The best pizza restaurants in Sydney right now

You'll find City Oltra (from Pizza Oltra) tucked under Central's sandstone, heritage-listed train station in Haymarket. They serve both pizza by the slice and the full shebang, with beautifully blistered bases, plus crisp Detroit-style deep-dish pizzas that are thick, puffy and delicious. The flavours are punchy, the wine list is tight, and it's a great spot for a solo date. You can also get your Pizza Oltra hit inside Marrickville gin distillery Poor Toms.

Time Out tip: On Friday and Saturday nights, you can swing by for a post-beer slice or two until midnight.

You can find some of the world’s best pizzas at Fratelli Pulcinella in Parramatta. Founded by brothers Simone and Alessio Zullo in 2022 as a backyard operation before opening its permanent Church Street restaurant in 2023, the venue specialises in Neapolitan-style pizza alongside handmade pasta and Southern Italian dishes. And they’ve got the chops to back it up: Simone was crowned world champion in 2026 at the Trofeo Caputo World Pizza Championship in Naples, Italy. Perhaps Julia Roberts needs to head to Church Street for her next pizza pilgrimage... I know I will be.

Appizza is a hot pizza joint that landed with a bang in Darlinghurst in November 2025, serving up cool vibes and huge New Haven-inspired slices. From the team behind AP Bakery and Cicerone, the lively spot is found in Taylor Square, the former home of Café Freda’s. And it’s a banger. Come for delicious slices featuring thin, crisp and charred bases, topped with a mix of local Aussie and Sardinian tomatoes and other salty, yum bits. Our picks are the pepperoni pie and the classic tomato, pimped up with stracciatella, prosciutto and hot honey. Plus, come for cold beers, spicy Margs, ranch for double-dipping your crusts, and fior di latte soft serves.

Clams. On a pizza. It’s sounds too crazy to work. Here at this Newtown joint, little tender clams are steamed and pried from their shells, while the broth is cooked down with white wine and cream until it achieves an intense concentrated chowder flavour. They spread it over the top and then apply a liberal sprinkling of parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice before it slides into the shiny red wood-fired oven that is radiating heat out from the centre of the restaurant. The resulting wafer thin, charred, bubbling, disc gives spaghetti vongole a run for its money as the standard bearer for carbs and shellfish. Go for that.

While some Sydney restaurants get flustered over fusion and newfangled cooking techniques, venues like Queen Margherita of Savoy stay steady with the classics. Home of traditional Neapolitan-style pizza, this small Italian joint slings their woodfired pizzas, simple pastas and select antipasto items every night of the week to an adoring crowd of Cronulla locals and wise visitors from the north and west.

From the team behind My Mother’s Cousin comes MMC Slice in Marrickville – home to very, very delicious pizza slices. Opening in late 2024 in the former Barzaari site on Addison Road, it’s a casual spot serving New York-style pizza and thick, deep-dish square slices – all with big, punchy flavours. Big fan of the retro fit-out, too. Next time you’ve got a late-night pizza craving? You know what to do.

Newtown loves a specialist, be it a vegan ramen joint or a café selling six kinds of lamingtons and not much else. So a skinny slip of a pizza parlour selling seven wood-fired pies, two sides and some chilli XO to dip your crusts in fits right in. Getting your hands on a Westwood pizza might require more forethought and planning than your average takeaway dinner, but the rewards more than outweighs the costs, so set your alarm for 4.30pm, because you’ve got to be in it to win it – and there are only prizes for the first 174 to make it over the line. If it's your first time here, the fermented garlic and honey pizza is legendary for a reason.

Aperitivo Pizza and Pasta is a lively Norton Street Italian restaurant that serves up crowd-pleasing Neapolitan-style pizza, alongside Italian favourites and fresh pasta. Located in the heart of Leichhardt’s “Little Italy”, Aperitivo’s pizzas, created by Italian-born pizzaiolo Christian Faccenda, feature a ridiculously light, puffy crust – like bubblegum bubbles – thanks to long fermentation and high-hydration dough. Our pick is the Diavola – with tomato, fior di latte, ‘nduja, hot salami and basil.

