A wave of Charleston pizzerias debuted between 2016 and 2020, paving the way for a greater appreciation of the technique and artistry that goes into pizza making.
The result has been an assortment of pies that draw inspiration from New York City, Detroit, Connecticut and Italy. The fascinating part is that Charleston’s top pizzerias are not all located downtown — exciting options exist in Summerville, North Charleston, West Ashley, Johns Island, Ladson and Sullivan’s Island.
Here are the top 20 places to go for pizza in Charleston:
Antica Napoli Pizzeria
4650 Ladson Road, Summerville
Raised in Italy, Antica Napoli owner Ciro Damiano always had access to quality pizza. When he moved to Seattle, then Charleston, while working as a manufacturing engineer in the aerospace industry, he started to yearn for a taste of home.
Damiano purchased a food truck in 2016 before opening a restaurant a few years later.
Prior to opening, Damiano wanted to learn how to make traditional Neapolitan pizza worthy of the True Neapolitan Pizza Association (Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana), an association that strives “to promote and protect in Italy and worldwide the true Neapolitan pizza.”
Around 1,000 pizzerias worldwide are certificate holders. Antica Napoli is one of them.
To get there, Damiano trained with a master pizza chef in Italy and won a “Vera Pizza Napoletana Olympic Games” gold medal in the under-35 category for non-AVPN pizza-makers. Antica Napoli received its certification in August 2020.
Antica Napoli’s pies are cooked at around 900 degrees for 60 to 90 seconds, and toppings include the adventurous and the classic. From pesto with grilled chicken and mozzarella to the “speciale” with arugula, prosciutto, cherry tomatoes and basil, there is a plethora of creative combinations. Tempting appetizers include arancini, meatballs, fresh focaccia, fried ravioli and a caprese salad.
D'Allesandro's Pizza
229 St. Philip St., downtown Charleston
414 Nexton Square Drive, Summerville
Everyone needs a local neighborhood pizza joint, and when I lived in the Cannonborough-Elliottborough neighborhood of downtown Charleston, D'Allesandro's Pizza was mine. I’m not alone — in the 18 years since it opened at Bogard and St. Philip streets, D’Allesandro’s Pizza has become a fixture in a neighborhood now defined by transiency.
When owners Ben and Nick D'Allesandro settled on the Bogard Street property, they didn’t think about it like they were pioneering a new food frontier. It just made sense to open a no-frills pizzeria in their neighborhood that lacked a lot of restaurant options. Other restaurants and cafés have since followed their lead to the neighborhood, including Chubby Fish, Vern's and Island Provisions.
D'Allesandro's, or D’Als, serves a range of toppings on a thin crust that’s more brittle than it is doughy. Here, I prefer to keep it fairly simple with the Chauncinator, a red sauce pizza with double pepperoni, fresh mozzarella and basil.
EVO Pizzeria
1075 E. Montague Ave., North Charleston
One of the longer-standing establishments on this list, EVO (Extra Virgin Oven) Pizzeria has been bringing a cheffy approach to wood-fired pizza in Park Circle since 2007. Matt McIntosh and Ricky Hacker, who met while working at FIG, started the business in a food trailer equipped with a wood-fired oven, a model that Dough Boyz and other Charleston area pop-ups have mirrored since.
EVO Pizzeria is now known as one of the area’s pioneering pizzerias, and many consider it a top 25 Charleston restaurant. Pizzas like the Pork Trifecta with red sauce, house-made sausage, pepperoni, bacon, mozzarella and Parmigiano-Reggiano are among the most popular options.
Frannie & The Fox
181 Church St., downtown Charleston
Part of the Makeready hospitality group, Frannie & The Fox — a restaurant set adjacent to the lobby at boutique hotel Emeline (181 Church St.) — was busy when it opened in 2020 and has stayed that way in the three-plus years since.
The restaurant, with rust-tinted stools lining a bar that can be spotted from the lobby, is littered with natural light. Waitstaff wearing blue button-downs and floral-printed waist aprons watch over the large living room, scattered with a mix of chairs, couches and U-shaped green banquettes.
Stroll through the walkway behind the bar for a glimpse at proofing dough and a sizable white-shelled oven, where extreme wood-fired heat brings a bubbly creaminess to taleggio cheese, floating atop a soft circle of crust with burnt honey and cracked black pepper. This is the makings of a pizza that has been a top seller since Day 1.
Beyond the pizzas, Frannie & The Fox’s chefs — led by new executive chef Daniel Dalton — serve a range of Italian-leaning menu mainstays, such as meatballs with whipped ricotta, blue crab fritters, hand-pulled mozzarella with velvety Benton’s ham and braised lamb rigatoni. Many of the other options change with the seasons.
