The best pizza in London – a Twisted guide

There are few things we can all agree on in life, but one of the least debatable facts of our time is that pizza is one of the world’s top tier meals.

It’s there when you’re happy and it’s there when you’re sad. It’s there when you want to carb load on a stinking hangover, and it’s also there when you want something light, seasonal, and a little more special.

It might come in various forms, with all sorts of toppings and bases, but like a best friend, a properly made pizza can always be relied upon.

Not all pizzas are made equal (Credit: Unsplash)

‘Where can I find one of those?’, we hear you ask….

Well, whilst there are a whole bunch of incredible pizza places across the UK, we thought we’d start by highlighting some of the best spots in our capital city. Without further ado, take a look at our guide of where to get the best pizza in London.

Theo’s Pizzeria

(Credit: Theos)

Ask anyone south of the river what the best pizza in London is and they’ll likely say Theo’s. It’s got a bunch of loyal punters and it’s not hard to see why.

Serving classic Neapolitan pizza with a chewy, slightly charred crust, expect classic toppings like wood oven aubergine with tomatoes, mozzarella and pecorino and a Napoli pizza with mozzarella, salami and fresh chillies.

Prices range from £8.50 to £13, and the atmosphere is light airy and welcoming, too. Despite the price point, you’ll feel like you’re somewhere a little more upmarket.

If you’re here at lunchtime, make sure to grab a Panuozzo, which is their wood fired sandwich. It might be a lighter option than ordering a full pizza, but the fillings are still insanely indulgent (we’re talking buffalo mozzarella and pesto and sausage and Gorgonzola).

Dusty Knuckle

(Credit: Dusty Knuckle)

You might know the Dusty Knuckle for their potato sourdough loaves, served at some of the most esteemed restaurants in the capital, but it’s high time we talked about their pizzas, too.

The bakery and cafe has branches in Dalston and Haringey, and the latter opens up on summer evenings to serve pizzas to its punters.

These pizzas aren’t the kind you scoff on a hangover, they’re the kind laden with fresh ingredients and interesting flavour combos – the type you relish every bite of.

Made with a home-made wood-fire pizza oven on site, expect the likes of salsa verde and marinated Portabello, Chestnut and Oyster mushrooms on a kale and ricotta base and a pizza garnished with sprout tops, Stichelton blue cheese and cheddar.

Oh, and in case you needed another reason to book in at one of the best pizza places in London, Dusty Knuckle are also a social enterprise, who help ex-offenders get back into work.

Ranging from around nine to £13, you won’t find similar at your local Domino’s…

Yard Sale

(Credit: Yard Sale)

Big Mamma 

(Credit: Big Mamma Group)

You might have assumed that Big Mamma restaurants are all style and no substance, but when it comes to their pizzas, we can vouch that they provide both.

The team behind Soho’s Circolo Popolare and Ave Mario, Shoreditch’s Gloria and west London’s best pizza delivery spot, Napoli Gang, the Big Mamma Group might be known for their Instagrammable Parmesan wheels, walls of bottles and neon lavatories, but their pizza is the part you’ll really go away talking about.

Options vary across each outpost, but you don’t wanna sleep on Gloria’s ‘Nduja Like It Hot?, served with – you guessed it – ‘nduja sauce. and topped with caramelised red onion, spicy salami, Parmigiano and smoky paprika-ricotta.

Meanwhile, Circolo’s Nothing But The Truffle is served slathered in the stinky stuff, with a black truffle cream base, smoky provola, 22 month Parmigiano and lashings of fresh black truffle on top. Delectable… just maybe not on a date.

Granted, these pizzas come on the pricier end of the scale, but Big Mamma is all about the OTT. You come here for the experience, and that you shall receive.

Dinner For One Hundred

(Credit: Kai Jadwat/ Dinner For One Hundred)

Fancy your pizza with a side of the best view in London? South east London’s Dinner For One Hundred offers just that at its outpost in Telegraph Hill, which is just seconds away from a park looking on at the city’s skyline.

