Chefs from DC to Mississippi are redefining pizza in the South.
The perfect pizza starts with great dough, but what happens after that is where the story begins. Across the South, pizza makers are blending time-honored techniques with local ingredients, classic flavors, and creativity to create pies that are unmistakably their own. All across the region, these pizzerias are proving that the South has become one of the country’s most exciting places to try a little slice of heaven.
What separates a good slice from a great slice of Pizza?
By Peter Reinhart, Author and Founder of Pizza Quest Podcast
Let’s get a few things clear right up front. There is no such thing as bad pizza. Pizza is either good or very good. It is, in essence, simply dough with something on it (as opposed to a sandwich, which is dough with something in it) and it doesn’t belong to any one city or region, whether it be Naples, New York, Chicago, Detroit, or even St. Louis. Dough with something on it is, globally and arguably, the most beloved of all foods, especially in its infinitely varied styles.
But there are a few things about pizza that separate the good from the very good. Let’s call them guiding principles, and here is one of mine: A great pizza always begins with a great crust. When you have a great crust, the toppings are simply a bonus. Great toppings on a meh crust is, at best, an interesting pizza, but a great crust—whether crispy, chewy, buttery, airy, thick, or thin— with toppings as simple as tomato sauce, or sauce with cheese, or even just olive oil and salt, can still be a great pizza. Such greatness is, in a defining word, memorable, and a memorable pizza makes us want to return again and again for more, and to tell our friends and family all about it.
As we drill deeper into this search for greatness and memorability, here’s a little context: Not too many years ago there were thousands of good pizzerias in America but only a few memorable places. Today, the list of destination-worthy pizzerias has grown exponentially—we all have our list—and here are my theories as to why. First, the American bread-baking community, beginning in the late 1980s, embraced the notion of artisanship, learning from European master bakers the ancient craft of elevating bread from good to great. We no longer hang our heads in shame when it comes to American bread, and some of our bakers have even won international competitions against their vaunted European and now Asian rivals. A parallel narrative has occurred in the wine, beer, and cheese communities: “Artisanship” and concepts like “mastering of the craft” have become the guiding beacons.
The pizza community, which has always had an intuitive but nonscientific sense of how to make good pizza, took notice of this leap towards artisanship via events such as The International Pizza Expo and similar tribal gatherings where thousands of pizzeria operators regularly come together to swap knowledge and war stories with the intent of raising the bar for everyone. There has been, since the early 2000s, a converging of the artisan bread community with the independent pizzeria community, where the art and craft of transformation of grain (wheat) into dough—or grapes into wine, or milk into cheese—under the umbrella of the overarching mother-category of “fermentation,” has won the day. The result has been a growing number of pizzerias capable of making memorable, destination worthy pizzas.
Couple that with the embrace of regional pride and immersion into celebrating local ingredients and historically embedded flavor profiles, and suddenly (it seems) there are more than just a few regions that own the dough-with-something-on-it pizza category. One such a region, where I find myself a late-in-life transplant, is the South, with its many subregions. Just as bragging rights battles between the various barbecue styles helped to define these subregions, we’re now beginning to see the emergence of subregion specificity in the pizza sector.
And let’s not forget that cooking everywhere and for all of time involves a fusion and hybridizing brought about by transplants such as me. There are a lot more of us Northerners living in the South, with our propensity for thin crusted neo-Neapolitan (dare I say New York- or East Coast-style) pizza, as well as Midwesterners bringing their bias for super-thin tavern-style, or Chicago-style deep dish, or Ohio-style medium-thick Americana-style pizzas, and on and on. We’re talking about an ever-evolving process of old school, deeply rooted locals mutually fecun dating with the “you’re not from here, are you?” newbies and, voilà, we’ve got a lot of new options, pizza and otherwise, to choose from.
But the one constant is that dough with something on it always works. As long as the dough is properly crafted and fermented, evoking what I teach my bread students as “the full potential of flavor trapped in the grain,” and the topping ingredients are well-sourced and handled with love and care, pizza is the equivalent to what the sportscaster Jay Bilas describes in the basketball rivalry between Duke and UNC as the game “that always delivers.” The following places represent a short list of the ever-growing number of examples of this perfect flavor delivery system, where you can start looking for such encounters.