Iggy’s Pizza Shop
1220 Ben Sawyer Blvd., Mount Pleasant
When I walked inside Iggy’s Pizza Shop at 4:06 p.m. — six minutes after the Mount Pleasant shop opened — an army of five pizza-makers were already rolling dough and placing pies in a deck oven, while two others were assembling square boxes.
Many of the employees appeared to be in their late teens or early 20s, and they were hard at work. It made me think of the many Charleston chefs who have told me they started their food careers by working at local pizza shops.
In fact, that’s how Iggy’s owner Brian Kessler launched his career.
Pizza has been a constant in Kessler’s life, from the time he got a job in a pizzeria as a teenager until the day he met his wife in a pizza joint.
Iggy’s is a successor of sorts to the two pizzerias he owned in suburban Atlanta. At Iggy’s, in addition to serving pies, he’s offering baked pastas, wings, sandwiches and salads.
One of those salads is topped with a hockey puck-shaped heap of panko-fried goat cheese, joined by cherry tomatoes, olives, basil, honey and olive oil. It’s delicious.
The pizzas are worth your time, too. At Iggy’s, the toppings shine, with classic creations joining curated combinations like The Notorious F.I.G.: A goat and ricotta cheese base with figgy preserves, soppressata, kalamata olives, basil and mozzarella.
Indaco
526 King St., downtown Charleston
The Indigo Road Hospitality Group now has close to 30 restaurants in 12 cities. But it wasn’t always that way.
When Indaco opened in 2013, Steve Palmer’s restaurant group was a roster of three: Oak Steakhouse, O-Ku and Macintosh.
Indaco was the fourth, and it has been one of the most adored for its ability to surround elegant pizzas with dishes that roll with the seasons. The restaurant has been so popular in the 11 years since it opened that Indigo Road decided to bring the concept to Greenville, Charlotte and Atlanta.
The pesto pizza — prosciutto, pancetta, sweet peppers, ricotta and parmesan — served at Laura in Summerville on Jan. 20, 2023.
King’s Pizza
3786 Ladson Road, Ladson
King’s Pizza isn’t the type of place you go to be seen or post about on social media, though a close-up of the bubbling cheese-topped New York-style pizza did make an appearance on my Instagram account.
The almost cake-like crust has a crispy bottom, essential for handling the weight of the cheese, sauce and toppings. I am willing to admit that I picked up my fork and knife for the first half of my Roni Nation (double pepperoni, double cheese) slice, enjoying the second half with my hands.
This pizza isn’t fancy, but it’s familiar, delicious and chock-full of nostalgia.
La Pizzeria
976 Houston Northcutt Blvd., Mount Pleasant
The slim glass dessert case tempts diners near the entrance of La Pizzeria in Mount Pleasant. While I would highly recommend snagging a piped-to-order cannoli at the end of your meal, there is a lot to look forward to before you get to sweets.
Near the entrance of the 16-year-old establishment sits a stack of pizza boxes to the left of a Bakers Pride deck oven. Farther inside, an orange-walled dining room has tables sprinkled with bottles of root beer and two types of pizza: Neapolitan and Sicilian. Each is topped with San Marzano tomato sauce, we are told.
The friendly host, who was piping those cannolis and taking takeout orders while we waited for our table, told us about La Pizzeria’s Boston roots. I learned more about that history from a 2012 review written by Post and Courier contributor Robert F. Moss.
Republic of Georgia native Zaza Nakaidze and his wife, Laura Zanotti, took over La Pizzeria in 2006 and transformed it into a restaurant offering pizza and other Italian dishes, like arancini and lasagna bolognese.
Nakaidze previously cooked in Italian restaurants in Boston’s famous North End neighborhood, and Zanotti is a native of Milan.
The Neapolitan pizza is, like Robert wrote, thin, taut and chewy, with a balanced crust-to-topping combination. The San Gennaro, with sausage crumbles, green peppers and caramelized onions, is a delightful marriage of salty, bitter and sweet.
Meanwhile, the Sicilian pizza is thick, square and doughy, with a firm, buttery crust. It comes in one massively large size that could feed a small family.
Catering to families appears to be a theme at La Pizzeria, a restaurant that is hospitable but not overbearing. It's a place you wouldn't mind visiting multiple times per week.
Laura
101 N. Main St., Summerville
Laura’s open kitchen is where the 10-inch thin crust pizzas are kissed by the fire in a round, red oven before landing atop pizza stands across the restaurant.
Splitting one of those small Neapolitan pizzas with the table — perhaps with a Caesar salad showered in white anchovies — is a wonderful way to start a meal at Laura.
The thin slices are covered in well-dispersed topping selections that range from classic to more imaginative, like the prosciutto, pancetta, sweet pepper, ricotta and Parmesan mingling on the pesto pizza.
