National Pizza Day is upon us. National British and American Pizza Day, 9th February, 2024, that is. And while we doubt that those in Southern Italy will be cracking out the commemorative pineapple and meat feast stuffed crusts to mark the occasion, we’ll take any damn reason we can for a sliver of the good stuff.
To pre-empt the pedants, here at IDEAL we’re just as in thrall to a traditional Neapolitan as we are to a single slice of something New Yorker. As long as it’s made with love, respect and good ingredients, we’re in.
With that in mind, here is our IDEAL 22; the London pizza restaurants, IDEAL for celebrating National Pizza Day in style.
L’antica Pizzeria Da Michele, Baker Street
Ideal for a taste of the so-called ‘Best Pizza in the World’…
We had to start here, seeing as it’s been dubbed ‘The Best Pizza in the World’ and iconised in the film Eat, Pray, Love. Ignoring the fact that the inaugural London site in Stoke Newington fractured in bitter legal dispute, the second branch in Baker Street is still slinging out top, top pizzas, loyally in line with the Neapolitan diktat.
If you’re after an excess of toppings, this one isn’t for you. Though the choice isn’t quite as clear cut as the mothership in Forcella, Naples (simply between margherita and marinara), this is still a minimalist affair in the most traditional – and best possible – way. Go for a half and half of the aforementioned margherita and marinara, or go totally wild and order a capricciosa, the artichoke hearts of Michele’s version plump and not mired in a pizza-ruining vinegary flavour. All in all, this is still one of the very best pizzas in London, regardless of fall-outs and expansion ambitions. Long may it continue.
There are now outposts in Soho, Manchester and Amsterdam, too.
Website: anticapizzeriadamichele.co.uk
Address: 199 Baker St, Marylebone, London NW1 6UY
081 Pizzeria, Peckham
Ideal for trying Peckham’s best pizza…
They say that at the best neighbourhood restaurants, you feel just as comfortable dropping in for a convivial ciao as you do a four-course meal. And so it is at 081 Pizzeria, Peckham’s proudest purveyors of pizza and street food straight from the Città del Sole.
Having opened in the turbulent times of May 2021, 081 (named after the telephone code of Naples) has quickly established itself at the heart of the hospitality community on this stretch of Peckham Rye, with local chefs, bartenders and wait staff coming here to congregate around the 480C° heat of the ANVP-approved Izzo Forni as though it were a campfire.
Yep, this is a place that wants you to linger, a position at odds with the usual bam-bam-grazia-signoria nature of traditional Neapolitan pizzerias in the capital. There are arancini generously filled with ragu bolognese to enjoy as you wait for the main event, alongside a whole host of other deep-fried treats, here billed as tapas. The cocktails are ace, too, the negroni properly assertive. A graffiti-inspired sketch of ASAP Rocky weeping cheese looks down on the dining room, for some reason.
Of course, the pizzas have to hit the mark to keep the punters returning in a place like this, and, fortunately, 081 has some serious pedigree in that department; the head pizzaiola here is previously of Bravi Ragazzi (also on our list), and the pizzas are on a level with those being slung down the Circular Road to Streatham. If you’ve eaten at Bravi, that’s all you need to know.
Website: 081pizzeria.com
Address: 66 Peckham Rye, London SE15 4JR
Bravi Ragazzi, Streatham
Ideal for our very favourite pizza south of the river…
It felt right – poetic, even – to head south to Bravi Ragazzi next, foreplay dispensed with and appetite whet.
Streatham’s revered Neapolitan pizzeria prides itself on tradition and authenticity, and in our humble opinion, this right here is the best Neapolitan pizza in South London.
Several boxes have to be ticked for a pizza to qualify as a traditional Neapolitan in the eyes of the connoisseurs. 00 flour, water and salt form the dough, and it must be hand kneaded and given ample time to rise before being shaped by hand rather than rolling pin. After that, it’s topped with San Marzano or Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio tomatoes and Mozzarella di Bufala Campana, and cooked quickly at incredibly high heat in a wood fired pizza oven. The result should be pillowy, soft and elastic, with toppings light rather than overwhelming.
Anyway, the good guys at Bravi Ragazzi know all that, and their respect for tradition has made their pizzas the toast of Streatham and beyond. This is, quite simply, one of London’s best pizzas (must add it to that list, actually). They also do a superb tiramisu, for those with a sweet tooth.
