Salerno native Roberto Paciullo’s Bronx trattoria in Little Italy serves wood-fired pizzas that have puffy brown crusts and floppy centers. Some pizza geeks think it serves one of the finer examples of the Naples-revival style of pizza in New York. While those pies are the main attraction, it also serves a great eggplant parm. A second location in the Flatiron District also generates excellent pizzas, but it lacks some of the cave-like charm of the original.

Head to this venerable pizzeria ensconced in a white frame house in the extreme southeast Schuylerville section of the Bronx for relatively doughy thin-crust pies. It’s a true neighborhood spot, around since 1959, and has snagged headlines for its white and sausage-topped pies — two customer favorites. Louie & Ernie’s serves both slices and pies, as well as a long list of wonderful calzones, but nothing else.

Koronet is famous for its giant slices, unquestionably the city’s largest. Since the original location opened near 111th street in 1981, it has fed Columbia University students and Upper West Siders for a budget price. The pizza is solid, but the chief draw is the value-to-price ratio, with a jumbo slice estimated to be the equivalent of three-and-a-half regular slices. There’s also an outpost in Washington Heights that opened in 2012.

Longtime pizzeria Sal and Carmine’s has been serving up premium slices on the Upper West Side since 1959. The cheese slice in particular sports a great crust, with a tomato sauce and cheese that merge into a mysterious amalgam, making it one of New York City’s greatest neighborhood slices, and a real Upper West Side favorite.

Patsy’s original location is in East Harlem is one of New York’s oldest coal-oven pizzerias. It offers whole pies in a dining room, making it a great sit-down restaurant, or go next door to the storefront with the picturesque oven, where slices are sold. The sauce and mozzarella are both fairly bland, but as noted: “The crust is the softest and most glove-like of all the coal-oven places, and if you close your eyes, you might as well be in Naples.” Patsy’s has since franchised, sprouting several locations around the city. Go to the original.

Pride of Astoria, founded in 1959, Rizzo’s serves a pie like no other that we know of in the city. The pizzas are rectangular like Sicilian, but with an ultra-thin crust that crackles when you bite into it, but also sports a normal density of very carefully applied toppings. This pizza is engineered and unique, and comes in dozens of topping combinations. The Lower East Side branch sadly closed during the pandemic.

John’s is one of the city’s oldest pizza operations, and it has retained much of its original New York character. Founded in 1929 by John Sasso, an alum of Lombardi’s, the restaurant churns out very thin crust coal oven-fired pizzas judiciously topped with sauce and cheese. Pizzas here are sold strictly by the pie (the awning famously says, “No Slices”), with additional toppings like sliced meatballs, onions, ricotta, black olives, crushed garlic, pepperoni, ground sausage, and double mozzarella. Other franchised branches are never as good.

Joe’s is home to the quintessential New York slice: a crust that’s equally thin and crisp accompanied by even layers of cheese and tomato sauce, the latter intentionally on the bland side. The slice shop has been around since 1975, but only in recent years has it expanded in Manhattan and in Brooklyn. The line moves fast and service is quick. This is one of the city’s “must try” slices, since it represents an old-fashioned norm for neighborhood pizza. Few toppings offered, other than pepperoni, but the fresh mozzarella slice is also a bland delight.

The Greenpoint pizzeria led by Paulie Giannone is known for baking creatively topped pies. Take the Benny Gee, for example, made with fresh mozzarella, Canadian bacon, and a post-oven hollandaise drizzle, or limited specials like the the anise and anephew, which has braised fennel fronds, guanciale, and anisette creme. Vegan pies offered, too. Giannone also opened a slice shop in the neighborhood that serves a less showy kind of pie more nearly normal at 110 Franklin Street.

Arturo’s serves an example of the original New York coal oven pie, a Neapolitan-American pizza — and it hasn’t quite caught on with the tourists who flood Lombardi’s and John’s, even though it’s been around since 1957. The restaurant sits on the same street corner it always has and retains much of its Greenwich Village charm. Come for the pies and stay for the live jazz.

Founded in 1979 by Ben and Debbie Aliotta, Famous Ben’s manages to channel a Sicilian focacceria in addition to turning out typical Neapolitan pies with a broad range of toppings. One of the more fascinating Sicilian offerings in the sfincione — a square, thick slice topped with bread crumbs and pureed onions, rather than the usual tomato sauce and cheese. Other Sicilian recipes abound at this atypical neighborhood pizzeria — though the neighborhood happens to be Soho.

