The world’s best pizza
Pizza worth crossing a city for.
We are researching the cities where pizza is treated as craft, culture and everyday ritual, and publishing the places that make the case. Which city has the best pizza in the world?
Start with a city
Amsterdam has one pizzeria milling local wheat into its dough.
5 spotsAuckland New ZealandAuckland came closest of any city in this cohort to a local answer, and it broke under checking.
6 spotsBangkok ThailandBangkok imports its pizza from three continents at once.
6 spotsBarcelona SpainBarcelona has two of the world's ranked pizzerias and a bread tradition of its own that has nothing to do with them.
6 spotsBeijing ChinaBeijing has American, Italian and Japanese pizza sitting side by side.
4 spotsBeirut LebanonHow much of Beirut's pizza can be seen from outside Lebanon?
2 spotsBogotá ColombiaBogota's best pizza is imported and certified.
3 spotsBratislava SlovakiaIs there a Slovak pizza, or only pizza in Slovakia?
2 spotsBrussels BelgiumIs Brussels a pizza city, or a city this guide has only read about in one list?
3 spotsBuenos Aires ArgentinaBuenos Aires eats more pizza per head than almost anywhere and files it under names the rest of the world does not use: fugazzeta, media masa, al molde, canchera.
7 spotsCape Town South AfricaCape Town was researched for a local answer and came back without one.
6 spotsCasablanca MoroccoCasablanca has a world-ranked pizzeria run by a world champion.
3 spotsCaserta ItalyHow does a city of seventy-five thousand produce pizza of this standard?
4 spotsChicago United StatesChicago is the city this guide is most likely to get wrong, and the reason is that the famous thing is not the everyday thing.
6 spotsCopenhagen DenmarkCopenhagen built a food culture out of local sourcing.
5 spotsDetroit United StatesDetroit's pizza is a Sicilian pan rectangle, oiled and cheesed to the edge until it caramelises against the steel, and it is one of three names for one form - sfincione in Palermo, the Sicilian slice in New York, Detroit here.
6 spotsEdinburgh ScotlandEdinburgh's best-known pizzeria rebranded from Italian sourdough to American.
4 spotsFlorence ItalyDoes Florence have a pizza culture of its own, or a good supply of pizzaioli who happen to work in Florence?
5 spotsGurugram IndiaGurugram's pizza culture is six years old.
3 spotsHong Kong Hong KongHong Kong's pizza is an import, recent and deliberate, and the interesting detail is at the edges.
6 spotsJersey City United StatesJersey City holds one of the ten best pizzerias in the world.
2 spotsJohannesburg South AfricaJohannesburg's pizza is recent, Neapolitan and competently run.
5 spotsLima PeruLima runs two imported pizza traditions side by side and has never merged them.
3 spotsLisbon PortugalLisbon's pizza is being made by people who did not come to it from Italy.
10 spotsLondon EnglandLondon has no pizza of its own, and that is the first thing to say about it.
9 spotsLos Angeles United StatesCalifornia pizza was invented near Los Angeles.
2 spotsMadrid SpainMadrid has become one of Europe's best pizza cities without ever making a pizza of its own.
12 spotsMakati PhilippinesEvery pizzeria in Makati's record opened recently and none of them adapts to the Philippines.
4 spotsMelbourne AustraliaMelbourne has the oldest Italian pizza culture in Australia and no form of its own that this research could find.
10 spotsMiami United StatesMiami's best pizzerias are easy to name.
3 spotsMilan ItalyMilan has the best-ranked pizzeria in Italy.
5 spotsNaples ItalyIs Naples the deepest pizza field in the world, or a city living off a reputation its contemporary leaders have already exported?
18 spotsNew Haven United StatesNew Haven calls its pizza apizza, says it 'ah-BEETS', and does not much care whether the rest of the world follows.
4 spotsNew York United StatesWhat makes New York a pizza city is not the number of pizzerias in it.
7 spotsPalermo ItalyPalermo's own baked flatbread is a bakery and street product with no restaurant form, and the city has no entry in the world's pizza hundred.
6 spotsParis FranceParis has more good pizza than it did a decade ago.
6 spotsPortland United StatesPortland takes its bread and its produce seriously.
2 spotsPuteaux FranceCan a commune of forty-five thousand people hold one of Europe's best pizzerias and nothing else?
1 spotRio de Janeiro BrazilSao Paulo made a pizza of its own.
3 spotsRome ItalyRome has three pizzas.
6 spotsSan Francisco United StatesSan Francisco has a sourdough tradition older than most of this guide's cities.
4 spotsSantiago ChileSantiago's newest pizzerias are Neapolitan.
4 spotsSão Paulo BrazilSão Paulo is the largest pizza-eating city on earth and the research turned up a generational split running straight through it.
7 spotsSeoul South KoreaSeoul's pizza is recent, deliberate and very good.
4 spotsSingapore SingaporeSingapore has no Italian migration behind it, so its pizza arrived on purpose: named pizzaioli from Naples and Caserta, AVPN discipline, imported ovens.
6 spotsSydney AustraliaSydney's record carries a warning about this guide's own machinery.
12 spotsTokyo JapanTokyo holds two of the world's ten best pizzerias and did it by studying somebody else's tradition harder than almost anyone in it.
6 spotsTurin ItalyTurin's pizza al padellino has been eaten in the city for over a century and appears to have arrived from somewhere else.
6 spotsVienna AustriaVienna is a capital with a long café tradition and an imported pizza scene.
6 spotsZagreb CroatiaZagreb's critics treat its own old thin-crust pizza as foundational.
5 spotsHow we judge a city
Public ratings help us find candidates. They do not decide selection.
All 6 dimensions →01
Strength of selected pizzerias
02
Distinctiveness and sense of place
03
Depth of the specialist field
No restaurant can pay to be selected, ranked or written about here.
Selection is editorial, evidence is cited, and sponsorship stays visibly separate from judgment.