From the staunchly classic to neo-Neapolitan style, these restaurants serve the best pizza in Singapore.
As one of Italy’s most famous exports, pizza has been passionately adopted by the rest of the world. It is sold everywhere from corner stores to Michelin-starred restaurants. International corporations have turned it into billion-dollar businesses. It has even been recognised by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage.
Pizza is also a source of a lot of emotional wrangling. Purists like the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving the original Neapolitan-style pizza, argue that it can only be made with flour, water, salt, and yeast. It has to have a round shape and a diameter not exceeding 35m, with a raised edge called cornicione. The pizza should then be cooked for 60 to 90 seconds in a wood-fired oven at temperatures between 430-480 degrees celsius.
Other rules border on pedantic. The pizzaiolo (pizza maker) should only use four ingredients, preferably from the Campania region. Tomatoes should be hand crushed. Mozzarella, sliced. Fior di latte, in strips. The extra virgin olive oil poured in a spiral motion. And pineapple is sacrilegious.
But chefs have been refining the recipe in recent years, which is now more commonly known as neo-Neapolitan pizza. While the pizzas look similar, they utilise different types of flours, toppings, cooking temperatures, and ovens. A sourdough starter is often used, and the dough shaped into smaller circles. A neo-Neapolitan pizza can also be crunchy, unlike the softer, chewier classic.
While Italian restaurants in Singapore tend to stick to tradition, others have made neo-Neapolitan pizza their signature, including Gusta, Chooby, Wild Child Pizzette, and Buca Buca. Then there are pizzerias such as Lucali BYGB, Sonny’s Pizza, and Roberta’s inspired by pizza’s more recent hometown, New York. Find out more below.
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Amò makes their pizzas from naturally-leavened semolina flour, which produces a crust that is light and chewy. Among the signatures, toppings of roasted winter squash, wild garlic pesto, and capers make a case for going vegetarian, while prosciutto, stracciatella, and fig reduction is a fine balance of sweet and savoury. If your taste is resolutely classic, the Margherita DOP showcases the premium San Marzano tomato with buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil.
(Image credit: Amò / Facebook)
Bella Pizza has a deft hand with the white pizza – sans tomato – exemplified by their signature Pizza Bella Pizza of ricotta, salami, and spinach. The mascarpone pizza is also highly popular, combining two cheeses and mushrooms with black or white truffle depending on the season. Their red pizzas range from the classic Diavola to chicken and avocado, joined by a selection of calzone, or folded pizza.
(Image credit: Bella Pizza / Facebook)
With its gravy fries and buffalo wings, Blue Label brings strong American diner vibes crossed with a pizzeria. With a long-fermented dough and baked in a stone oven, the restaurant offers ten pizzas from the Original Famous – a blend of five cheese with tomato and basil – to the burger-like Travis Supreme with ground chuck and cheddar-bacon melt. Other inventions include chorizo and octopus, and Mexico by Day, Lebanon by Night spotting pork al pastor, guacamole cream, and pork crackling. Find them at Ann Siang Hill and Orchard Road.
(Image credit: Blue Label Pizza & Wine / Facebook)
The restaurant formerly known as Milano Pizza & Wine, Buca Buca maintains the same Neo-Neapolitan approach to their pizza. The dough is a mixture of Australian stone ground organic wheat flour, Italian pizza flour and sourdough starter, which is leavened for 24 hours then baked at a high temperature until the crust becomes charred and airy, yet sturdy. It forms the base for 11 flavours like char siu with Sichuan peppercorn, and is also shaped into a Sicilian grandma pizza, Buca Buca’s name for a thick and square-shaped pizza with toppings like chilli-infused honey and soppressata.
(Image credit: Buca Buca – Italian Restaurant / Facebook)
Run by the same people behind Old Hen Kitchen, Chooby’s Neapolitan-style pies start off with 00 pizza flour that is naturally leavened and fermented for about 20 hours, then baked in a countertop Roccbox Oven burning at over 400 degrees celsius. Their pizzas are personal-sized with a soft and airy texture, and some of the most popular orders include spiced coconut chicken with tom kha sauce, and bulgogi pulled pork with kimchi, pineapple, and fig chutney.
(Image credit: Chooby Pizza / Facebook)
With more than 30 styles, Italian restaurant d.o.c has one of the most extensive artisanal pizza menu in Singapore. In the kitchen is chef Davide Tanda, who proofs his dough for up to 20 hours and cooks it in a stone oven at around 400 degrees celsius. Tanda also uses applewood, which imparts a sweet-savoury flavour to the pies. For an extra-indulgent meal, opt for the Culatello Speciale, which has 24-months aged Parma ham.