Though the dining room is compact, unassuming, and walk-ins only, locals will be pleased to hear that Bravi Ragazzi is on Deliveroo… As if they didn’t know already!
Before we go, it would be remiss of us not to give a shout-out to another local favourite famous for slinging fantastic wood fired pizzas in the Neapolitan style, who have now sadly closed. Addome, how we miss you!
Website: bravi-ragazzi.business.site
Address: 2A Sunnyhill Rd, London SW16 2UH, United Kingdom
Read: The best restaurants in Streatham and West Norwood
50 Kalo Di Ciro Salvo Pizzeria, Trafalgar Square
Ideal for getting close to a pizzaiolo consistently voted among the world’s best…
Excuse the heavy mouthful of a name, but the pizzas at 50 Kalo are anything but. Regularly named as one of the best pizzas in Europe outside of Italy, and with a world class pizzeria in Naples, 50 Kalo and its superstar pizzaiolo Ciro Salvo boast some serious credibility.
The restaurant, whose name means ‘good dough’ in a Neapolitan dialect, stays true to its name with the lightest, airiest bases and premium ingredients used to dress that very good dough. Could this be London’s best pizza? We certainly think so.
Website: 50kalò.it
Address: 7 Northumberland Ave, London WC2N 5BY, UK
Fatto a Mano, Kings Cross
Ideal for trying the iconic, Netflix-famous Mistaken Margherita (for a limited time only)…
We’ve been fans of Fatto a Mano’s just-the-right-side-sloppy Neapolitan pizzas since their (and our) days in Brighton, first as a single site on the city’s London Road back in 2015, then to their expansion into Hove, all the way to their second pizzeria opening in the Big wood-fired Smoke at the crust end of last year.
That second pizzeria is found in Covent Garden (just a mile down the road from another Brighton restaurant that’s broken London, incidentally) but our favourite of the London iterations of Fatto a Mano is found ten minutes up the Piccadilly Line in Kings Cross.
Here, as with all five restaurants, the dough is pillowy and digestible, the ingredients top notch and light-as-you-like, and the pizza oven cranked up to the requisite 450°C, only needing around 90 seconds before it’s ready. Nope, you won’t see any caramelised cheese here; the buffalo mozzarella on the margherita buffalo is as fresh and milky as it comes, and the marinara sauce fresh and sharp rather than reduced to a metallic rust. It’s a gorgeous pizza, and now that the sun has finally got its hat on, Fatto’s terrace is certainly looking an inviting place to eat one.
We haven’t tried it yet but the lasagna pizza, which sees beef ragu, creamy bechamel and smoked Provola on a classic Neapolitan base looks and sounds dreamy, and has earned a cult following (as well as plenty of haters). Watch this space for a verdict from our next visit.
Of real note to all the pizza nerds out there, for all of May (and a couple of days in June) Fatto a Mano are playing host to one of the world’s most famous pizzas, Franco Pepe’s Margherita Sbagliata, as seen on Netflix’s Chef’s Table. The esteemed pizza chef has blessed the restaurant with the secret recipe for his ‘Mistaken Margherita’, with £1.50 from every pizza going to the incredible La Scugnizzeria, a charity who offer underprivileged young people from Scampia a path into employment. Pizza and a good cause… Could there be anything better?
Website: fattoamanopizza.com
Address: Unit 1, 3 Pancras Sq, London N1C 4AG
Dough Hands, Hackney
Ideal for once ephemeral, now enduring New York-adjacent slices…
We’ve been chasing the ephemeral, enigmatic Dough Hands from pizza pop-up to pizza pop-up in recent years, enjoying their crisp New York-style slices in Brixton Market, Bethnal Green and Homerton in recent years. It’s been a pilgrimage we’ve never regretted, the signature pepperoni and hot honey number worth just about any hour spent with TfL, even if just for a slice.
Well colour us tricolore, because Dough Hands have just announced a new residency at the Spurstowe Arms, just seconds from Hackney Central station. With a less transient timescale billed simply as ‘for the foreseeable’, we’re so happy to have these awesome pizza slingers so close to (floury, marinara-marked) hand.