This little corner shopfront on Pittwater Road in Manly gets top marks all round for the kitschy vintage styling – from the red-and-white check tablecloths and sheer, lacy curtains, to a solid wall of framed black-and-white photos. Wines by the glass are kept at budget-friendly prices; and there’s a self-service fridge for crafty brews. Our pick? The funghitown. It starts with a tomato and mushroom base, is topped with generous proportions of field mushrooms and fried kale, and the dried ricotta and fior di latte balance it out.

A New York-style pizza-by-the-slice shop has opened on Oxford Street from chef Paul Allam, one of the founders of Bourke Street Bakery and The Bread & Butter Project, alongside his wife Jessica Grynberg. As you’d expect, the base is really impressive, featuring 24-hour fermented sourdough that’s crisp with a delicious chew. Inspired to open a pizza shop after years of devouring slices in New York, Allam says: "If it flops, it’s not it. It’s got to hold. Hot, crispy, foldable every single time. It should be a flavour bomb that hits you straight away and makes your stomach happy. Everyone loves good pizza, right?"

Right. Our picks include the pepperoni, pimped up with a drizzle of hot honey, and the mushroom with stracciatella. Swing by in the morning for coffee and a cinnamon and cardamom bun or a matcha croissant, then come back in the arvo for a couple of hot slices (you can also buy a full pizza).

Time Out tip: Jess tells us a booze licence is in the works. Pizza and a beer after a gig at Oxford Art Factory? Say no more.

What is it? A rooftop pizza joint at the forever-fabulous Imperial Erskineville – bring your bros and come check it out.

Why we love it: Dining at Pizza Bros feels like you’re at a pizza party at your friend-of-a-friend’s house – and (mostly) anything goes. The dough is made with a combination of Australian and Italian flour, then left to ferment for 72 hours before being topped with quality ingredients and cooked in a wood-fired oven at 400°C. The result? An excellent puffy and chewy crust with trademark charred leopard spots. And in case you were wondering, the bros behind Pizza Bros are actually real-life brothers, Joey Pepperoni and Marty McFly. We’re not joking about their names, either – they got them legally changed to live and breathe the dream.

Time Out tip: Firstly, you gotta book – we’ve tried to walk in a bunch of times and every table was full (which we love to see – go Sydney hospitality, you good thing). And if it’s your first time, make sure you enjoy a drink or two at The Impy’s downstairs bar. It’s one of the best places in Sydney to see wonderful drag queens in action – just be sure to wear your favourite colours.

Address: 35 Erskineville Rd, Erskineville NSW 2043

Expect to pay: $25–$30 a pizza, plus drinks

This long-running fave has consistently been crowned one of the best in the Asia Pacific region, and head pizzaiolo Daniel Semrani was crowned Pizza Maker of the Year 2026. While the awards are impressive, the Gigi’s team aren’t resting on them – with Semrani consistently experimenting with new recipes and formats. The big name pizza is the twice-cooked “Versace” – which comes topped with prosciutto, stracciatella, grana padano and truffle honey. And a meal here is about so much more than pizza – the antipasto line-up is pretty stellar, with the garlic prawns and beef tartare particular stand-outs. Our advice? Arrive hungry.

You probably wouldn’t expect to find some of Sydney’s best pizza tucked inside a Redfern shopping precinct, but Regina La Pizzeria is proving exactly that. The restaurant, by Sicilian-born pizza chef Matteo Ernandes and LuMi Dining’s Michela Boncagni, recently became the only Australian venue to receive the highest three-slice rating in the Gambero Rosso pizza guide. Unlike most pizzerias that focus on a single style, Regina serves everything from ultra-light twice-cooked pizzas to Roman-style scrocchiarella, all backed by Matteo’s passion with dough, fermentation and top-quality ingredients.

Time Out tip: If it’s your first visit, order the Bellucci – a crisp, fluffy twice-cooked pizza topped with stracciatella, mortadella and macadamia rocket pesto.

