The Ultimate Resy Guide to Outstanding Pizza in Philly
That Philadelphia doesn’t earn more attention as a pizza town is a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a stromboli. But let’s do the correct thing: Blame it on New York, which never wants to give Philly credit for anything. That’s despite both cities sharing more or less equally long pizza histories (Neapolitan immigrants, first couple decades of the 1900s), and despite the unspoken driver of East Coast pizza energy — New Jersey, with its deep if unappreciated pizza history — directing more energy to its southern neighbor city than that other one up north.
Whatever the reason, any past oversights are forgiven. Because Philly is a resplendent pizza town. You could reasonably give credit for that to Joe Beddia, who turned his homebrewing and baking curiosity into one of the great pizza success tales of recent decades, catalyzing the city to become the pizza Mecca it has become, and using pizza as a vehicle to show the rest of the world the wonders and depths of Philly’s dining community. But as Beddia and pretty much anyone else making pizza in Philly would acknowledge, there is a big tent here — one that can encompass artisanship like Beddia’s, the deep traditions of South Philly (witness Marra’s, which quietly closed last year after nearly a century) as well as its new energy from subsequent waves of immigrants, and a restaurant culture that’s not just ascendent but has exactly the right kind of collegiality to help a pizza culture thrive.
If you talk to one of the city’s current pizza wizards, they’ll likely talk less about their own work than the other pies around town that are their current objects of obsession. That game should recognize game feels entirely right for Philly, but doubly with pizza.
Coming up with a roster of exceptional pies in town is a feat, one that inevitably must be incomplete. So in addition to the list below, we easily could have rhapsodized about Viraj Thomas’ beautiful and evolving technique at Char; about how bread-baking skills translate to the pies at High Street, about the remarkable inspiration behind Down North. And of course we could talk about Angelo’s, where yes, the pizzas are as good as the cheesesteak. (But does Danny DiGiampietro need any more hype?) Indeed, we could talk about pizza all day every day, if you’d let us.
Meantime, let’s dive into our highly opinionated but also totally correct roster of the Philly pizza spots not to miss.
Pizzeria Beddia Fishtown
The style and quality of Beddia’s pies — Northeastern in their mien, some hybrid of New York and Jersey and New Haven, which is not an inaccurate description of Philly’s pizza DNA — remain as excellent as they were from their early pop-up days. They are, crucially, substantial and unfussy, still baked in electric ovens, mostly classic (the arrabbiatta is the sleeper hit) but always with a seasonal twist.
They’re also now served with a couple of epic salads — Beddia is quietly a salad maestro — plus beans that overtly quote Paris wine bar La Buvette, and a tightly edited roster of natural-minded wines that reflect Beddia’s own obsession. That plus his rendering of tomato pie, a mandatory start to a meal, and the Hoagie Room, make Beddia an ongoing anchor of the city’s burgeoning, evolving, and epic pizza scene.
Stina South Philly
The role of Greek immigrants is a crucial if often underappreciated part of American pizza lore — one perhaps more prevalent in New England. Stina hardly pays overt tribute to this history, but chef Bobby Saritsoglou certainly brings his heritage to the menu — along with his stints cooking at important Philly restaurants like Opa and Santucci’s, the latter of which certainly imbued him with no small amount of pizza sorcery.
If anything, pizza at Stina is often downplayed, mostly because the spectacular meze (hummus, Moroccan glazed carrots, falafels, so much more), an archetypal Greek salad, gyros (currently a soft-shell crab option for lunch!), and Turkish-style pide are all so wonderful that a pan-Mediterranean aesthetic might feel like a defining trait. But, and we stand on good authority here, do not overlook the pizza. Saritsoglou’s specimens are compact in size, beautifully crafted with that clear expert baker’s hand, wonderfully solid in structure, and ranging from classic to just tweaked enough to fit the vibe (mortadella and pistachio may feel familiar, chermoula as an accent, less so).
Corio University City
One factor behind Philly’s restaurant magic is that the local industry encourages its troops to spread their wings and start their own thing. Which is what we have to thank for this University City newcomer from David Feola, James Smith, and Ryan Mulholland, who met while working for Greg Vernick. Corio adds another dose of inspiration — namely Feola’s upbringing in upstate New York. And while that manifests more overtly in other parts of the Italianate menu, there’s a distinctly different twist to the pies here, a format that’s more puffy and rigid than Neapolitan but not as stiff as the various Northeastern forms. The team are fans of decisive flavors, so believe that the spicy sausage is just that, and the hazelnut and pepper pesto has plenty of pecorino tang.