Instagram: @doughhandspizza
‘O Ver, Borough
Ideal for supremely digestible, seawater spiked pizzas…
Classic Caputo 00 flour and, erm, pure seawater… It’s not quite got that ‘match made in heaven’ status that, say, San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil boast. But hey, we’re up for anything, and so it is to ‘O Ver, whose use of the salty stuff, drawn from the purest areas of the Mediterranean, is very much their USP.
The first restaurant in the UK to – vocally – do so, the seawater is said to lighten the dough and make it easier to digest. We honestly can’t argue with the claim; ‘O Ver’s pizzas are incredibly digestible, and it’s eminently possible to take two down in a single sitting, even after you’ve had a good crack at the restaurant’s rundown of classic Neapolitan deep-fried bites. The crocche (essentially deep-fried mashed potato), in particular, is expertly conceived.
Back to those pizzas, and they hit the table puffed up and airy, the dinghy bouncing back at you when prodded and only deflating when pierced. Elegantly dressed, we huge fans to the tropea; a sophisticated affair with fior di latte, flakes of tuna fillet, the namesake onions, sun dried tomatoes and olives. It sings of summer, its sweet-salty interplay softened by a silky, ornate mouthfeel. Truly, a must-order, even if the £19.50 price tag is a clear premium, it’s easy to see why ‘O Ver has been named in the 100 Top Pizza World list for the previous two years.
Website: overuk.com
Address: 44-46 Southwark St, London SE1 1UN
Pizzeria Mozza, Marylebone
Ideal for crisp, golden pizzas that are a celebration of the season…
Pizzeria Mozza, located adjacent to the Treehouse Hotel London on historic Regent Street in Marylebone, is the brainchild of internationally recognised chef Nancy Silverton, who has won a Michelin star at Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles amongst several other accolades.
Known for its focus on locally sourced, premium, seasonal ingredients, Pizzeria Mozza offers a menu that celebrates the plentitude of great produce available in the UK, celebrated not only in pizza form but also in a really enjoyable range of salads and sarnies.
But you’re here for the pizza, right? At Mozza, they’re neither Neopolitan nor New Yorker (nor Londoner, a style yet to fully settle on its definition), but rather, a crisp, golden, semolina-dusted, ‘personal’ sized affair, its crust calling to mind a burnished Pizza Express dough ball. In the best possible way, of course…
Purists look away, now. Actually, forget that; the whole ‘pineapple shouldn’t belong on pizza’ debate is trite and tedious. So, we’ll just say this; the pizza alla benno (named for Silverton’s son Ben) is the move here, a genuinely refreshing pizza with gossamer thin slices of both speck and pineapple, scattered like petals across a base of passata di pomodoro that packs a little more heft than your usual hand-wrung San Marzano. Milky sweet fior di latte lightens the load.
Yours for £18, pair it with a glass of the 2022 Tramin Gewurztraminer, its gentle sweetness balancing out the salty af speck (both from South Tyrol, incidentally), and its pronounced notes of lychee an interesting match for the pineapple. Yep, pineapple on a pizza. Pineapple pineapple pineapple, pizza.
Arguably even better, and on special during during the warmer months, the Amalfi lemon pizza is a slice of summer. We can’t wait for it to return to Mozza’s menu.
The lush interior, designed to mimic a wild Mediterranean garden (not sure it quite succeeds in this aim, frankly) and provide a serene escape in the heart of London (kinda succeeds this), is a relaxing place to enjoy this taste of Hawaii via LA via London.
Website: treehousehotels.com
Address: 14-15 Langham Pl, London W1B 2QS
Berberè, Clapham
Ideal for sourdough pizzas all the way from Bologna…
We’ve been big fans of Bologna’s Berberè for years, always stealing a slice when we’re in La Rossa™. So, when these celebrated pizza purveyors touched down closer to home back in 2020, we immediately made our way south of the river and to Clapham Common in search of some action (observing all social distancing rules of course and not sharing our pizza, however much Beberè implores you to do so with their ‘sliced in 8 to stimulate conviviality’ dispatch).
Founded by Matteo and Salvatore Aloe in Bologna in 2010, the Clapham iteration of Berberè stands on the former site of Radio Alice, a pizzeria that the Aloe brothers had a hand in. We think Berberè is even better, and not far from the dizzy heights that this pizzeria has ascended back in Bel Paese.
