A Deep Dive Into Miami’s New Pizza Scene

New York Style

New York-style pizza is probably Miami’s most prevalent: A big, round pie with thin crust, topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and a litany of toppings. It’s the stuff of late-night drunk slices and quick lunches on the go. Crust is usually made from high-gluten bread flour and has a crispy texture. New Yorkers will tell you theirs is best because of minerals in the water, but these are the same people who insist the Knicks are a viable contender every year.

Where to get it:

• Bar Bucce, the Italian market offshoot of Italian favorite Macchialina, leans on chef Michael Pirolo’s culinary skill rather than crazy toppings. The list of ingredients is short – a few imported hams, sausage, mushroom, and arugula – but Bucce’s beauty is in its simplicity. Which becomes especially idyllic when you enjoy a pizza on the patio with some vino from the on-site bottle shop.
• Pucci’s Pizza, with locations South of Fifth and Downtown, has stood the rest of time as a Miami slice perennial. “I went to New York and I’d put their pizza up with them any day,” says Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog, who gained pizza acclaim with his now-closed hit Square Pie City. “Pucci’s is definitely a go-to, that’s one of my haunts.”

Sicilian

Sicilian pizza, in its truest form, is closer to focaccia than the circle pies you see in South Beach windows. Thick crust, square Sicilians are typically topped with tomatoes and onions, often without any cheese at all. American versions of Sicilian pizzas usually add cheese, though nobody’s complaining. Unless you hate crispy, fluffy, olive-oily bread.

Where to get it:

• Eleventh Street Pizza, helmed by Fooq’s owner David Foulquier, is a downtown perennial, though its newer location in Downtown Dadeland might be even better. Foulquier and company put a little twist on the Sicilian concept, though, making their pies with a sourdough crust that makes it unlike anything else in the city.
• Prince Street Pizza, a New York transplant that’s already made a big impact on Lincoln Road. It does both traditional NY slices and Sicilian, with unusual topping combinations that set it apart. The French Onion Soup pizza is particularly intriguing, topped with caramelized onions and gruyere. Vegans can get in on the Prince Street action, too, with the special plant-based pie using vegan cheese.

Neapolitan

While a slew of pizzerias tout their thin crust, high-temperature pies as “Neapolitan,” the traditional style is quite narrow. “It’s actually ruled by some very tight and specific rules,” says La Natural chef-owner Javier Ramos, who makes clear his pizza is not Neapolitan. “The type of flour, the temperature you cook it at, the type of tomatoes. Naples is very serious about its pizza, and as a consequence, it’s one of the most ruled and regulated pizzas in the world.” (While the Neapolitans themselves believe this, in fact plenty of Neapolitan pizzas thrive well outside the reach of Naples’ influence.)

The would-be official rules are complex enough to make a tax accountant cringe, but the main points to remember are that traditional versions are cooked in a wood-fired oven for 60 to 90 seconds, the dough must be stretched by hand, and tomatoes, flour, and olive oil must be sourced from certain places.

Where to get it:

• Stanzione at the Citadel in Little River and Central Fare downtown was the OG Miami Neapolitan pizza when Franco Stanzione opened his  flagship Brickell shop in 2013. It’s since closed, but after over a decade in business Franco is glad the city’s caught on. “People get what I’m doing now,” Stanzione says. “And now I think we’re one of the cheapest places in Miami. Where else you getting an appetizer, two pizzas and a bottle of wine for under $100?”
• La Leggenga in Miami Beach is another spot cooking pizza by Neapolitan rules. “They have great dough,” says Ramos. “If you don’t have the right amount of salt, the flavor’s not gonna pop out and I think La Leggenda does a good job of that.”
• Giotto Maestro Della Pizza is the name that comes up the most often when you ask Italians who’s got the pizza closest to what they have back home. The West Ave. institution feels like a neighborhood restaurant, where the Giotto family is always on hand, whether it’s matriarch Silvia overseeing the kitchen, or second-generation owner Giovanni. With only 35 seats, it feels like an intimate little slice of Italy in a hidden corner of South Beach.

Neo-Neapolitan

Rules and tradition are great, but some chefs would rather put their own spins on Neapolitan pizza. For them, a new genre called Neo-Neapolitan was born. The quality can be the same, assuming the restaurant is focusing on using the right ingredients; nearly all our experts agreed that it always boils down to personal taste.