Come just before the sun sets and you’ve mastered one of the best budget dates imaginable.

With most pizzas sitting between eight and 12 quid, expect the likes of La Parmigiana (a pizza topped with mozzarella, basil, Daterinni tomatoes and aubergine and a rich tomato sauce) and the D4100 (a white base pizza, topped with anchovies, Daterinni tomatoes, mozzarella, tomatoes and garlic oil), each best enjoyed with a healthy dunk of one of their (truffle, lemon and rosemary and ‘nduja) dips.

The D4100 lads started their journey in 2017, serving a dinner for one hundred people in a Hackney warehouse, but Covid pushed the founders – a pizza chef and London bus tour guide – to start slinging pies full-time instead, and locals have embraced them ever since.

Alongside their Telegraph Hill HQ, they now also serve pizzas in Bloomsbury at The Perseverance Pub, and put on occasional supper clubs, in the spirit of their original mission to bring people together through food.

Do pay them a visit, you won’t regret it.

Pizza Pilgrims

(Credit: Pizza Pilgrims)

There’s an age old debate in London: Franco Manca or Pizza Pilgrims? It’s the battle between two of the biggest pizza chains, and, well, we’ve picked our fighter.

Granted, both offer delicious, chewy Neapolitan-style sourdough wood oven pizzas, but when it comes to toppings, Pizza Pilgrims just has a clean sheet of hits.

They may be one of the big boys of the pizza world today, but Pizza Pilgrims haven’t sacrificed quality. In fact, their name derives from a tuk tuk the owners took around Italy to source their ingredients, from Sicilian olives to truffles from Alba.

With drool-worthy flavours like their Double Pepperoni and Spicy Honey (made with two types of pepperoni on a classic ‘marg topped with chilli infused honey), and the Burrata and Pesto (made with a fresh basil pesto base, sweet datterini tomatoes and burratina on top), it’s no wonder Pizza Pilgrims has almost 20 restaurants in London, and plenty further afield, too.

We could leave it there, but it would feel remiss not to mention the dessert options, too. What better way to round off your meal than with a Nutella pizza ring? Sure, it may not be traditional, but it’s still a damn treat.

Most pizzas sit at just over £11, and all branches in London are available on delivery apps, too.

Gordos Pizzeria

Gordos Pizza is legendary in East London (Credit: World Famous Gordos)

‘The World Famous Gordos’ isn’t just a pizza brand, it has become somewhat of a community in east London. You can barely walk down the street without seeing someone in one of their tees.

Serving up some of London’s best Neapolitan pizza, craft beers and natty wine (the restaurant’s founder used to sell natural wine in New York), there’s no wonder all the edgy locals are swarming.

Plus, it helps that they have regularly partnered up with other equally trendy businesses, like Good Morning Neighbour and Two Hot Asians, for collaborations and pop-ups.

Gordos actually shut down its shop in East not too long ago, and another restaurant opened in its place using the same name (the scandal).

The good news is, you can still get their world famous slices at TT Liquor in Shoreditch. The menu is cheap and cheerful, with several pizzas under a tenner.

We recommend the Poco Dio, made with fior di latte mozzarella, garlic roasted chestnut mushrooms, fennel sausage, parsley and parmesan, on a white base.

Santa Maria

(Credit: Santa Maria Pizza)

Born from two Neopolitan owners, Santa Maria is about as authentic as you can get here in London – loads of their ingredients are from Italy, and they even have a wood fired oven from there, too. Just ask all the visiting Italians who hail this the best pizza in London.

Ranging from £7.50 to just under £15, Santa Maria is all about simple, no frills pizza that shows off their quality ingredients. Think the Sant’Anna with tomato sauce, mozzarella, Cotto ham, artichokes, black olives and Parmesan and the San Fillipo, with tomato sauce, mozzarella, peppers, courgettes, aubergines and Parmesan.

