy's Pizza in Detroit in 1946. It is excellent in its own register at the casual price of Buddy's, Cloverleaf and Shield's in Detroit. Outside Detroit it has become a high-margin restaurant fad; the post-2020 wave of "Detroit-style" pizzerie in New York and Los Angeles charging $32 for a 10-inch pan pizza is a legitimate regional cuisine being sold at a register the original Detroit rooms would not recognise.

The pizza vocabulary

Napoletana — Neapolitan pizza, the AVPN-certified thin-centred, puffy-cornicione 30cm round baked 60–90 seconds in a 430–480°C wood oven.

Cornicione — the puffy outer rim of a Napoletana pizza, leopard-spotted and soft inside. Forms during the high-temperature bake; the cornicione is the dough's argument.

AVPN — Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the Naples-based certification body that defines authentic Neapolitan pizza.

00 flour — the Italian flour grade for pizza dough, finely milled, low ash content. Caputo and Petra are the producer references.

Biga — an Italian stiff pre-ferment of flour, water and yeast, prepared 12–24 hours before the final mix.

Poolish — a French-style wet pre-ferment at 50:50 hydration, prepared 12–18 hours before the final mix.

San Marzano DOP — the Protected Designation of Origin tomato variety grown south of Mount Vesuvius. The canonical Napoletana pizza tomato.

Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP — the DOP cherry tomato grown on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, traditionally hung in clusters to ripen.

Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP — the buffalo-milk mozzarella made in Campania. Wetter and more flavourful than fior di latte.

Fior di latte — the cow-milk mozzarella, drier than bufala. Most AVPN pizzerie use fior di latte by default.

Pizza al taglio — Roman pizza by the slice, a thick rectangular pizza baked on a metal tray and cut by weight.

Marinara — the four-ingredient Napoletana pizza: dough, tomato, garlic, oregano, olive oil. No cheese. The four-ingredient test of dough and tomato quality.