Pizza in Berlin: puffy crust or a New York slice?

Sourdough with buffalo mozzarella from Brandenburg, a dough with hemp, a slice of pepperoni over the counter: the five pizzerias here bake five different pizzas. Which one you want depends on whether you want to sit down.

Gazzo – sourdough before everyone did it

Neukölln · ItalianGazzoOn the map

Gazzo has been baking with sourdough on Hobrechtstraße since 2018. The mother dough is fed with flour every day, aiming for a mild tang with nutty notes. The pizza goes into a 400-degree oven and comes out fluffy with a crisp edge. Gazzo itself calls it “not traditional”. The buffalo mozzarella comes from a farm in Brandenburg where Italian buffalo graze.

The best is the number 9 with spicy spianata calabrese, buffalo burrata and pimientos de Padrón. There are dips for the crust, parmesan cream for one, and to finish the buffalo-milk soft serve from North Frisia with olive oil, sea salt and shortbread from Katie’s Blue Cat.

GEMELLO – vegan without making a point of it

Prenzlauer Berg · ItalianGEMELLOOn the map

Stefan Kugler was an engineer before he started throwing pizza parties at home. Since September 2024 he has been baking with Idan Gilony on Lettestraße by Helmholtzplatz, everything plant-based, with the kitchen making its own mozzarella and ricotta. The toppings go far beyond tomato and fake cheese: the Boy comes with seaweed, olives, capers and wild oregano, the P.Berg with potatoes, maple-roasted onions and truffle oil, the Noma with chestnut cream, mushrooms and almonds. The Nano Plate brings three mini pizzas with pickles and dips. Open from 5 pm on weekdays.

The Grain – where the crust is the point

Prenzlauer Berg · ItalianThe GrainOn the map

Sarah and Musa travelled to Naples several times and then developed their own pizza on Gleimstraße. They call it contemporary: with the right flours the dough takes on more water and gets lighter, and the crust rises high and stays airy. A piece of the crust is eaten plain before getting to the middle; only then do you notice what this place is about. Before that, there is burrata or fig salad to share. Bookings by phone; open Wednesday and Friday to Sunday.

Slice Society – New York by the slice

Mitte · ItalianSlice SocietyOn the map

Since 2024 Alex and Marcus have been selling New York-style pizza on Torstraße: thin, crisp, foldable, straight over the counter. The dough ferments cold for 48 hours. They developed the pepperoni with a local butcher. The hot honey now comes in bottles, made in small batches in Berlin. The pepperoni slice with hot honey is the house classic; without meat there is the Tomato Garlic with garlic-butter crumbs and chilli oil.

W Pizza Mitte – hemp in the dough

Mitte · ItalianW Pizza MitteOn the map

The W stands for “Weed and Wheat”. Łukasz Sołowiej, who founded Zola before this, bakes with hemp in the flour, hence the greenish tinge in the dough. There is a wheat-only version too. The branch on the corner of Chausseestraße and Invalidenstraße has long standing tables with room for big groups. The standout is the Turkish Delight with pepper-tomato sauce, sucuk, egg and chilli oil.