It’s all about the sourdough base here, whose mother has been nurtured for more than a decade since its birth in Castel Maggiore, an attentiveness that results in a super light base that’s cooked to a pleasingly crisp finish. Perfect, then, for the restaurant’s crust dippers, here a choice between spicy ‘nduja & honey, aioli, garlic butter or basil & walnut pesto. Get all four.
The pizza selection itself feels more traditional and, dare we say, demure, with a roll call of just eleven elegantly adorned affairs. The Napoli is especially good, with the imported Amalfi anchovies aggressively salty and the black olives aggressively briny, but all somehow soothed by a super sweet organic tomato sauce. To enjoy this particular pizza on a crisp base that doesn’t buckle feels perverse. Illicit, even. And we love it…
Even more illicit feeling is Berberè’s falafel pizza which should, in all honesty, be against the law. We think we might just order another Napoli…
Website: berberepizzeria.co.uk
Address: 67 Venn St, London SW4 0BD
Pizza Pilgrims, Soho
Ideal for a homegrown pizza that hits all the right notes…
Come for the wood-fired Neapolitan, stay for the delicious Gin and Pocello (their own version of Limoncello – just delicious). Pizza Pilgrim’s mantra is ‘In Crust We Trust’, and they stay true to this pledge with a base of lightness, chew, a hint of sourness and the requisite heat blisters that are the hallmark of a true pizza from Southern Italy. Their arancini balls make an excellent starter, too.
Website: pizzapilgrims.co.uk
Address: 11 Dean St, Soho, London W1D 3RP, UK
Read: The best restaurants on Dean Street, Soho
Pizzeria Pellone, Battersea
Ideal for the city’s finest calzone fritto…
Authenticity is the name of the game – on the first half at least – of the Battersea favourite Pizzeria Pellone’s menu; Neapolitan classics using Divella tomato sauce, Caputo flour, and Buffalo Mozzarella straight from Campania. This respectful adherence to stricture has its backbone in the Pellone family’s popular pizzerias back in Naples, and you can taste tradition in every slice..
That said, it’s in that second half of the menu, the Pizze Le Pizze Gourmet, where the intrigue lies; the white pizzas here are superb, particularly the pistachio pesto and mortadella number. The Calzone Fritto, generous with black pepper and mottled with housemade salami, is a cult classic.
Address: 42 Lavender Hill, London SW11 5RL
Website: pizzeriapellonelondon.co.uk
Read: Where to eat near Clapham Junction
Joe Public, Clapham
Ideal for a slice of sourdough pizza…
Pizza by the slice hasn’t taken off in England as it has in the States, but there are still some fine sliver-slingers to be found in the Capital. One such place is Joe Public, a tiny outpost next to Clapham Common tube station who do great California style slices (sourdough base, if you’re wondering) at decent prices. The good news is that they deliver if you don’t fancy crossing the river for one of their excellent, under-a-fiver offerings.
Website: joepublicpizza.com
Address: 4 The Pavement, London SW4 0HY, UK
Voodoo Ray’s, Dalston
Ideal for creative late night slices and some top tunes to boot…
Another by the slice joint is late night hipster hangout Voodoo Ray’s in Dalston. Here you can enjoy a cold can of Neck Oil and a New Yorker style pizza until the early hours (this place closes at 3 AM at the weekend) and ride off on your unicycle into the night, satiated and happy.
Website: voodoorays.com
Address: 95 Kingsland High St, London E8 2PB, UK
Homeslice, Covent Garden
Ideal for a shearin’, tearin’ good time…
Not one for the pizza purists, this, but definitely a place for a sharin’, tearin’ good time. The pizzas here are huge 20-inch numbers, perfect for some group fun. Indeed, the name Homeslice in bro parlance means friend, and the buddying up concept lends itself to conviviality and good cheer. Some of the topping combos are inventive, some downright weird; cauliflower cheese and harissa anyone? But, when they get things right, it’s brilliant.