Tacconelli’s Pizza Port Richmond
Any great pizza city must also have its old guard, and while the options in Philly run deep, this Port Richmond icon arguably stands out as the reference. Effectively running with a single oven since 1946, it is a study in the beauty of the basics — including its tomato pie, which is minus cheese and for decades was its calling card, although today there’s as much enthusiasm for the regular pie. A handful of toppings are on offer, although the house rules unofficially posit they should be chosen modestly.
That’s about it. You can bring some beer or wine. In true Philly BYOB spirit, you need to bring cash, and if you’re smart, you’ll have called ahead to reserve, as they put it, “your dough.” Consider Tacconelli’s, if you will, the antithesis to that ambassadorship — it is pizza as an expression of specific place, content to be found exactly where it has been for a long, long time.
No reservations, but call ahead. More info here.
CJ&D Trenton Tomato Pies Passyunk Square
The taxonomy of tomato pies could justify its own guide, but while there’s deep beauty in the largely cheeseless Philly version, Trenton’s example is equally noteworthy — an answer to the question: What would happen if you put the cheese below the sauce?
It’s a very different sort of tactile experience, and how lucky that Daria Silvestro and Chris “CJ” Volk have dedicated themselves to this deeply underrated form. (Not a total surprise as Silvestro’s family opened one of that city’s original tomato pie joints.) It’s not just the inverted layering of ingredients that make these novel, but also the craggy, prodigious crust, reflecting the beautiful substance of Jersey-style pies. The bonus is that they also make a mustard pie, an even more niche but sublime subcategory of Trenton’s bounty.
No reservations. More info here.
San Lucas Pizzeria Newbold
Mexican pizza is another of those perfect hyphenated American wonders — not the Taco Bell version, although let’s be honest, those are pretty great, too. We’re talking about that match of pizza as form with the deep culinary influence of Mexican cooking, which given Philly’s sizeable Mexican population, has quietly become a local specialty of sorts. This mashup can be more promising in theory than execution … except when you find a place like San Lucas, which is quite fundamentally about as clear a symbol of bridging South Philly’s past and future as you’ll find. Having taken over a traditional Passyunk slice shop in 2005, Valentin Palillero and Eva Mendez decided to add flavors from their native Puebla. The rest, as they say, is history. Indeed, their al pastor pizza just might be the foodstuff to knock cheesesteaks off their pedestal as Philly’s icon (even if, yeah, roast pork) — the smoke and acidity of the pork, with wedges of lime on the side, feel like the most logical topping ever for a pie. The shrimp pie with avocado and the zing of Valentina hot sauce might be less obvious, but is no less great. Indeed, the roster here feels like you’ve witnessed an alternate flatbread history that’s no less wonderful than the one we know well.
No reservations. More info here.
Wilder Rittenhouse
There’s a lot going on at this tri-level space on Sansom Street, which you might expect given its proximity to Rittenhouse Square. But Wilder doesn’t exactly feel like a Rittenhouse restaurant, perhaps because owners Brett Naylor and Nicole Barrick have enough experience in local restaurants to know what Philadelphians like. (Naylor was executive chef at Oyster House, which might also explain Wilder’s very good raw bar.) The pizza expertise here can be witnessed by the domed oven, and while it’s just a fraction of the overall offerings, the results are splendid — pies that are well-puffed but with the rigidity of a New York crust, with twists like a spring pie with green garlic and mustard greens. Pro tip: Tuck into the bar at happy hour, grab a spicy meatball pie, and you’ve found a perfect haven from the Rittenhouse rush-hour blitz.
Pitruco Multiple Locations
We’d be remiss not to acknowledge the importance of the pizza truck in any good pizza town (see also Del Popolo in S.F.), and Jonah Fliegelman and Nathan Winkler-Rhoades have created Philly’s most iconic one. Like Beddia, they began largely as home enthusiasts; unlike Beddia, they’ve remained itinerant (although there’s a brick-and-mortar inside a UPenn food court). The offerings here still tilt classic, although the spicy garlic brings its own decisive edge, and the routine largely is as it’s been since the early 2010s: Order in advance, pick it up (or, these days, get it delivered) and enjoy the results of longtime pizza nerdery made good.
More info here.