The outer edge, or cornicione, is soft and marked by a charred sweetness. The doughy border stands on its own, so much so that plates are left clean rather than scattered with spare bits of unwanted dough. Made over a 48-hour period and cooked at 650 degrees, the dough is fluffy and weightless, with toppings that complement rather than dominate.
LPC Kitchen
1231 Nexton Parkway, Summerville
LPC Kitchen pizzas are a blend of New York and Neapolitan styles. Served in 12- and 18-inch sizes, the pies are cooked at high heat in an electric oven, helping each one develop a charred, bubbly crust.
Toppings include fresh mozzarella, chopped clams, hot honey, soppressata, pepperoni, sweet sausage and more. I like to start with an order of house-cut truffle fries before digging into the Bianca pizza with fresh mozzarella, ricotta, garlic, parmesan and basil.
Melfi’s
721 King St., downtown Charleston
Melfi’s is one of three restaurants that Brooks Reitz and Tim Mink own on a short stretch of Upper King Street bookmarked by Congress and Sumter streets.
I once wrote that the dimly lit, self-proclaimed “clubby” restaurant and its crunchy Roman-style pizzas were fit for a tuxedo. Complemented by an upscale setting and nuanced cocktail program — four equally enticing negroni selections — Melfi’s topping combinations are what make these pies so snazzy.
If visiting for the first time, I suggest sampling the Stretch Armstrong, a red sauce pizza topped with house-made stracciatella cheese, basil and high-quality extra-virgin olive oil.
Park Pizza Co.
1028 East Montague Ave., North Charleston
When I think back to my memories of eating pizza as a kid, I don’t remember dining inside restaurants — I fondly recall evenings eating takeout. When craving pizza in the comfort of my home, Park Pizza Co. is one of the places I call.
“Simple ideas with creative applications” is the motto at Park Pizza Co., a North Charleston spot that opened in 2009, two years after EVO Pizzeria started spinning pies down the road.
Topping combinations set this pizza parlor apart — there are more than 35 named pies, after all, including Steeler; Crosby, Dills & Nash; Kurt Brussell; and Bird on a Wire.
Pizza a Modo Mio
3125 Bees Ferry Road, West Ashley
6231a SC-162, Hollywood
When Mike Pitera swung the doors open to his new West Ashley pizzeria, he anticipated an engaged response. The 8-by-16-foot food trailer Pitera built with his father had grown a large following in the year since its debut, and patrons had continued to ask when he would open a brick-and-mortar location. He did just that in January.
Born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, Pitera serves two types of pizza styles: squishy, square Sicilian and his signature New York-style, which comes in one size only — 18 inch — with a thin, fluffy crust and crispy bottom.
When it comes to toppings, I can’t resist the Hot Roni, with honey-sweetened cups of pepperoni dotted by red chili flakes.
Renzo
384 Huger St., downtown Charleston
I remember feeling mesmerized the first time I walked inside Renzo, a restaurant that at the time was one of just a handful operating that far north on Charleston’s peninsula.
Renzo's sophisticated setting instantly brought me to New York City, though not in a gimmicky way. The dim lighting, sleek banquettes and vibrant wine list all added to the experience of eating wood-fired pizza that still delivers today, more than four years later.
The smoke-scented crust, a bed for toppings like the Wrath of Kahan (piquillo pepper sauce, mozzarella, chorizo, shallots and dates), is charred and squishy in all the right places.
Slice Co.
1662 Savannah Highway, West Ashley
Slice Co., a pizzeria sandwiched between Ashley Bakery and a cabinet store in a West Ashley strip center, is offering something rarely found at local pizzerias — hot-and-ready pies by the slice.
Slice Co.’s pizzas are naturally New York-style; the type of oversized slice you might pick up off a white paper plate, fold in half and enjoy like a pizza taco. At least that's how I enjoy Slice Co.'s classic pepperoni, sprinkled with bits of basil and covered in copious amounts of cheese.
The Obstinate Daughter
2063 Middle Road, Sullivan's Island
Southern at heart, The Obstinate Daughter draws inspiration from France, Spain and Italy. Pizza isn’t, in my opinion, the main event at the Sullivan’s Island restaurant, but the wood-fired pies still stand out.
I’ll never forget the first Old Danger pizza (pancetta, farm egg, scallion, white sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan, black pepper) I had during a 2018 brunch at The OD, even if the farro with Brussels sprouts shined just a little brighter. I never regret ordering the Cheeky Monkey (guanciale, tomato, red onion, chili flake, parsley), but I instead find myself talking about the cappelletti or seafood special the next day.