Website: www.homeslicepizza.co.uk
Address: 13 Neal’s Yard, London WC2H 9DP, UK
Mamma Dough, Brixton
Ideal for the lightest, brightest, most digestible dough…
Mamma Dough is a Brixton based pizza restaurant whose base uses a standout sourdough; so good it’s muscled in on the name of the place. We’d recommend a trip just for their starters – you can enjoy a plate of Sardinian charcuterie with some of their superb bread for a few coins. Follow this with a pizza making the most of that sourdough as a base and that’s a one-two punch of deliciousness. Oh, and they have a kid friendly meal where you can get a bunny rabbit shaped pizza on request.
Website: mammadough.co.uk
Address: 354, Coldharbour Ln, Brixton SW9 8QH, UK
Crisp Pizza, Hammersmith
Ideal for London’s most in-demand slice…
Boasting a crust that won’t bust under the weight of its deceptively simple toppings, a good covering of Roni Cup pepperoni and wefts of grated parmesan are all you need to let you know you’re eating a New York adjacent pie over at Crisp Pizza.
Quite possibly London’s most coveted slice right now, the snaking lines around this corner of W6 tell their own narrative; of Londoners keen to delve deeper than the Neopotlian culinary diktat, of discerning diners seeking a slice that won’t fold so dramatically that their starched white shirts get splattered in marinara sauce. We’ll see you in the queue?
Website: Crisp W6 at The Chancellors | Menu
Address: 25 Crisp Rd, London W6 9RL
Read: Where to find the best New York style pizza in London
Santa Maria, Ealing
Ideal for arguably the most Neapolitan of Neapolitan pizza experiences in the capital…
Back to where it all began, with another fine Neapolitan showstopper. Everything about Santa Maria in Ealing is about authenticity and simplicity; the bare, whitewashed walls, the lightly adorned pizzas, the premium ingredients imported from the motherland. It’s all sourced and cooked with a pride in the product as guiding principle. Perhaps the finest of all the pizzas on our list.
Website: santamariapizzeria.com
Address: 15 St Mary’s Rd, Ealing, London W5 5RA, UK
Crust Bros, Waterloo
Ideal for airy dinghies just made for dipping…
Next up, we’re heading to Crust Bros. Thankfully not actually bro food (does anyone genuinely want ‘grimy fries’ or ‘sordid nachos’?), these fratms do a fine trade in elegant, Neapolitan-adjacent pizzas, complete with puffy, dinghy-style crusts, proper leopard pock-marks, and pleasingly sloppy centres.
Just a few minutes walk from Waterloo and with a pizza that hits the table steaming within a minute or two of ordering, Crust Bros is the perfect place for a pitstop before catching your onward train. The place was positively heaving on a recent Friday lunchtime visit, full of suits, citybreakers and strays, a demonstration of the enduringly democratic nature of pizza.
Despite the eponymous name, it’s not the crusts that help this pizzeria stand out in a city that’s close to drowning in latticello; it’s the dippers for those crusts that are the point of difference. The lemon garlic mayo is particularly good – piquant and bracing, and bringing a perfect counterpoint to those light-as-you like crusts which seem to exhale happily as you pierce them.
Personalise your pizza or choose from a choice of around ten of their own suggestions (skirting around the fact that you might have to say “could I have the Meat Sweatz?” outloud), finish with the excellent homemade limoncello, and you’ve got yourself a speedy, satisfying lunch to propel you forward into your afternoon. Saluti!
Website: crustbros.co.uk
Address: 113 Waterloo Rd, London SE1 8UL
Alley Cats Pizza, Marylebone
Ideal for lush yet light New York bar style pizzas…
If you’re prowling (sorry) the streets of Marylebone for a slice of New York, then look no further than Alley Cats Pizza. Open only a couple of months, this homage to the red sauce-splattered, gingham-tableclothed pizza joints of the Big Apple has already become a sensation online and, you know, physically; you may well have seen the thin, crisp pies on TikTok or the queues snaking down Paddington Street in person in the last couple of months.
On the paddle is Sicilian chef Francesco Macri, who has worked at two other places on our list, Pizza Pilgrims and Santa Maria, and brings that experience to Alley Cats, though the pizza propositionhere is a little different – something close to a New York ‘bar style’, characterised by an electric oven that fires out 14 inches in under six minutes, all stable crusts and well-balanced, reserved toppings.
The prosaically named ‘Vodka’ is the highlight here, a riff on penne alla vodka with its splash of cream enrichening the tomato sauce and its two mozzarellas – both buffalo and aged – furthering that sense of something truly sumptuous. Fortunately, that sturdy base is more than capable of a bit of heavy lifting.