Lombardi’s is not the best coal oven pizza joint in town, but it is the oldest, and its charred pies do not disappoint. It’s often called the first pizzeria in NYC, and for this reason is regularly mobbed by tourists and pizza fanatics alike. The legendary shop’s second location in Chelsea — not nearly as good — closed during the pandemic. The little-praised clam pie is actually excellent, and compares well with Pepe’s in New Haven.

Kesté is another one of the city’s top places for Naples-style small pies, here concocted of extra-fine Italian flour, San Marzano tomatoes, and buffalo mozzarella. Owner Robert Caporuscio started baking the Southern Italian style of pizza in 2009 in Greenwich Village, since closed, but has continued with a second location in the Financial District. The menu features a pizza made with fried dough, as well as more than two dozen additional pie options, including gluten-free.

Grimaldi’s opened in Dumbo under the Brooklyn Bridge near the waterfront in 1990, using a coal-burning oven to emulate the pies of old-timers like Lombardi’s, Patsy’s, Totonno’s, and John’s of Bleecker Street. The crusts are thin and charred in places, and the toppings strewn with a freer hand than is usual in coal-oven places. Grimaldi’s is now owned by an Arizona chain and the original owners moved to Juliana’s, on the same Dumbo block.

Lucali is the cozy neighborhood restaurant every neighborhood should have. Mark Iacono’s thin-crust pizzas, made with a three-cheese blend of fresh and imported mozzarella and Grana Padano, plus fresh basil, consistently pulls in long lines, and it’s impossible to make a reservation. The move is to show up 5 p.m., add your name to the list, and go get a drink elsewhere until you receive a message by cell. The menu is simple: pies or calzones with a few toppings to choose from. And it’s BYOB.

Descended from a pair of excellent pizzerias in Howard Beach and Mill Basin (and a much older establishment in Bay Ridge), La Villa is Brooklyn pizza royalty, and this Park Slope branch seeks to turn out a bewildering number of pizza varieties from its wood-burning oven. A stuffed pizza called Romana recalls co-owner Alfredo Di Scipio’s ancestry in Abruzzo, Italy. The double-crust pie, a type of pizza rustica, is filled with Italian sausage, pepperoni, cheese, and potatoes, and each bite is pure pleasure.

Denino’s is perhaps the most famous pizzeria in Staten Island. Its most exciting pizza, the clam pie, is a molten mass of briny minced clams and mozzarella on a crisp, nicely tanned crust. The dining room is an extension of a barroom that originated in 1937 as a dockworker’s hangout. Denino’s expanded to Manhattan in 2016 — and the new place is just as good as the original.

Legendary pizzaiolo Dom DeMarco has been serving up what some consider to be New York City’s best pizza since 1965, though he’s not often present these days. It’s not uncommon to wait 90 minutes or more during peak hours. While the typical Di Fara experience commands a lengthy wait, the pies are worth it. Besides the plain Neapolitan pizzas, the Sicilian and artichoke pies are standouts. Pro tip: Sometimes you can dash in and snag a single slice if you spot a partial pie on the counter — those in line insist on a whole pie.

A snappy, super-thin crust and generous fresh mozzarella make this longstanding Staten Island institution a cult favorite. Joe and Pat’s has been around since 1960, but in 2018 the pizzeria brought its pies to a wider audience. The family behind the restaurant opened its first Manhattan location in the East Village, serving not just classic Italian fare but cocktails, too.

For diners seeking out a classic bar pie, Lee’s is worth taking the ferry to Staten Island and a ride on the light rail to the Dongan Hills stop to get. The low-key corner tavern near the station serves a small, wafer-thin pizza meant to be consumed with a pint of beer, attracting mainly neighborhood locals since it swung its doors open in 1940. Usually topped with a single ingredient in addition to cheese and tomato sauce, the pies are well-priced and come full-sized, too.

This storied Coney Island pizzeria has been serving thin-crust pizzas topped with a simple tomato sauce and patches of silky fresh mozzarella since 1924. The crust has a char that may surprise diners who have never tasted real coal oven pizza before, and the toppings are delicately applied. Totonno’s pizza is considered one of NYC’s most iconic dishes.

This Staten Island old-school pizzeria serves Neapolitan-style slices, Sicilian squares, and thick pies with an over-abundance of toppings. Nunzio’s has been around in one form or another since the 1940s and is a favorite of beachgoers, once occupying a pink frame house before the new place was built. The menu also offers salads, heroes, and pasta.