The fact that The Obstinate Daughter's non-pizza dishes are more memorable shows the range this restaurant has. Share one or two pies with the table and dive into the rest of the menu, where the chefs show why it's still one of the top restaurants in the Charleston area.
New York-inspired pizza is served at Woodhaven Pizza in Mount Pleasant on March 28.
Tolli’s Trattoria
1803 Crowne Commons Way, Johns Island
At Johns Island pizzeria Tolli’s Trattoria, you’ll find classic Neapolitan-style pizzas similar to ones served in Connecticut. That’s where Tolli’s owner Anthony Peluso and his wife, Giuseppinna, lived before moving to Charleston in 2019 and opening Tolli’s in November 2020.
Tolli’s roots date to 1934, when the restaurant’s namesake — Peluso’s great uncle Antonio Tolli — opened multiple pizzerias in New Haven, Conn. He eventually opened Tolli’s Apizza in East Haven in 1954, a restaurant Anthony took over in 1978 and ran with Giuseppinna for 40 years.
Tolli’s venue doesn’t have quite the same history as Tolli’s Apizza, given it’s located in the new-era Live Oak Square Shopping Center on Crowne Commons Way. But the restaurant, divided into two parts, still has character. A takeout window and small seating area is housed on the right side of Tolli’s, along with a case of Giuseppinna’s house-spun gelato.
Walk through to the other side to find a quaint dining room and small bar serving wine and local craft beers from nearby breweries like Estuary Beans & Barley.
Pizzas are cooked in a 630-degree oven, resulting in a thin, tender and toothsome dough with just the right amount of crunch. Topping combinations range from the classic margherita to American mashups like barbecue and Buffalo chicken.
I recently sampled the white-based Caprese Americano, topped with mozzarella, garlic, parsley pesto and juicy sliced tomatoes. Through a thin layer of creamy cheese, the cool and acidic tomatoes collide with the steaming garlic-scented crust. An herbal kick of Italian parsley, supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil, brightens the dish in color and taste.
The combination of a classic base and refined topping in many ways mirrors Tolli’s atmosphere, which feels new and comfortably worn in at once.
Toni’s Detroit Style Pizza
1795 Highway 17, Mount Pleasant
In 2018, Toni’s Detroit Style Pizza owners Toni and Pete Sahuske and Steve Hopkins opened their Mount Pleasant restaurant, where they serve Sicilian-style square pies cooked in blue steel pans that were originally made to be used in the auto industry to hold nuts and bolts. Pizzas are cooked for 15 minutes at about 485 degrees.
The Detroit natives, who met at the city’s legendary Buddy’s Pizza, are known for placing the sauce over the Wisconsin brick cheese that finds its way onto every Toni’s pizza.
Toni’s modern, industrial space is steeped in Motor City memories. Yellow walls are covered with photos of Detroit celebrities, framed Red Wings and Tigers jerseys, Michigan license plates, Ford memorabilia and a “Go Blue” Michigan banner. That’s just the start — Michigan decorations cover nearly every inch of open wall inside the restaurant.
Toppings range from classic to complex, with cheese, margarita, pepperoni, Buffalo chicken, Hawaiian and meatball pies on the menu. The square slices served at Toni’s cater to sauce and crust lovers. Cheese cozies up to the crispy edges of the otherwise pillowy, buttered border that stands out in this baked preparation.
Woodhaven Pizza
1701 Shoremeade Road Suite 620, Mount Pleasant
Boasting a decades-old dough recipe that’s crispy with a little chew, Woodhaven Pizza opened at 1701 Shoremeade Road in February. Housed in the REI-anchored Indigo Square Shopping Center off U.S. Highway 17, the new pizzeria took over the space where Blaze Pizza and the short-lived Pasture & Grain previously operated.
Signature Woodhaven pizzas are topped with a range of meats, vegetables and cheeses — from classic pepperoni and Italian sausage to clams with garlic, lemon and oregano. Appetizers, salads, wings, baked pastas and Italian sub sandwiches round out the menu.
Uptown Social
587 King St., downtown Charleston
Don’t let the loud music and partying crowd fool you — Uptown Social is serious about its pizza.
When Keith Benjamin hired Anthony Falco, the former Roberta’s pizza pro, as a consultant ahead of Uptown Social’s opening, he wanted his multi-level Upper King Street bar to serve an exact replica of the thin-crust pie from Star Tavern in Orange, N.J., 15 miles from his hometown of Short Hills.
Falco flew down to Charleston — sourdough starter in tow — to create the thin and crispy bar pie the lively bar still serves today. I interviewed Falco back in 2018, and he told me that high-quality extra-virgin olive oil and King Arthur flour help form the crunchy bite Uptown Social’s no-frills pies are now known for.
