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An overhead shot of a pizza pie with mozzarella, basil, and red sauce, and a charred outer crust.
The margherita pizza at Una Pizza Napoletana.
Una Pizza Napoletana

Where to Find the Iconic Pizzerias of New York City

A landscape of pizzas, including Neapolitan, coal-fired, brick oven, square, and New York-style slices from around the city

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The margherita pizza at Una Pizza Napoletana.
| Una Pizza Napoletana

Pizza as the world knows it was invented, based on Italian models, in New York City around 1905 at Lombardi’s in Little Italy, though we had precursors that were closer to focaccia late in the previous century. And from that original burst of energy — which also propelled the openings of Patsy’s, Totonno’s, and John’s of Bleecker Street, all by baker-disciples of Gennaro Lombardi — the city’s pizzaioli continued to innovate, creating new varieties uniquely suited to the tastes and demands of customers. While there’s a never-ending debate on where to find the city’s best slices, there’s one issue with no dispute (despite the latest claim about a particular city out West): New York City and its vicinity have remained the world capital of pizzadom.

That said, only a certain number of those pizzerias have ascended to icon status. Here’s a collection of 30 restaurants spanning all five boroughs, which every pizza-loving New Yorker should visit at least once. New to this map are Oma Grassa, Camillo, Ops, Lucia Pizza of Avenue X, and 99 Cent Fresh Pizza. For the best neighborhood slice shops, see here.

Health experts consider dining out to be a high-risk activity for the unvaccinated; it may pose a risk for the vaccinated, especially in areas with substantial COVID transmission.

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Zero Otto Nove

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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 small round pizza with tomato sauce overall and six globs of melted white cheese.
Margherita pie at Zero Otto Nove.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Louie & Ernie's Pizza

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Head to this venerable pizzeria ensconced in a white frame house in the 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 pizzas — two customer favorites. Louie & Ernie’s serves both slices and pies, as well as a long list of wonderful calzones, but nothing else.

A pizza with no tomato sauce and lots of white cheese.
Louie & Ernie’s fabled white pie is a lake of fresh mozzarella.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Mama's Too!

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Mama’s Too! caused a sensation when it opened on Broadway on the far-north Upper West Side in late 2017, even attracting the attention of New York Times critic Pete Wells. In an impossibly small space, the luscious square slices are on full display, each of them thicker, greasier, and more lushly topped than the one before. The crusts are crunchy, too, and the tomato sauce is slightly sweet. Note the stylish cupping pepperoni.

Four square pies cut into slices with various toppings, including mozzarella and zucchini.
An assortment of slices in the Mama’s Too! style.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Patsy's Pizza

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Patsy’s original location 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 sometimes 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. Note: This coal-oven storefront has reopened after a pandemic hiatus.

Patsy’s in East Harlem has a dark exterior with a red neon sign.
The northernmost coal-oven storefront.
Nick Solares/Eater NY

Rose & Joe's Italian Bakery

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This is a rare Italian bakery that specializes in pizza in a manner similar to the bakeries of Boston’s North End, as well as the standard cookies and pastries one would expect to find in such a shop. Head to the back counter for a square slice that has a thick blanket of melted mozzarella atop a tangy layer of tomato sauce, and try to arrive just as a pie is coming out of the oven, which occurs on a periodic basis.

A blacked rectangular pie with cheesy slices of pizza, with one in the corner missing.
Rose & Joe’s sheet-type bakery pizza.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Rizzo's Fine Pizza

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Pride of Astoria founded in 1959, when slices were 15 cents, Rizzo’s serves a pie like no other in the city. The pizzas are rectangular like Sicilian, but with an ultra-thin crust that crackles when you bite into it, also sporting a normal density of very carefully applied toppings. This pizza is engineered and unique, and comes in dozens of topping combinations.

A rectangular slice on a white paper place with a spreading splotch of white cheese.
A Rizzo’s grandma slice.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

99 Cent Fresh Pizza

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99 Cent Fresh Pizza opened in 2001 and it’s been a wild ride ever since with that ubiquitous chain and its competing chain 2 Bros. The lure is a cheese slice once priced at a dollar, but now usually $1.25 or $1.50. The cheese is cheap, the crust a bit spongy, and the tomato sauce applied with a stinting hand, but, hey, this pizza is good and many develop a taste for its modest attractions.

A slice of pizza on a white paper plate.
A slice from 99 Cent pizza.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

John's of Bleecker Street

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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, coal-oven-fired pizzas judiciously topped with a modest amount of 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. Its franchised branches are not nearly as good.

