About 20 years ago, Pizzarium founder Gabriele Bonci launched Rome’s third-wave pizza in teglia style, embracing bread-making techniques, fanatical sourcing, and creative topping combinations — inspiring many other pizzerias to do the same. The high-hydration dough, which is subjected to a long, cold fermentation, is stretched into pans and topped with delectable combinations like braised artichokes, ribbons of guanciale, and a flurry of pecorino. It’s also tough to beat their classic flavors like rossa (tomato and oregano) or patate (buttery potatoes and mozzarella). Kick off your order with Pizzarium’s extraordinary fried items like polpette di bollito (croquettes made from tender beef), supplì alla carbonara (deep-fried spaghetti with guanciale, pecorino, and egg), and lasagna fritta (a cube of meat and bechamel-laced pasta layers). Prepare to queue; Pizzarium draws seemingly as many visitors as the Vatican nearby.

At his pizzeria and trattoria in Monteverde, Giancarlo Casa blends the textures of Roman and Neapolitan styles to make thick-rimmed pizzas with crusts that are tender, chewy, and crispy all at once. Go for the southern-inspired broccoli rabe and sausage with smoked provolone, or the Roman classic capricciosa, a margherita with artichokes, olives, prosciutto, and a hard-boiled egg. There’s an extensive craft beer list and a nice selection of wine, whiskey, and grappa. And always start with fried starters like carciofi infarinati (artichokes, in season) and creatively seasoned supplì.

A ten-minute walk from Gabriele Bonci’s landmark pizza al taglio shop, Pizzarium, this 10-year-old bakery serves pizzas in various forms alongside spectacular breads and pastries. Their alla pala style is joined by pizzette (small pizzas) made either from puff pastry (a perfect savory aperitivo snack) or leavened dough disks. The real standouts are the sandwiches filled with glorious mortadella or house-made porchetta between fragrant slices of spongy pizza bianca.

Mirko Rizzo has proven himself to be a Renaissance man of sorts in the pizza department. He first made his name at his excellent pizza in teglia shop Pommidoro in Centocelle and now has waded into pizza tonda territory at his newest venture, L’Elementare, in Trastevere. Rizzo’s style has always leaned heavily decadent, as demonstrated by pizza toppings like Porco Blu (chicory, capocollo, and blue cheese cream), but especially by his fried starters like cream-drenched, deep-fried tortellini and fried bricks of lasagna. Wash it all down with a palate-cleansing beer from the formidable list.

Like its nearby competitor Antico Forno Roscioli, Forno Campo dè Fiori is a classic bread bakery selling loaves, cookies, and jam tarts, though you should go for pizza alla pala. Staff chop slices from long slabs before weighing them and wrapping them up in brown paper to take away. There are few joys in Rome as pure as eating a slice of Forno Campo de Fiori’s fiori di zucca pizza on the cobblestones outside the shop while peering through the adjacent window, through which you can see jiggly lumps of dough being coaxed into five-foot long pizzas by the skilled pizzaiolo. If you show up mid-afternoon when the bakery closes temporarily, pop into Forno Campo dè Fiori’s annex across the alley for pizza con la mortazza (a mortadella sandwich made with their intensely and perfectly salty pizza bianca).

Testaccio has one of the few markets in Rome where you can graze on prepared food (the others focus on selling ingredients rather than meals). Husband-and-wife team Paola Manco and Andrea Salabè opened Casa Manco there in 2017, and it quickly became one of the most appealing spots in a growing sea of dining options. The couple sells pizza alla pala, naturally fermenting their dough and proofing it for four days before stretching it into oblong discs. The substantial toppings are suited for the structurally sound base: zucchini flowers, salted anchovies, and stracciatella; guanciale, pecorino Romano, and black pepper; potato and mozzarella. The simplest offering, dough rolled in sesame seeds and then baked, has an ethereal texture and toasted flavor that is incredibly complex, in spite of its seeming simplicity. There is a second location on Via di San Cosimato in Trastevere.

Locals endearingly call Ai Marmi l’obitorio (“the morgue”) for its marble tables and walls, but the nearly century-old shop on Trastevere’s main drag remains an institution for wood-fired pizza tonda (you can just ignore the signage on the oven in 1960s typography declaring “pizza napoletana”). The flimsy, thin-crust pizzas are quintessential for the tonda style, generously overhanging their plates. Be sure to check out the lightbox above the bar that lists starters such as fagioli (beans), filetti di baccalà (battered cod filets), and supplì al telefono (rice croquettes promising a satisfying cheese pull).