During the past 30 years I’ve been writing about my never-ending search for the perfect pizza, authoring three books on the subject (in addition to nine books on bread), and interviewing hundreds of pizza luminaries on my Pizza Quest podcast. The great news is that the pizza universe is still in a “big bang” era of growth and creativity, and nowhere is this more evident than in the South, where the biggest winners of this expansive ferment are folks like me and my fellow pizza freaks—the quest never ends.
Southern Pizza Makers Pushing Boundaries
Leña Pizza + Bagels
Foodie praise has followed Leña since it opened in 2023, and in those three years, the pizza and bagel shop in Cleveland, Mississippi, has garnered reams of international acclaim. Most recently, owner Marisol Doyle was named Pizza Maker of the Year for 2026 by Top 50 Pizza.
That’s in part for her 12-inch Neapolitan-style pizza, a culinary art form she mastered in Naples, Italy, and in part for the creativity she brings to the craft. Some of her most popular pies reflect her roots in Mexico, where she was born and raised.
“The last week of every month, we try to do a Mexican-style pizza,” Doyle says. These are often presented with the name “Sonoran” in tribute to her home state in Mexico. “Our customers get to try something they haven’t tried before.”
The Sonoran uses a base of refried beans in place of a traditional sauce, topped with mozzarella and other ingredients she sources from local farmers and Mexican grocers. A recent iteration featured tender steak and avocado, topped with her jalapeño crema and pickled onions. “I had people come up to me and say it felt like they were eating a taco,” she says.
Under the adventurous toppings, which have gone as Gulf-Southern as shrimp and grits, the crust stays constant. “We try to stay as true to Neapolitan style as we can,” she says, always using Caputo 00 flour, one of only four ingredients—salt, water, and yeast round out the collection—and in Leña’s 800-degree, wood-fired oven, the pizzas cook in just 90 seconds.
Doyle recommends diners make haste when one of their specialty pies lands on the table. “The first five minutes, I believe, are the best for Neapolitan-style pizza. I suggest eating it right away.”—Jim Beaugez
Zee’s Pizzeria
Before he opened Zee’s Pizzeria in Uptown New Orleans in 2022, Zander White had never owned a restaurant. White grew up making pizza with his dad, who gave him the nickname Zee, but it was a tasty hobby, not a job. He moved to New Orleans from Maine with his dad when he was 10, in 1994. White took the process to a new level in college, making homemade dough and sauce and getting inventive with toppings.
White, who considers himself a pizza cook, not a chef, had worked in the film business as a cameraman. When that job went away with the pandemic, he started making pies to earn extra dough, popping up at bars around town.
Now he’s running a full-service pizzeria on Baronne Uptown, just two blocks off the Mardi Gras parade route. It’s a welcoming space with an open kitchen, faux brick, and walls adorned with retro prints from his inlaws’ graphics business.
He calls his pizza “Northeast style,” with its medium-thin blistered crust, crispy but still foldable lengthwise. The dough is rested between two and three days to achieve the perfect result. On Mondays, there’s a square pie option, Sicilian style, with more chew to the crust and a layer of cheese under, not on top of, the house red sauce. Beyond the traditional cheese and pepperoni, White offers hot honey and ricotta, a veggie pie with or without vegan cheese, and—his personal favorite—pepperoni topped with house-pickled sliced jalapeños with plenty of crunch.
Running a pizza joint in New Orleans has been an ongoing lesson. “The heat and the infrastructure are the biggest challenges,” he says. “We’ve done countless things to mitigate both, including bumping up the AC so it’s comfortable.”