A truck spills coal into a wheel barrow.
An early morning coal delivery at John’s.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Joe's Pizza

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Joe’s is home to the quintessential New York neighborhood slice: a crust that’s 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 to 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 are offered, but the “fresh mozzarella slice” is a bland nutritious delight.

A slice of pepperoni pizza on a white paper plate.
The pepperoni slice is one of only two or three regularly available at Joe’s and its offshoots.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Motorino

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Chef Mathieu Palombino and his crew have earned rave reviews for their fluffy pizzas at Motorino, which has three locations in NYC and several others in random Asian and Middle Eastern locals (including Kuala Lampur!). Even though the pies have Naples underpinnings, including use of a wood-burning oven, they are a thing unto themselves, especially with toppings like Brussels sprouts and soppressata.

An oven with four pizzas cooking inside of it.
The wood oven at Motorino.
Motorino

Paulie Gee’s

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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 cream. Vegan pies are offered, too. Giannone opened a slice shop in the neighborhood that serves a more straightforward kind of pie.

A big round pie charred in places with squiggles of barbecue sauce and a heap of pickled purple onions.
Paulie Gee’s brisket pie.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Famous Ben's Pizza

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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 offerings is the sfincione — a thich rectantular 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.

A rectangular slice on a paper plate.
A sfincione slice at Famous Ben’s.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Una Pizza Napoletana

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Open in one place or another — the Jersey shore, East Village, San Francisco, now the Lower East Side — since 1966, Una Pizza Napoletana produces some of the most perfect evocations of pizzas as they are in Naples, the precursors of our own New York style. These are smallish pies, but not inexpensive, dappled with char, steaming straight from the oven. Only five or six are offered on any given day (Thursday, Friday, Saturday only), using scintillating ingredients. The current menu also has two apps and a handful of possible additions to the pies.

A hand lifting up a small juicy pizza dotted with small red tomatoes.
Filetti pizza sports fresh baby plum tomatoes on its cheesy white expanse.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Lombardi's Coal Oven Pizza

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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 shop’s second location in Chelsea — not as good — closed during the pandemic. The little-praised clam pie is actually excellent, and compares well with Pepe’s in New Haven.

A pizza covered with deshelled bivalves with a whole lemon standing up in the middle, skin on.
Lombardi’s clam pie.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Scarr's Pizza

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Nearly six years old, this pizza institution on a Lower East Side side street was founded by Scarr Pimentel, whose objective was to take the classic neighborhood pizzeria, and kick up the quality a few notches. Thus the round and square pies deploy artisanal ingredients — including flour milled in the basement — resulting is a real destination pizzeria, like Di Fara or Joe & Pat’s.

Round mushroom and pepperoni pie at Scarr’s.
Scarr’s mushroom and pepperoni pie.
Stefanie Tuder/Eater NY

L'Industrie Pizzeria

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Owner Massimo Laveglia describes his Williamsburg pizzeria as a “slice spot,” but one that embroiders on the traditional concept of the neighborhood slice by offering a product quite distinct from the usual corner pie establishment. For one thing, the crust is of higher quality, with lots of snap, and for another, the ingredients — which include ricotta, burrata, spicy salami, and truffle oil — might seem over-complicated by neighborhood pizzeria standards. The result is a slice like no other.

A pie in a box consisting of eight different slices fitted in side by side.
Eight different slices from L’Industrie, of the dozen or so offered each day.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Kesté is another 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 this Southern Italian style of pizza in 2009 in Greenwich Village right across the street from John’s. It has since closed, but has continued with a second location near the South Street Seaport; his daughter Giorgia has become the in-house expert and is one of the few well known pizzaioli in the city. The menu features a pizza made with fried dough, as well as more than two dozen additional pie options, including those that are gluten-free.

A circular pizza with whole cherry tomatoes and squash blossoms on top.
A Kesté pizza with cherry tomatoes and squash blossoms.
Melissa McCart/Eater NY

Roberta's Pizza

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The Roberta’s crew tops Neapolitan-style pizzas with exceptional mozzarella and meats cured on the premises. The restaurant has expanded to be so much more than a pizzeria these days, but the pies are still some of the finest in the city. For those who can’t handle the wait, a takeout counter is available nearby.