The super-central Antico Forno Roscioli isn’t actually as ancient as the name might suggest; the Roscioli family opened it in the 1970s. They dutifully make classic Roman baked goods, but the breads and cookies at the counter (however excellent) aren’t what draw thousands of customers daily. Queue up at the counter below the neon Roscioli sign to order the real draw, pizza alla pala, from the brusque staff. In the morning, there are a few simple choices like pizza rossa (bright and tangy tomato sauce), bianca (olive oil and salt), and patate (potato, with or without cheese), while the place transforms into a hectic cafeteria at lunchtime when more elaborate pizzas fill the counter. The classics are always the best, with a sturdy structure and a crispy, chewy texture that embodies the style’s platonic ideal.

Pizzeria Ostiense serves matzo-thin, super crisp, wood-fired pizzas. The owners are Da Remo alumni and when they migrated to the Ostiense district from neighboring Testaccio, they left the snark behind them and instead focused on providing efficient, reasonable, and friendly service. The menu features all the Roman pizzeria classics: beans, fried starters, Roman-style pies, and traditional desserts. There are also a handful of pasta dishes, though it’s the simple fritti and the economical, unpretentious pizza that keeps regulars coming back again and again.

There aren’t many restaurants near the Trevi Fountain (or frankly anywhere in Rome) that can say they work exclusively with local organic produce. In truth, they don’t have to; most of the neighborhood’s clientele don’t demand or expect it. That doesn’t seem to matter to pizzaiolo Luca Issa at Piccolo Buco, who hand-mixes his dough, shapes it with a thick rim, and adds cheeses, meats, and tomatoes sourced from small producers devoted to traditional agriculture. The result is pizza with a fragrant crust balanced with ingredients like sweet yellow tomatoes, milky buffalo mozzarella, savory anchovies, and salty olive powder and capers. Enhancing the pizzas further, Issa carefully selects an olive oil from his arsenal to complement, rather than weigh down, the toppings.

This pizzeria-pub near San Giovanni is another winner from Stefano Callegari, inventor of the trapizzino and force behind Sforno (also on this list) and Tonda. He teamed up with restaurateur Marco Pucciotti, and the duo recruited pizzaiolo Alessio Muscas to elevate their thick rimmed, Rome-meets-Naples, crispy yet chewy pizzas, baked up in a wood-burning Valoriani oven. One pie features wild fennel with chile-spiked cured pork loin, marinated mushrooms, and Parmigiano-Reggiano; another is the cacio e pepe pizza adorned with a thick blanket of pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper. Sbanco also serves meat dishes and creatively flavored supplì, as well as more than a dozen Italian craft beers.

Angelo e Simonetta is located in a residential block in Monte Sacro a few miles northeast of the city center. Angelo Iezzi’s pizzeria, which was founded in the ’80s, was among the first to experiment with the high-hydration, long-fermented dough techniques that now define Rome’s premier slice shops. The pizza in teglia is medium-thick, with a light structure and fragrant aroma, the perfect base for toppings like monk’s beard and gorgonzola cream, or Norcia prosciutto and creamy buffalo mozzarella curds. The pizza is great, but much of the appeal is that Angelo e Simonetta really just feels like a neighborhood slice joint; it’s filled with workers at lunchtime, kids after school, and university students at all hours.

Restaurateur Marco Pucciotti and pizzaiolo Sami El Sabawy named their pizzeria for the Roman phrase “a rota,” meaning to consume something continuously. Diners take them up on it, again and again heading out to Tor Pignattara in eastern Rome for El Sabawy’s paper-thin pizza tonda. The pizzaiolo coaxes the low-hydration dough into a disk with a rolling pin, then cooks the pizza at a lower temperature for longer than usual, resulting in an incredibly crisp base for both classic and creative toppings. More inventive toppings change with the seasons, like April’s Sami Special: mozzarella, fennel gratin, Taggiasca olives, sundried tomato pesto, red onion gel, and fresh basil.

DOL, short for “di origine laziale,” celebrates the specialties from the region of Lazio (of which Rome is the capital). Proprietor Vincenzo Mancino has grown his locavore business from a single deli into several branches serving a full menu built completely from local ingredients. Over the past half dozen years, pizzaiolo Simone Salvatori has perfected the pizza at the Centocelle location, making the dough from organic flour and baking it in a pan in an electric oven. Toppings put products from Lazio on full display, including produce, cheeses, and cured meats.

Sforno draws faithful crowds near the historic Cinecittà studios on Rome’s southeastern edge. Diverging from the thin-crust Roman style, the pizzeria makes a thick-rimmed, Naples-inspired pie, topped with classic and creative ingredients. The signature toppings include the Greenwich (stilton and port reduction) and cacio e pepe (black pepper and grated pecorino Romano). Fried starters like fiori di zucca (fried battered squash blossoms filled with mozzarella and anchovy) and assorted supplì (fried rice croquettes) are still among the best in the game.