Is Brussels a pizza city, or a city this guide has only read about in one list?
Brussels holds three records, all of them confirmed inside Brussels-Capital Region communes: La Piola Pizza in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, and two houses built on named makers — Carmine Russo at naPizzà in Etterbeek, and La Pizza è Bella at the Sablon, whose smoked steam pizzas are its own named signature. This entry carries a caveat that belongs in public rather than in a note. All three candidates were discovered through the same underlying source, a single European list, because the research pass ran out of search budget before it could read Brussels press in French or Dutch. Three sources that trace to one list are one source wearing three coats, and that is precisely the independence trap this guide's own charter warns about. So Brussels is published thin and honest: three real records, none of them fabricated, and a stated acknowledgement that the city has not yet been read in its own languages. A sweep of the Brussels press in French and Dutch is owed before Brussels is scored against anyone.
La Piola Pizza is run by pizzaiolo Francesco Martini in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, one of the 19 communes of the Brussels-Capital Region. The dough is well leavened and fragrant, with a modest cornicione, and the ingredients are entirely Italian.
Verified 2026-09-18
naPizzà opened in 2022 in Etterbeek, one of the 19 communes of the Brussels-Capital Region, near the European institutions. Its pizzaiolo, Carmine Russo, is described as having trained at several of Brussels' best-known pizzerias before opening on his own account, first as a takeaway-only room before moving to the current address.
Verified 2026-09-18
La Pizza è Bella's Brussels room, in the Sablon district, is the original address behind a brand that has since expanded to a second Brussels-region location in Etterbeek and to Antwerp. The crust is thick, fluffy and digestible in the Neapolitan manner, and the house is credited with popularising smoked steam-cooked pizzas.
Verified 2026-09-18