Pizza’Mare, a more relaxed offering from Sydney’s award-winning Italian restaurant a’Mare, is now open above the harbourfront venue. Led by celebrated couple Alessandro and Anna Pavoni – the duo behind Ormeggio, Cibaria Manly, Chiosco, Postino Osteria and Vineria Luisa – Pizza’Mare aims to fill a gap in the Barangaroo market for those wanting a hearty Italian feed without dropping a week’s rent, with garlic and rosemary pizzas starting from $21. Puglia-born head pizzaiolo Paolo Lacarpia and the team are creating pizzas with biga-based Neapolitan dough. It undergoes a long fermentation process, resulting in a lighter, more digestible base, and is fired in a pizza oven brought over from Modena. There are classic flavours, like Napoletana ($26), featuring San Marzano, yellow and cherry tomatoes, capers, oregano and extra virgin olive oil; and mortadella ($31), with smoked provola, fior di latte mozzarella, lemon zest and basil, alongside more creative offerings. Try the yellowfin tuna crudo ($38) with confit cherry tomatoes, stracciatella, lemon zest and basil. If you want to go all out, go for the Stone Axe MS9+ Wagyu carpaccio ($52) with cherry tomato salsa, buffalo mozzarella, salsa verde and mountain black pepper.

Neil Perry isn’t one to rest on his laurels. The acclaimed chef behind Margaret and one of the world’s best burgers has turned Bar Torino, found in the former Martini bar Bobby’s, into Pizzeria Sotto. The glam and moody 80-seat underground restaurant focuses on Roman-style thin and crispy pizzas topped with seasonal ingredients, alongside antipasti, salads, desserts and rotating daily specials. Kick things off with burrata with slow-cooked zucchini, chilli and mint, and albacore tuna crudo with pepitas and grilled citrus. As for pizzas, our fave is the Inferno – a sweet and fiery number with tomato, buffalo mozzarella, ’nduja, hot salami and chilli honey. Pizza for date night? Pizzeria Sotto is a strong contender.

“I’m in love. I’m having a relationship with my pizza.” Those are the words said by Julia Roberts’ character Elizabeth Gilbert in the 2010 romcom Eat Pray Love as she bites into a thin, floppy slice of Margherita pizza topped with summer-ripe tomatoes and melted mozzarella. She’s dining at L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele in Naples, a family-run restaurant founded in 1870. That fleeting scene was enough to catapult Da Michele into global fame, with 80 pizzerias now found worldwide from London to Tokyo and Milan. Last December, L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele opened its first-ever Australian venture on Sydney’s Pitt Street near Circular Quay. So, how does it stack up against the city’s already excellent scene? The pizzas are pretty great. And considering a classic – and ginormous – Margherita will set you back $18, it’s fantastic value.

Found on Redfern’s main drag, La Coppola is a hole-in-the-wall joint that serves delicious Sicilian-style pizzas. The father-daughter duo Stefano and Cassie have perfected their pizza, which features a crisp base with a with light a fluffy crust. We’re big fans of the Scopello with burrata, salami, spicy pancetta, garlic, parsley, and chilli. There are a handful of tables outside and one large communal table inside where you can BYO wine and make friends with your neighbour. No seats? Order a pizza to go and take it across the road to Noble Hops and enjoy it with a beer. 

The lights are low, the chatter is jovial and the pizza is excellent at the Surry Hills arm of Bronte’s favourite pizza parlour. The pizza can be ordered with a bianchi (white) or rosso (red) base. The Brandi is as rigid as a military guard when it comes to following the rules for an AVPN-approved Margherita: six orbs of DOP cheese, a vermillion tomato base and four fresh basil leaves on top. The careful layout looks like an edible quilt piece, and straight out of the oven the bases here have just enough structural integrity to get the food to your mouth without it dropping in your lap.

This breezy trattoria continues to bring good times and a taste of Italy to the eastern suburbs in style. And while the antipasto and pasta are great at Matteo, we reckon the woodfired pizza is where it’s at. The dough is rolled and hand-stretched by the chefs, toppings are added, and then it’s fired in the oven. The crust comes out charred and blistered by the flames, with a perfect pillowy bite. There are 12 options to choose from, but our favourite is the Siciliana with creamy ricotta, smoked mozzarella, tomato, eggplant, parmigiano and basil.