He’s also simplified other menu offerings. “I was killing myself with salads,” he remembers. “One day I looked at my manager and said, ‘Should I be working on salad or pizza?’ She said, ‘Dude, that’s a stupid question.’ Now we have a caesar and a Mediterranean—that’s what our customers want.”—Beth D’Addono
Bird Pizzeria
Nkem and Kerrel Thompson don’t define Southern pizza one way. “The South’s greatest contribution to pizza right now may actually be freedom—the ability to build something less institutional and more personal,” the husband-and-wife owners of Bird Pizzeria explain. “There’s space for people to pull from different traditions and shape something that reflects who they are because they are not bound by historic notions of what this cuisine is supposed to be. We’re more interested in creating a feeling and an experience than adhering to a particular category.”
The Charlotte, North Carolina, spot pulls inspiration from classic styles like New York and Neapolitan while integrating cuisine outside of pizza entirely. “We’ve ended up blending different techniques, ideas, and influences into something we love. Being [in Charlotte] gives us a connection to the agricultural network around us and access to local farms when possible—but, more than anything, shapes how we take care of people.”
That’s what makes Bird such a unique experience: The openness to methodology, mirrored by its intimate, neighborhood space, is rooted in the desire to collaborate and look after their neighbors. “Bird is shaped by music, design, and hospitality culture. We approach the restaurant almost like a creative studio or a case study where food, service, sound, architecture, and emotion all matter equally.”—Erin Oliver
Renzo
At Renzo, executive chef Colin Marcelli makes what he defines as neoNeapolitan pizza. He cooks a high-hydration dough at 1,000-plus degrees for “a really nice char and a really nice crust on the outside while still being soft, chewy, and kind of custardy on the inside,” says the chef. Cooking the dough “hard” like this also indicates a New York-style influence, which creates a darker overall color in between the Neapolitan “leoparding,” or darker charring in spots.
Renzo’s pizza oven is fueled entirely by wood and cooked entirely by hand. “There’s no rotating decks or gas assists,” Marcelli says. “You’re tending a fire, and your wood could be a little wet or super dry; you have to work with what you have that day. But those little challenges also make it really fun, because every day is a little bit different.”
He’s been cooking pizza this way since he took over six years ago as executive chef. He’s changed the original dough recipe many times, tweaking it as recently as six months ago. “Even the dough we’re making today is likely going to be slightly different in a year,” the chef says. “You’re trying to chase this perfection that you know doesn’t exist.”
But although the crust can stand alone in its quality, it doesn’t have to, with creative specialty pies like the long-standing Cheli, with lamb merguez sausage, feta, pickled peppers, hot honey, and chermoula; or the Gigi with charred green garlic, lemon ricotta, mozzarella, red Creole onion, and broccolini; plus classic pies like the Kevin McAllister.
Marcelli speaks of pizza like pitmas ters talk about barbecue, something that may turn out a little differently each time regardless of following the same process. “Sometimes the dough is not up to the quality that you want it to be,” he says. “For some reason it’s just scorned you and it’s frustrating, but it makes you want to come back the next day and figure out why and do better.”—Emily Havener
La Casina
Angela Andellini and Fabrizio Costantini’s American dream is to turn pizza night into pinsa night. Every day that DC restaurant La Casina is open in Capitol Hill, this husband-and-wife team will be there, slinging their unique flatbreads inspired directly by their hometown of Rome, Italy. “We are chef, owner, maker, everything. Old school restaurant-style,” jokes Andellini.
What they turn out from their tiny restaurant’s wood-burning oven is very different from traditional pizza. First off, pinsa is oval-shaped, not round. The dough is made from a special blend of flours and fermented for at least 24 hours. “We prepare the dough with patience and respect for the authentic Roman method, and we use many imported Italian ingredients to keep the flavors as genuine as possible,” explains Andellini. Pick up a piece of pinsa blistered from the oven, and it’s somehow simultaneously crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, with a bit of chew to it. The biggest revelation is how much lighter it feels than your average pizza slice. “People are usually surprised by the texture and by how unique the dough tastes,” Andellini says.
For this duo, pinsa represents their roots and identity. “When we moved to Washington, we wanted to bring something truly authentic and different from the usual pizza experience. At the time, very few people in the DMV area knew what pinsa was, and we loved the idea of introducing a real Roman specialty to the community,” she says. In fact, Italian visitors tell the duo that La Casina feels like a little piece of home in Washington.
