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 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.

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.

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 is temporarily closed.

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.

Founded in 1964, NY PIzza Suprema is basically a neighborhood pizzeria in an exceedingly advantageous location. That location is the southwest corner of Penn Station, and Suprema could have responded by lazily turning out average slices, but it rose to the occasion by upping its pie game — by the slice or by the whole pizza — with the lushest display of round and square product right inside the front door. Thick-crusted for a Neapolitan pie, gloppy, and filling, one slice is probably enough to take you all the way home on the train.

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.

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, other than pepperoni, but the “fresh mozzarella slice” is a bland nutritious 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 cream. Vegan pies are offered, too. Giannone opened a slice shop in the neighborhood that serves a less showy kind of pie.

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.

Home to what might be New York’s most Instagrammable pie, Rubirosa dishes out a thin-crust “tie-dye” pizza, in which its creamy vodka pie is topped with a swirl of pesto and fresh mozzarella. The pizzeria was founded by third-generation pizza maker Angelo “AJ” Pappalardo and his father, Joe Pappalardo of Joe & Pat’s in Staten Island. It’s one of the few places worth checking out in NYC’s Little Italy, though come prepared for a wait.

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.

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.

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 second Brooklyn location has opened in Williamsburg’s Domino Park.

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.

The history of pizza in NYC is not a straight line but a branching tree, and even though the founding of Lombardi’s around 1905 is its seminal date, many forms of pizza, including the thick crust ones dubbed Sicilian and focaccia have been around even longer than Neapolitan models. Sicilian immigrant Nicolo Mazzola founded his Cobble Hill bakery in 1928, and like the bakeries of Boston’s North End, thick slices of pizza are considered a form of bread and within the purview of bakeries. Several types are routinely available at Mazzola, most utilizing fresh mozzarella, and if you’re lucky, a pie will be hot when you arrive.

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.

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.

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, and 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 are invariably waiting for whole pizzas.

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.

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 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 distinctive pink frame house before the new place was built. The menu also includes salads, heroes, and pasta.