(Image credit: d.o.c / Facebook)
Extra Virgin Pizza is a holy trinity of Caputo Nuvola tipo 0 flour from Italy, Californian tomatoes, and plenty of cheese held up by a golden, crispy crust. Of the 11 flavours, Aloha’m features smoked tomato and pineapple slow-cooked with Parma ham fat, while Peace Be Ragu combines beef with pork sausage and soppressata. White pizzas are represented by The Breakfast Club: artichoke cream, guanciale, and slow-cooked egg, and pecorino romano.
(Image credit: Extra Virgin Pizza / Facebook)
Rather than Italy, Japan forms the inspiration for Gusta’s Sourdough Pizza founder, Sean Lai. His neo-Neapolitan pies have a blend of Japanese flours, fermented naturally for up to 72 hours, and baked in an oven at 500 degrees celsius for 90 seconds. Toppings are split into three categories: classic, modern, and vegan, and span global styles from anchovies and Peruvian chilli sambal, to kimchi.
(Image credit: Gusta Sourdough Pizza Co.)
For the second year running, La Bottega Enoteca has clinched the title of best pizza in Singapore by the prestigious 50 Top Pizza awards. Opened by chef Antonio Miscellaneo, his signature is the Newpolitan, which involves a mix of unrefined and low-refined Italian flours, fermented at different temperatures for 72 hours, and baked in a wood-fired oven at 460 degrees celsius. Miscellaneo has also created a crunchier and chewier version called the Doublecrunch, and both styles feature vegetable and cheese toppings from Italy, and house-cured salumi.
(Image credit: La Bottega Enoteca)
La Pizzaiola founder, chef Loris Massimini, was so enamoured by a kindly female pizza pizza maker in Tuscany that he set up a restaurant based around her. Opened in 2012, the brand now has three locations in Singapore cooking pies with a thin and crispy crust. The La Pizzaiola Speciale has generous slabs of roast beef slices blanketed by shaved parmesan cheese and truffle oil, while smoked pancetta and mushroom lie on a bed of mozzarella.
(Image credit: La Pizzaiola)
If you are worried about pizzas being too unhealthy, Limoncello has a wholemeal option for you. The Italian restaurant was founded by chef Fabio Iannone, who does traditional, wood-fired pies including Napoli, four cheese, and 30-months aged Parma ham with arugula. Alternatively, there is the house special Limoncello, a white pizza with mozzarella, beef sausage, mushrooms, and parmesan.
(Image credit: Limoncello Pizza & Grill / Facebook)
While not exactly a copy of the famed pizzeria in Brooklyn, Lucali BYGB is hospitality guru Gibran Baydoun’s vision of serving their New York-style pizza in his effortlessly cool style. He teamed up with Lucali founder Mark Iacono, brought his recipes to an industrial space in Kallang, and the restaurant has been one of the most buzziest spots to be seen in since 2020. But the most glamorous thing here is the 18-inch pizza pie with a four-hour tomato sauce inspired by Iacono’s grandmother, basil, generous amounts of mozzarella, and a smattering of grana padano.
(Image credit: @lucalibygb / Instagram)
Chef Nancy Silverton is lauded for her bread-making skills, which she brings to the pizzas at her restaurant Osteria Mozza. It begins with a combination of two varieties of King Arthur bread flour, plus spelt and rice flours, and takes up to four hours to proof. After a flash in a California almond wood-fired oven, the dough becomes delicate and wafer-like, yet robust enough to hold up toppings like creamy burrata and Yukon gold potato with bacon and runny egg. Osteria Mozza only serves pizza for dine-in during lunch.
(Image credit: Hilton Singapore Orchard)
Another cult New York pizzeria that ended up here is Roberta’s. Launched in 2007 in a Brooklyn warehouse without heat or gas, the brand now has outlets in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Nashville, and counts celebrities among its devotees. Best known for its thin crust base and chewy cornicione, their pizzas are led by the spicy salami and honey Bee Sting, as well as the Famous Original with stretchy caciocavallo cheese.
(Image credit: Marina Bay Sands Singapore)
Sonny’s Pizza is the namesake pizza joint of chef Son Pham, who wanted to bring the classic New York slice to Singapore. The dough uses 00 flour fermented for up to 48 hours, and is stretched out to as wide as 18 inches. A marinara sauce made with San Marzano tomato forms the basis of their red pizzas, while white varieties come with a béchamel spread. There is also the good old American steak and cheese with jalapeño and caramelised onion.
(Image credit: @sonnyspie / Instagram)
Size does matter at Wild Child Pizzette. The Cicheti Group restaurant has staked its reputation on the 10-inch Neapolitan-style pizza, also known as a pizzette, which undergoes two stages and over 60 hours of fermentation before being baked in a wood-fired oven. The classic Margherita stays true to its roots except for a quick dip in the deep fryer before it’s embellished with pools of stracciatella and semi-dried San Marzano tomatoes, while the crust should be eaten with Wild Child’s chilli oil, which they dubbed Crack Oil.
(Image credit: Wild Child Pizzette / Facebook)
This story first appeared on Lifestyle Asia Singapore