A man inserts a pizza into a red wood-fired oven.
The wood-fired oven at Roberta’s.
Daniel Krieger/Eater NY

Juliana's

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To hear aficionados tell it, Grimaldi’s is not really Grimaldi’s — this second-generation coal oven pizzeria in Dumbo, opened in 1990, was taken over by outside interests in 1998 and moved next door. The old place, oven and all, was reopened by Patsy Grimaldi as Juliana’s in 2012, and now is turning out the same excellent coal-oven pies, with a sweeter tomato sauce, a generous strew of toppings, and a glove-soft crust that’s a little thicker than the coal-oven old timers like John’s and Lombardi’s.

A round pie splashed with tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella in swatches, with additional skin on swatches of eggplant.
Eggplant pie at Juliana’s.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

For years, “Bushwick pizzeria” was synonymous with Roberta’s, the national chain that started with a single location here in 2008. More than a decade later, lots of locals think of Ops. The pizzeria was started in 2016 by sommelier Marie Tribouilloy, now behind Ridgewood’s Foret wine shop; Mike Fadem, who previously worked for Andrew Tarlow; and Gavin Compton of Variety Coffee next door. Today, you’ll still find a brief menu of sourdough pies decorated with guanciale, broccoli rabe, and preserved tomatoes. The calzone, whose flavors change often, might be the best of all.

A calzone topped with parmesan cheese on a metal tray with a side of tomato sauce
Ops makes calzones, too.
Bill Addison/Eater

Oma Grassa

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For the longest time our boutique Neapolitan pizzerias — making small puffy expensive pies with imported ingredients — adhered strictly to their Italian models, but gradually hybrids arose that combined elements of our native pies with those of Naples. Oma Grassa is a Ft. Greene newcomer that does just that. Pizzaiolo Adam Baumgart uses an electric oven with a temp that runs midway between gas and wood, allowing a Neapolitan supply with a crust more firm on the bottom that allows for more toppings, among other advantages.

A round pie with cherry tomatoes on top.
Oma Grassa’s cherry tomato pie.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Lucali is the kind of cozy sit-down 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 draw long lines, and it’s impossible to make a reservation. The move is to show up before 5 p.m., add your name to the list, and grab a drink in the neighborhood while you wait. The menu is simple: pies or calzones with a few toppings to choose from. Plus, it’s BYOB.

A round pie charred in places with whole basil leaves and slices of pepperoni.
A pepperoni pie at Lucali.
Stephanie Tuder/Eater NY

La Villa Pizzeria

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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 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.

A rectangular pizza with a browned top crust.
The Romana at La Villa.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Camillo

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Naples-style pies seem to be everywhere, but there are other Italian pizza styles that are just now being accepted into the fold. One is the pinsa, an oblong pie that may have originated in ancient Rome made with a mixture of grains that bake up light and airy. The pinsa Romana is one of the best, with an Amatriciana on one side and cacio e pepe on the other, using two of the Eternal City’s favorite pasta sauces.

An oval-shaped pinsa rests on a wooden cutting board on a marble countertop.
Camillo’s pinsa Romana.
Amber-Lynn Taber/Eater NY

Denino's Pizzeria

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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 Greenwich Village in 2016, and the new place is just as good as the original.

A close-up shot of a cheese pie topped with clams.
The vaunted clam pie at Denino’s.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Di Fara Pizza

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Legendary pizzaiolo Dom DeMarco, who was born in Caserta, Campania, died recently at the age of 85. He’d been serving up what some considered to be New York’s best pizza since 1965, adding basil leaves grown in his Midwood shop to each pie. Besides the plain Neapolitan pizzas, the Sicilian and artichoke pies were standouts. While his output generated long lines during the last two decades, it remains to be seen if the pizzeria will be as popular (or as good) in his absence. There’s a branch on the Lower East Side.

A man makes pizza in a pizzeria.
Dom Demarco making a pizza at Di Fara.
Nick Solares/Eater NY

Joe and Pat's Pizzeria

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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.

Thin crust Joe & Pat’s pizza on a metal tray, with another pie in the background.
Thin-crust Joe and Pat’s pie.
Alex Staniloff/Eater NY

L&B Spumoni Gardens

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L&B is known for its extra-doughy square slices. The dense, slightly sweet crust is topped first with mozzarella, then tomato sauce and a thin layer of Pecorino Romano, before being slightly underbaked so the crust is a little raw in the middle. Some love it, others hate it, but this “upside down sheet” style is uniquely Brooklynite and Sicilian. The famed outdoor patio is one of the most charming pizzeria spaces in the city. For dessert, get the Italian spumoni, which comes in scoops in disposable cups and is meant to be squeezed into your mouth.