What is it? A New York–style pizza-by-the-slice shop and one of our favourite go-tos for a late-night bite on Enmore Road. They also serve 12-inch to a whopping 22-inch pizzas that’ll please the whole gang.

Why we love it: From the outside, Epic Pizza may look like a middle-of-the-rung fast-food joint. It is not. The team proves the dough for 24 hours to improve the flavour, and the result is a banging pizza with a puffy, chewy crust and a crisp base. Each pizza is topped with quality ingredients, and one slice does the trick when your hunger comes knocking. Our favourite is the Morty Special: it starts with a rich and sweet tomato base, then soft slices of mortadella, creamy stracciatella and house-made pesto. Even better with a drizzle of chilli oil.

Time Out tip: Head here for a slice before or after a gig, or grab a whole pizza to-go before heading down to one of the nearby breweries like Young Henrys or Grifter.

Address: 92 Enmore Rd, Enmore NSW 2042

Expect to pay: Around $11 a slice

Anyone who loved Da Orazio the first time around, when it opened at the same address in 2013, can expect some deja vu – of the most delicious kind. There is still the comprehensive Neapolitan pizza offering, each hand-thrown and charred to perfection in the wood-fired oven by dedicated paddle-wielding pizzaiolos who rule over their very own quadrant of the kitchen. The sweet, sunkissed acidity of the house-made passata sparring with the smoky, blistered earthiness of the perfectly proofed crust is what pizza dreams are made of. Our pick is the capricciosa with San Marzano tomatos, fior di latte, mushrooms, artichokes, ham, black olives and basil.

Here’s a fun fact: the shape you make when you fold a piece of pizza in half to eat it is called a libretto. Yup, just like in the opera. And you know you’re eating a good pizza when you can fold with ease. The list here is strictly classical (your Margheritas, your marinaras, your diavolas), though there are a couple of house specialties, such as the Lucio. Named for chef and owner Lucio de Falco, the Lucio is about the only acceptable half-and-half in town. It’s half a regular margherita – thin-based yet puffy and charred on the sides – and half a ham-and-ricotta calzone. Can we get a mamma mia?

Pizza Mario fans, breathe a sigh of relief: David Cowdrill’s spinoff restaurant, Da Mario, is serving the salamino. If you’ve had the cheese-and-sausage pizza before, you know why this is the best news you've heard this month; if you haven’t, allow us to explain. The salamino is your mouth’s new best friend: a thin, charred base all covered in melted mozzarella and big puddles of ricotta and spiced up with crisp curls of salami. It's soft and rich and runny and crunchy and salty and sweet and if you're anything like us, you'll fight like a fiend over the last piece – and then you'll order a second serve.

Turns out pizza without cheese is still bloody excellent. Sure, there were a lot of naysayers on the internet when Gigi on South King Street changed to a plant-based menu, but they were wrong, because a chewy, wood-fired pizza base covered in Swiss brown mushrooms, garlic, dairy-free blue cheese, radicchio and roasted walnuts is delicious. We swear you won’t even miss the mozzarella. Don’t believe us? Just try getting a table – it’s a packed house every night.

Not quite chewy, not quite crispy – the pizza at Braci stands in a league of its own. Head pizzaiolo, Carlei, hand-stretches the dough to order using a family recipe that he’s fine-tuned more than 60 times since Braci opened. At any given time, there are eight tempting toppings to share including a mix of fresh creations and old favourites. Take Braci’s killa beez, for example, which has created quite the buzz with tomato, fior di latte, hot sopressa, pecorino and honey, as has the veg-friendly queen envy with fior di latte, pea puree, zucchini, feta, mint and pine nuts. You can’t go wrong with a classic Margherita too, or the long-standing boscaiola with wild mushrooms (and added prosciutto).

The first Sydney wing of this long-standing Melbourne spot has lost none of its Latin luxe in heading north of the border. The salumi boards are laden with a Pantone palette of pinks – mortadella, prosciutto, Wagyu bresaola and salami – and the pizzas come out of the ovens hot enough that you lose fingerprints in your haste to tear off a slice of the pizza San Daniele with San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and San Daniele Prosciutto. Bliss.