With all this focus on the crust, no wonder the couple’s favorite pinsa topping combinations are the simplest ones, like margherita or prosciutto and burrata. “They let the dough shine,” says Andellini. “We believe that with good dough and quality ingredients, simplicity becomes something special.”—Adele Chapin
Sunnyside Pizzeria
One evening in 2021, after years of working in accounting and finance, Sunny Sun and her husband, David Ge, considered opening the pizza restaurant they’d always dreamed about. Neither had restaurant experience, but things fell into place quickly. A friend of Sun’s had the name of a restaurant consultant from Naples, and the couple found a space in Sandy Springs, Georgia, and signed a lease. Sunnyside Pizzeria opened its doors by July 2022, ready to serve, in Sun’s words, “Neapolitan pies with creative toppings.”
Four years later, the eatery is bursting at the seams during weekday lunch. Customers order the bestselling Hot Honey Char, topped with San Marzano tomato sauce, cup-and-char pepperoni, hot honey, fresh and shredded mozzarella, ricotta, and shaved Parm-Reggiano. Another popular pie, developed for Atlanta and lovingly named the ATL Scoop, features a buffalo sauce base, plenty of fresh and shredded mozzarella, fresh basil, and breaded lemon pepper chicken. It’s finished with a drizzle of ranch and shaved Parm-Reggiano.
Sun says all their best menu ideas, including monthly specials, show up organically.
“It’s essentially the food we eat while we’re standing around and talking,” she says, smiling. “We want to make sure we have great staples, but also—because of how fast the industry moves—we want to stay relevant and develop new recipes. I’m grateful I have chefs here who are willing to work on that with us.”
The restaurant recently expanded to serve its patrons with a second dining room and bar. “With our expansion, we hope to create a more intimate setting for date nights and social gatherings while preserving the prior space as a relaxed dining area where guests can enjoy a casual meal together,” Sun says.—Denise K. James
St. Vito Focacceria
Michael Hanna’s talents stretch far beyond pizzamaker—a trained chef, he worked at some of the best restaurants in Memphis and Nashville before launching his own brick-and-mortar in 2023. Yet, St. Vito Focacceria is known mostly for its pizza—more specifically, for its sfincione, a Sicilian tomato bread. And while there’s more on the menu—rigatoni with beef shank and oxtail ragu, baby artichokes bathed in lemon juice and olive oil—the pizza shines. And Hanna’s just fine with that.
“Sfincione is something near and dear to my heart that I ate growing up, and something that Italian Americans, specifically Sicilian Americans, love because it’s a part of their heritage,” he says. Made from a naturally leavened sourdough, the “crust” is more focaccia than pizza, filled with puffy pockets of air and flavor. “It’s just really good tomato sauce and cheese and pecorino and breadcrumbs. It’s all about how it’s built. We’re not reinventing the wheel on flavors here— it’s just good bread, good ingredients.”
Those ingredients earned him a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand last year. “We had a couple in from Montreal; his mother was an Italian immigrant and they sought us out to try the sfincione, because you don’t find it in a lot of places,” he says. The menu features four versions: classic tomato, pepperoni, potato, and spicy tomato and burrata—all sold by the slice or as a whole rectangular pie that feeds up to eight.
Hanna started making the pizzas for himself and friends, a Covid project that took off. And he’s always adjusting the recipe. “As the weather changes, the humidity, we’ve changed how we feed our starter. We’ve changed our ratios, we’ve changed our mixing methods, and our fermentation,” he says, adding that they’d recently turned to cutting off the top of the crust to allow the sauce to soak into the bread. “It’s constantly changing,” he adds.
This summer, after years of research and development, the team launched a pop-up for a round pizza concept, shutting down St. Vito one night a week to test out a new style of pie. “It’s about letting loose and having fun,” Hanna says. “We want to show everyone that there’s another side to us and what we think pizza can be.”—Erin Byers Murray
Pizza recipes to try at home
Classic White Pizza Dough
Pistachio Pesto Neapolitan Pizza
Prosciutto and Hot Honey Pizza
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