Sally Fitler Square
National pizza attention for Philly tends to gravitate to the same handful of names — largely with good reason, as our pizza talents are prodigious. But it’s always a pleasure to see recognition for some of our deeper cuts, as with the Bib Gourmand that this Fitler Square gem nabbed on Bibendum’s first foray into the city. That was well beyond the aspirations of co-founder Cary Borish, although he hails from local restaurant royalty. But it also serves as testament to how the Sally team, including chef Dave Kupperberg and pastry chef Russell Johnson, excels simply by trying to hone a perfect neighborhood restaurant.
The pies at Sally are naturally leavened sourdough, the results being a bit more tender in their crust and softer than the Philly default. But that reflects the other part of the business: a natural wine shop where you can pick an off-kilter bottle to go with your meal. And as with any great postmodern pizzeria, there’s just as much charm elsewhere on the menu — vegetable small plates (don’t miss the beets with labneh), salads, great meatballs, a brunch menu driven by Johnson’s skills.
Bar1010 Northern Liberties
As you might expect from a NoLib pizza joint, 1010 finds new and novel ways to bend the typical pizza roster. A spicy pepperoni pie might seem pretty traditional by current pizza standards (although the pickled jalapeños and hot honey bring in some added verve); the tikka masala, Buffalo chicken and Korean barbecue specimens decidedly less obvious. It’s a great reminder that even in a town like Philly, there’s no need to be a pizza purist. If anything, the eclecticism is welcome.
Del Rossi’s Northern Liberties
“Cheesesteaks but also pizza” is kind of coin of the realm in Philly, and while it would be easy to give credit where credit is obviously due, we’re going to confess that we’re slightly Team Del Rossi’s. In part because Nish Patel commits to the bit when he wants to get something right — spending years to improve his pizza dough to frankly impressive standards, before turning his attention to a proper cheesesteak roll. The attention for the bread makes it easy to forget that finessing pizza was his first quest after taking over in 2020. But both the quality and diversity of the pies on offer will quickly remind you. The roster at Del Rossi’s less commits to a single style than offers a sampler: fine traditional and tomato-pie round pizzas, as well as a heady, satisfying “Brooklyn-style” square pie that reveals the bread-focused genius that now infuses this North 4th Street storefront.
No reservations. More info here.
Sorellina Fairmount
This pizza-focused Broad Street spot from the team that runs Cicala at the Divine Lorraine in the same building has gotten plenty of attention for its star-shaped, stuffed-crust pie, whose history predates Sorellina’s 2024 opening. But there’s a lot more quirky, all-comers energy on the pizza roster, as befits any restaurant in a building with a similarly inclusive history. The Bronte doubles down on the pistachio-mortadella mix, with nuts in two forms and burrata; long hots add pep to a porchetta and potato effort; the Sophia Loren brings curly endive and stracciatella to the mix. A perfect example of how Philly pizza energy isn’t bound by tradition.
Pizzeria Stella Headhouse Square
Seventeen years is an eternity in restaurant time, doubly so in Philly, which is why it can be easy to forget how groundbreaking Stella was when it opened in 2009, bringing a proper domed wood-fired oven and Neapolitan-style rigor to Philly’s pizza ecosystem. At the time, that was the city’s most overt restaurant whisperer, Stephen Starr, following the era’s trends. And in the nearly two decades since, it can feel as though the pizza fates have moved on. And yet … Stella is still pretty great, with a mix of classics and seasonal pies that feel appropriately inventive. If the mural of Venice’s Realto Bridge seems like a remnant of a time when we were less attuned to the specifics of Italian geography, there’s plenty else at Stella that’s utterly contemporary, whether a peach- and sopprassata-topped pie in summer (that impressed The Inquirer) or a rabarbaro spritz that shows the improbable perfection of mixing rhubarb and Lambrusco.
Wm. Mulherin's Sons Fishtown
Mulherin’s takes a sort of pan-Italian approach to its menu, to the point that you can overlook the specific beauty of its pizza (which, pour one out for its companion pizzeria in Center City, which closed last year). But executive chef Sean McPaul made pizza a personal passion point, getting a helping hand from local pizza congoscenti, milling farro into the dough and insisting on a two-day fermentation. While the full pizza roster is impressive, let’s take a moment to specifically call out the Spicy Jawn; its mix of cured meat, long hots, and provolone captures Philly’s flavors in a blink.