An outdoor seating area with picnic tables and umbrellas at L&B Spumoni Gardens in Gravesend, Brooklyn.
The patio at L&B Spumoni Gardens.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Lucia Pizza of Avenue X

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Salvatore Carlino was raised on pizza, so it’s no surprise there’s been buzz around the chef’s first restaurant. His family operated Manhattan Beach’s Papa Leone’s, which closed in 2017, and founded Park Slope slice shop, Smiling Pizza. Carlino opened the doors on his own pizzeria in Sheepshead Bay roughly a year ago, and his margherita, white, and plain pies have been well-received. Try the vodka pizza, which uses the same recipe from Papa Leone’s, dating back to 1974.

An overhead photograph of a quarter of a pizza, topped with cheeses and crumbled meats.
Lucia Pizza of Avenue X is the youngest pizzeria on this list.
Alex Staniloff/Eater NY

Lee's Tavern

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For diners seeking out a classic bar pie, Lee’s is worth the ferry to Staten Island and ride on the light rail to the Dongan Hills. 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.

The round clam pizza at Lee’s Tavern is topped with cheese and out of the shell clams.
Clam bar pie at Lee’s Tavern.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Zero Otto Nove

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 small round pizza with tomato sauce overall and six globs of melted white cheese.
Margherita pie at Zero Otto Nove.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Louie & Ernie's Pizza

Head to this venerable pizzeria ensconced in a white frame house in the 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 pizzas — two customer favorites. Louie & Ernie’s serves both slices and pies, as well as a long list of wonderful calzones, but nothing else.

A pizza with no tomato sauce and lots of white cheese.
Louie & Ernie’s fabled white pie is a lake of fresh mozzarella.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Mama's Too!

Mama’s Too! caused a sensation when it opened on Broadway on the far-north Upper West Side in late 2017, even attracting the attention of New York Times critic Pete Wells. In an impossibly small space, the luscious square slices are on full display, each of them thicker, greasier, and more lushly topped than the one before. The crusts are crunchy, too, and the tomato sauce is slightly sweet. Note the stylish cupping pepperoni.

Four square pies cut into slices with various toppings, including mozzarella and zucchini.
An assortment of slices in the Mama’s Too! style.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Patsy's Pizza

Patsy’s original location 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 sometimes 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. Note: This coal-oven storefront has reopened after a pandemic hiatus.

Patsy’s in East Harlem has a dark exterior with a red neon sign.
The northernmost coal-oven storefront.
Nick Solares/Eater NY

Rose & Joe's Italian Bakery

This is a rare Italian bakery that specializes in pizza in a manner similar to the bakeries of Boston’s North End, as well as the standard cookies and pastries one would expect to find in such a shop. Head to the back counter for a square slice that has a thick blanket of melted mozzarella atop a tangy layer of tomato sauce, and try to arrive just as a pie is coming out of the oven, which occurs on a periodic basis.

A blacked rectangular pie with cheesy slices of pizza, with one in the corner missing.
Rose & Joe’s sheet-type bakery pizza.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Rizzo's Fine Pizza

Pride of Astoria founded in 1959, when slices were 15 cents, Rizzo’s serves a pie like no other in the city. The pizzas are rectangular like Sicilian, but with an ultra-thin crust that crackles when you bite into it, also sporting a normal density of very carefully applied toppings. This pizza is engineered and unique, and comes in dozens of topping combinations.

A rectangular slice on a white paper place with a spreading splotch of white cheese.
A Rizzo’s grandma slice.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

99 Cent Fresh Pizza

99 Cent Fresh Pizza opened in 2001 and it’s been a wild ride ever since with that ubiquitous chain and its competing chain 2 Bros. The lure is a cheese slice once priced at a dollar, but now usually $1.25 or $1.50. The cheese is cheap, the crust a bit spongy, and the tomato sauce applied with a stinting hand, but, hey, this pizza is good and many develop a taste for its modest attractions.

A slice of pizza on a white paper plate.
A slice from 99 Cent pizza.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

John's of Bleecker Street

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, coal-oven-fired pizzas judiciously topped with a modest amount of 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. Its franchised branches are not nearly as good.

A truck spills coal into a wheel barrow.
An early morning coal delivery at John’s.
Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

Joe's Pizza

Joe’s is home to the quintessential New York neighborhood slice: a crust that’s 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 to 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 are offered, but the “fresh mozzarella slice” is a bland nutritious delight.