A favorite of Fordham students since the ’80s, this eclectic pizza parlor right near campus is known for its chicken rolls and its eccentric, hammy owner Sal Natale. The slices and garlic knots are excellent, and heart-shaped love pies add additional charm. Specials named for Fordham students hang from the counter on printed-out paper (try the J. Rossi power burger, involving a giant hamburger patty sandwiched between pizza dough). The place often closes briefly during the summer months while students are away.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, and as such, toppings are minimal.

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.

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 thick rectangular 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.

Open in one place or another — the Jersey shore, East Village, San Francisco, now the Lower East Side — since 1996, 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.

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 little-praised clam pie is actually excellent, and compares well with Pepe’s in New Haven.

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.

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 and 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 might be the best of all.

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.

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. Cash only, BYOB.

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, 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 have been the standouts.

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.

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.

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.

Reopened for sit-down following the pandemic, the family-run Totonno’s was recently featured on Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil, highlighting its near 100-year reign in Coney Island as one of the city’s original coal-oven pizzas. The list of toppings is spare, the premises is small and looks like someone’s living room, but the pies are superb when the oven is cranking at peak temperature, which approached 900 degrees.