8 Best Pizza Restaurants in Toronto

Bar Sugo has built one of Bloordale's more persistent line-ups outside its Bloor Street door, which in a neighbourhood not short of opinions is a meaningful data point. The kitchen's proposition is deliberately unfashionable: thin-crust pizza and a tight roster of pastas, served in portions that reportedly justify the wait without inflating the cheque. Diners consistently describe the room as convivial and unguarded — the kind of Italian-American red-sauce environment that has no interest in trend-chasing and considerable interest in getting the basics right.

The Vinny Massimo is the pizza regulars name first, and the rotating daily specials are where the kitchen reportedly demonstrates range beyond its core menu. The crust is understood to be thin and built to carry toppings rather than perform on its own. On the pasta side, the rigatoni is the dish most frequently cited by returning customers — reportedly cooked properly and sauced with some weight and balance — while the pesto cream spaghetti is consistently mentioned alongside it as a reason to order two pastas rather than one. The calamari is reportedly lighter than the category average, and the tiramisu is said to follow a traditional approach rather than a reworked one. These are the dishes the menu centres on, and the lack of sprawl appears to be a deliberate choice rather than a constraint.

Keep in mind: Lively Italian-American pizzeria in Bloordale; generous portions and fair prices mean long waits at peak — arrive early or be ready to put your name down.

Pizzeria Badiali on Dovercourt Road has built a reputation that sits well outside what its square footage or its price point would suggest. A 51st-place finish on a global pizza ranking — placing this Toronto slice shop ahead of institutions in Naples and New York — is the kind of result that invites skepticism, and yet the consensus from diners and critics who have made the trip is consistent: Ryan Baddeley's approach to the New York slice is disciplined, ingredient-led, and deliberately unshowy. The menu is short by design, and that brevity is treated as a statement of confidence rather than a limitation.

The cheese slice is, by most accounts, the thing to order first — the purest expression of what the kitchen is doing. Diners consistently describe it as the benchmark against which the rest of the menu should be read: a thin, foldable New York-style base with tomato sauce that is reportedly clean rather than sweet, and cheese that browns without excess grease. The pepperoni slice follows the same restrained logic. The 16-inch pies scale those principles up for groups without altering the formula, and the rotating specials are where Baddeley is said to demonstrate range while keeping the underlying approach intact. The menu gives you very little to overthink, which appears to be the entire point.

Keep in mind: Counter-service slice shop on Dovercourt (plus a Markham St location); lines hit 45–60 min at peak, so pre-order online for pickup.

King Taps First Canadian Place occupies 100 King St W with the kind of ambition that goes well beyond typical bar programming. The two-storey, 450-seat room is built around reclaimed brick and black walnut — running from tabletops to tap handles — and the art direction includes a silver-plated bronze dog by Belgian sculptor William Sweetlove. It is a room that, by all accounts, handles a twelve-top without making anyone feel like an afterthought, which is rarer in this neighbourhood than it should be.

The kitchen works in contemporary crowd-pleasers, and the menu's reputation rests on a few dishes that diners consistently point to. The Bang Bang Shrimp — built around yuzu, serrano, and sushi sauce — is reportedly more considered than the bar-snack format usually demands, bringing a citrus-forward heat profile that distinguishes it from generic versions of the dish. The Korean Chicken is known for its gochujang-driven heat and a satisfying crunch that holds up as a centrepiece rather than an afterthought. For groups, the Notorious Pizza — soppressata, fennel sausage, pepperoni, and double-smoked bacon — reads as an intentionally indulgent, maximalist option, the kind of thing that anchors a table of eight without negotiation.

Pizzeria Via Mercanti carries a specific credential worth noting before you book: the Kensington Market location beat both Libretto and North of Brooklyn on Chow's Pizza Wars, and the man behind the oven — Romolo, a pizzaiolo with roughly four decades of practice — is consistently billed as a grand master of the Neapolitan form. That is an unusual concentration of pedigree for a room at this price point, and it shapes what the place is actually offering: wood-fired, Naples-style pizza made by someone whose institutional knowledge of dough is, by most accounts, the real draw.

The Margherita is the dish regulars and critics alike point to as the diagnostic order — the one that reveals whether the kitchen is operating at its standard. It is known for the balance Naples demands: tomato and fior di latte in restraint, the cornicione doing the structural and flavour work a properly fermented rim should. The Via Mercanti two-layer pizza is the signature showpiece, reportedly richer in construction while still built on the same base dough, and it is what long-term regulars tend to direct first-timers toward. The menu also includes a Napoletana and a Calzone, rounding out a focused list that resists the temptation to overreach. One caveat diners raise consistently: quality can shift between locations and across service, and the Augusta Avenue original is the address that receives the steadier reviews.

Keep in mind: Wood-fired Neapolitan in Kensington Market; quality is most consistent at the original Augusta Ave location — walk-in friendly on weeknights.

The Fourth Man in the Fire is the New York-style pizzeria from Shant Mardirosian — the same operator behind Burger's Priest — and the project carries over what made that earlier venture work: a deliberately narrow menu built around a single idea executed with genuine conviction. The Biblical name signals a certain seriousness of purpose, and by most accounts the kitchen delivers on that promise. The approach is rooted in New York tradition rather than local improvisation, and the menu is tight enough that every item on it is there for a reason.

The NYC round pie is the anchor of what the restaurant is known for — thin, foldable, and reportedly built to hold up under toppings rather than surrender to them. Diners consistently point to the Brooklyn Squares as the order that rewards a second look: a thicker, pan-style cut that offers a different register from the round pies and tends to draw strong repeat loyalty. The mozzarella sticks round out the supporting menu in the way that format demands. The apple fritter donut, however, is the item that stands out in accumulated diner accounts — a California-style dessert that is treated not as an afterthought but as a deliberate reason to return. At a price point that reportedly lands around $35 for a pie that comfortably feeds two, the proposition is straightforward.

Keep in mind: Casual NY-style spot on Dundas West; a pie (~$35) feeds two — order a half-and-half and add the California-style donuts.

Pizzeria Libretto arrived in Toronto in 2008 with a mandate that was, at the time, genuinely unusual: Vera Pizza Napoletana certification from the Naples government body that sets the standard for what the designation actually means. Co-founders Rocco Agostino and Max Rimaldi had an oven built in Naples and imported the attendant discipline alongside it. That origin story is not mere marketing. A significant portion of Toronto's current pizza culture traces a line back to what Libretto established — that the city could hold itself to a serious, codified tradition. The University Avenue location carries that pedigree into the financial district, serving a lunch crowd that might not make it to the Ossington original.

The Margherita is, by design and by the logic of the VPN standard, the dish that reveals what the kitchen is doing. Diners and observers consistently point to it as the order that honours the certification — a short, high-heat bake producing the puffed, flame-touched cornicione and yielding centre that define the Neapolitan style. Beyond orthodoxy, the menu includes a duck confit pizza that reflects the kitchen's willingness to range outside Naples' strict canon, and a rotating seasonal special that reportedly demonstrates similar ambition. Gluten-free pizza is available and is regarded as receiving more considered treatment than is typical at comparable pizzerias. The midday prezzo fisso is frequently cited as one of the more reasonable sit-down lunches in the area.

Keep in mind: The downtown/University outpost of Toronto's pioneering VPN-certified Neapolitan pizzeria; reservations and a good-value lunch prezzo fisso make it the low-wait option.