This fan favourite is no longer the domain of the Two Chaps team, who have passed it on to new hands – but the quality has stayed high and pizzas are still meatless. Go for the ox heart tomato number with confit garlic puree, fresh buffalo mozzarella, pistachio pesto, pickled onion and fresh oregano. Yum.

At Surry Hills' Dolphin Hotel you'll find the Delfino Pizzeria, a dedicated in-house pizza kitchen. It boasts a handmade Neapolitan Mesiano wood oven and a dough recipe made of three types of Italy-imported flours. In a raised corner of the main dining room, like an all-night on-stage performance, pizza bases are scattered with toppings, flashed in the oven and swept to your table in about ten minutes. The crust is wide, puffy and charred with cracked black bubbles, the type you feel could be torn off, stacked up, and served as a sumptuous stand-alone dish. When the dough’s this good, a simple marinara or Margherita suffices. The Margherita is daubed with the sweetest tomatoes, topped with mozzarella, fresh basil and olive oil, and salted with subtle shavings of parmesan. The marinara packs a firmer punch, sharp with garlic, chilli and anchovies.

This tiny little shop is a loud and local slice of White Bay, offering traditional pizza from (gasp!) an electric oven. They’ve got some pretty strict rules here. Try ordering a ham-and-pineapple or a half-and-half and you’ll be laughed out of Balmain. But there’s no need for a tropicana when you’ve got a Margherita. As much as we always enjoy that classic of tomato, Italian buffalo mozzarella and basil, it’s Rosso Pomodoro’s patate e salsiccia – potato, Italian sausage and rosemary – that gets our vote. The pizza base is charred and bubbly, yet soft and yielding. The sausage is broken into little chunks, flavouring the thin, starchy slices of potato, all perfumed by the rosemary.

Where La Panchina really shines is the dough. The crisp base is the sort that causes crust fanatics to fall over themselves. It’s been proofed for up to two days, so you don’t leave the place with a bloated pizza belly. The classic Margherita (fresh tomato, mozz and a baby basil leaf per slice) is well-priced and delicious, and a few extra coins will get you a zhuzhed-up version topped with bufala mozzarella instead.

What makes this restaurant so likeable is the fact it's casual, yet the food is excellent. So while you may be eating a slice of pizza on the footpath followed by a couple of scoops of gelato, everything you're consuming is top notch. It's all about a relaxed evening here - order plenty of different pizze, share them around and be liberal with the vino or bierra. Salut!

Takeaway pizza by the slice in the CBD? Sign us up. Headed by Totti’s executive chef Mike Eggert, Oti’ is a spin-off of the casual Italian eatery, with a daily changing menu of Roman-style, hot slab pizza, and fast and fresh Italian sandwiches built on hand-stretched schiacciata. Meats – ranging from prosciutto and salami to smoked chicken and even beef tongue – are sliced straight onto the pizzas. Then, they’re topped with at least one of the eight cheeses on offer, including Eggert’s signature burrata, mozzarella and ricotta, along with a curated selection of sauces. Of course, Merivale also looks after its veggie pals, with seasonal vege toppings, too.

Sal's is probably the only pizzeria in Sydney that can lay claim to serving an authentic New York slice. It's not that Sal's chooses to make a New York slice, it is that Sal's is a branch of the New York pizzeria established back in the 1970s in Little Neck, Queens and they have brought it to Sydney to ensure a true, New York slice. So if you're craving one, come to Darlinghurst. All the recipes have been developed by Sal himself, using Wisconsin mozzarella, Californian tomatoes and freshly milled flour from New York. Expect flavours like the classic cheese and pepperoni next to Sal's unique Buffalo chicken or meatball topped pies.

Here comes fun. And we mean it. Never has Lane Cove seemed like a more attractive place to take a long Friday lunch. Inside, the huge wood-fired pizza ovens are getting a thorough workout as the burly-armed pizzaioli push huge wooden paddles laden with pizza
in and out. It’s here that you can eat a one-metre-long pizza. We're not saying it's the most healthy lunch going, but it sure is tasty.