They also have a whole bunch of plant-based options worth shouting about, with an emphasis on fresh veg rather than fake meats, and a house-made vegan mozzarella. The Sant’Alba (made with mushrooms, a truffle cream base, vegan mozzarella, artichokes, Kalamata black olives, and chilli) has been known to convert many a carnivore. If you’re after the best vegan pizza in London, it might well be here….

With spots in Islington, Brentford, Fulham, Fitzrovia and Ealing (where it first opened shop), you’re pretty likely to be within a stones throw of one of Santa Maria’s outposts. Plus, you can also opt for delivery, too.

Pizza Union

(Credit: Pizza Union)

Pizza Union might not be fancy, but it’s undoubtedly the one of the best cheap pizza options in London, and it’s also one of the few places you can get a Roman-style wood fired pizza base in a sea of Neapolitan-style sourdough.

As delicious as the latter may be, sometimes you just want a crunchy, thin dough – and with a Margherita coming in at under a fiver? Well… now you’re just teasing us.

Pizza Union isn’t about reinventing the wheel when it comes to toppings. Expect a Pepperoni pizza, a Funghi, a Fromaggi and a Fiorentina on its menu, as well as a Tropicali (ham and pineapple) which has undoubtedly made as many American takeaway fans squeal with glee as it has Italian Nonnas with horror.

Don’t be fooled that the low price point means poor quality, though (they all fall below eight quid). Pizza Union is proof that you don’t have to pay a lot for a pretty decent pizza in London.

Also available for delivery, if you’re after a lighter option to grab on your lunch-break or a pre-payday takeout, this is a very sound pick.

Crisp Pizza W6 

 (Credit: Crisp Pizza)

Crisp Pizza undoubtedly offers some of the city’s best pizza, and all from the comfort of a cozy pub in West London.

Slinging slices from The Chancellors in Hammersmith, the folks at Crisp Pizza are making waves on London’s food scene with their New York style pies, which have drawn in queues around the block and even seen custom from the likes of footballer, Harry Kane.

They opened in 2020, when their owner took over the unassuming pup from his grandmother, and begun making beautifully charred, bubbly pizza doughs.

None of the toppings sound jazzy, but jazzy they are. The Pepperoni Pie is topped with the very best San Marzano tomato sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan and the very best sausage meat you could imagine.

Plus, we’re firm believers in the fact that the benchmark of a good pizzeria is if they can do a good vegan Marinara Pie. As standard, theirs is just tomato sauce, garlic, basil and olive oil, but with nowhere to hide, their incredible dough and the fresh ingredients really sing.

Prices start at £8.50, so you’d be rude not to check them out, really.

Detroit Pizza

(Credit: Detroit Pizza)

We’ll tell you something you don’t often find in London… a fluffy, deep-dish pizza.

That’s what the dreamboats at Detroit Pizza are offering, and boy do they deliver that and then some.

Located near Spitalfields Market, on Commercial Street in east London, Detroit Pizza is a small but casual spot offering big, fat pizza pies for when you want to indulge.

The offering includes the New Forest, with a cacio e pepe white sauce base, mushrooms, potato, rosemary, parmesan, and the Detroit, with pepperoni, jalapeño, honey, parsley and parmesan on top.

Our personal fave is the Bacon Double Cheeseburger pizza, topped with mince beef, bacon, onions, pickles, sesame and American cheese (we mean, how Twisted is that?!).

You can get pizza by the slice (or should we say slab) for under a fiver if you want to pop in at lunch, and a regular pie (which feeds two) starts at £12.99. 

We bet you’re craving a pizza now (Credit: Pexels)

When hunting for the best pizza in London, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of wood-fired, sourdough bases. But it’s important to remember that not all crusts are the same, and not all Margherita and Puttanesca pizzas are made equal.

Whether you’re looking for a Neapolitan pizza or a Roman base, a meat feast or a vegan pie, London pizza delivery or a vibey restaurant, keep this guide in your back pocket and we promise you it’ll serve you well through all your future carb cravings.