Website: alleycatspizza.co.uk
Address: 22 Paddington St, London W1U 5QY
Yard Sale, Various Locations
Ideal for arguably London’s most popular homegrown pizza…
A synthesis style of New York and ‘London’ Neapolitan pizzas, Yard Sale is one of the city’s most ubiquitous pizza brands. TopJaw approved to point that it feels like something fishy is afoot, Yard Sale’s omnipresence, in all fairness, hasn’t dampened the quality of their pizzas, with the restaurant group winning a slew of awards in recent years, including Best Value Eats in 2022’s OFM Awards London’s most-loved restaurant in Time Out’s 2016 Love London Awards.
Yard Sale Pizza started from humble beginnings with a single oven in a backyard, and has since expanded across North, East, and South London, with 10 sites now in total, plus an extensive, expansive delivery offering. Their 12″ and 18″ pizzas are perfect for solo diners or sharing between friends, with toppings sometimes eccentric and always, proudly multicultural London in their makeup. Their recent collaboration with Roti King (such London royalty they should soon be ‘Roti Emperor’, amirite?) on a rendang topped pizza exemplifies both those statements, and ends up being predictably, properly delicious.
As with quite a few London pizzerias, you might feel like a bit of a dick ordering here – “Mr Lava Lava”, anyone?
Website: yardsalepizza.com
Locations: Hither Green, Tottenham, Crofton Park, Crystal Palace, Balham, East Dulwich, Hackney Road, Leytonstone, Walthamstow, Finsbury Park, Clapton.
Napoli On The Road, Chiswick
Ideal for a taste of one of the pizza game’s rising stars…
We come back down to earth, letting the fertile Vesuvius soil fall between our fingers, at Chiswick’s Napoli On The Road, where authenticity is very much on the menu.
Named as the 46th best pizzeria in the world by the staunchly Italo-centric (and increasingly influential) 50 Top Pizza list, Napoli On The Road is the brainchild of Michele Pascarella, a celebrated pizzaiolo who began his London journey with a mobile Ape Piaggio, delighting the city with wood-fired pizzas in pub car parks before laying down roots with his first brick-and-mortar establishment on Devonshire Road.
Testament to a continuing rise even more pronounced than his carnotto, Pascarella last year earned the prestigious accolade of Global Pizza Maker of the Year 2023, a testament to his mastery of correct form and structure.
That’s not to say that this Chiswick pizzeria isn’t home to some gentle, respectful innovation on the pizza front. Arguably our favourite order here is the Tonno & Cipolla, a blend of tuna fillet and sweet caramelised red onion jam, all atop their ridiculously digestible dough.
The house red, the Greco Di Tufo Oltre DOCG Bellaria from Campania, drinkable and light, is the perfect foil to these fine pizzas.
Website: napoliontheroad.co.uk
Address: 9A Devonshire Rd, Chiswick, London W4 2EU
Detroit Pizza, Spitalfields
Ideal for a square slice of caramelised cheese perfection…
Neapolitan this, New Yorker that… Well, over in Spitalfields, Detroit Pizza aims instead to bring a square of Motor City pizza culture to London. We’re so glad they did, as the pies here, characterised by a thick, square-cut base with a crunchy, fried base overflowing with delicious melted cheese are one mighty indulgence. The best bit? The frilly, caramelised cheese collar that the Detroit pizzas here wear so proudly, its frico the result of the thick, cast-iron-like steel pans that the restaurant uses.
A walk-in only restaurant, slices/squares/whatever are £4.99 while whole pies come in two sizes, regular or large, priced at around £15 or £25 respectively, depending on toppings. The latter is enough to feed four.
Website: detroitpizzalondon.com
Address: 75 Commercial St, London E1 6BD
Honourable Mentions
Franco Manca, Brixton: Seen across cities in England now, with some branches admittedly noticeably better than others, this is where it all started, in Brixton Village in 2008. Heady days indeed.
The pizza company’s ubiquity hasn’t affected its quality at the mothership though, or superb price point; you can still go here for a pizza and glass of wine and come away with change from a tenner. They have recently opened a branch in Sicily; a testament to their primary product’s quality.