Where to get it:

• La Natural. This Little River date night spot is about as close to eating in Italy as you’ll find in Miami, with white stucco walls, a wood-burning oven, and a wide collection of Italian and natural wines. “La Natural has some really good stuff,” says Michael Schwartz, the local legend behind now-closed Harry’s Pizzeria. “I think it’s an interesting but restrained approach to how they make pizza and what they put on it.” That translates to creations that are unique but still minimalist, like wild mushrooms and fontina, or flor di latte, onions, and za’atar seasoning.
• Lucali falls into a lot of categories — including New York style, obvi — but this South Beach staple is also an excellent example of a modern twist on the Neapolitan classic. Mark Iacono’s Brooklyn hit arrived in Miami nearly a decade ago, and redefined the concept of a true pizza restaurant with its gigantic thin crust, wood-fired pies topped with aggressive amounts of basil. “Lucali has always been my favorite pizza place outside my own,” says Foulquier. “It’s a family atmosphere where you can have fun. It reminds me of my childhood when I used to eat with my family.”
• DC Pie Co. in Brickell was started by one of Lucali’s co-founders, with a similar style to the South Beach favorite. Dominic Cavagnuolo’s spot gets a little more experimental, putting out limited-time seasonal pies ranging from a Cuban Sandwich pizza to a Valentine’s Day Caviar Crush. It’s also got one of the best pizza dining ambiences in the city, with sidewalk tables ideal for Brickell people watching.

Midwest Tavern-Style

When people hear “Chicago-style pizza,” they usually imagine deep-dish pies more like a cheese casserole. Ask Chicagoans and they’ll tell you that stuff is mostly for tourists, and most locals opt instead for the super-thin crust, square-cut tavern-style pizza. There are plays on the theme throughout the Midwest, from polarizing St. Louis style with its sweet sauce and Provel cheese, to Columbus-style, with cheese all the way to the border. The common denominator is the crispy thin crust, and though Miami doesn’t have much true tavern-style pizza, these two spots come closest.

Where to get it:

• Fratesi’s downtown feels like stepping into a dreamy interpretation of your childhood pizza places. Tiffany lamps hang over wood booths, as oversized, thin crust pies piled high with fresh-grated parmesan pass by. Fratesi’s puts its cheese all the way to the edge like a true Tavern-style, and though the menu is small there’s not a miss. Try the Demon Pig Girl with chicken sausage and hot honey.
• Jon & Vinny’s is set inside the Rubbell Museum in Allapattah, the perfect place to take a load off after exploring Miami’s most extensive private art collection. The LA hit is a green-and-white tribute to the classic East Coast pizza shop, with spectacular thin-crust pies that leave you light enough to make another trip through the museum. The menu offers a collection of intriguing combinations, though Jon & Vinny’s shines best when keeping it classic with the Bronx Bomber – fennel sausage, tomato, onion, garlic, and mozzarella.

California

California-style pizza is perhaps the only style which can trace its roots back to a single chef during a single era: Wolfgang Puck in the 1980s. He pioneered a pizza using a thinner, sweet crust and topping it with everything from avocado to pesto sauce and sun-dried tomatoes. Traditionalists may turn up their noses, but one need look only so far as a shopping mall or their freezer aisle to see how California style’s caught on.

Where to get it:

• Walrus Rodeo. Though this Boia De offshoot isn’t necessarily a pizza place, its wood burning oven is the centerpiece of the open kitchen and has gained the restaurant a loyal local following. “I (freaking) love that pizza,” says Greg Tetzener, who you may remember from pandemic-era craze Old Greg’s. “That dough has great fermentation, it’s so good. They only have two pizzas on the menu but they’re both phenomenal.”

New Haven

If you’re not familiar with New Haven-style pizza, you may mistakenly send it back for being overcooked. Char is its signature element, the result of cooking in a brick, wood-fired oven. You can get pretty much anything on one of these large, crispy thin crust pizzas, colloquially called “Ah-beetz.” The white sauce and clams are the signature combination; it’s a surprisingly delectable combination.

Where to get it:

• Frank Pepe is one of the original creators of New Haven-style pizza. “Our signature is all about that char,” says Frank Pepe’s director of operations Sean Barry, “It’s really going to bring out the flavor of the ingredients from Italy like olive oil and pecorino romano, or the sausage made in New Haven.”
• Anthony’s Coal Fired is a local chain that’s been doing the char-cooked pizza thing masterfully for a while. If the trek up to Broward is too much, Barry reassures South Floridians that Anthony’s does a “decent job.” And their wings could make a claim as the best in the city.