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Nicky's Coal Fired
Nicky's Coal Fired opened in 2016 in The Nations, a West Nashville neighborhood built out of former industrial land, founded by Tony and Caroline Galzin as a family-owned Italian restaurant centered on a single, genuinely rare piece of equipment: a four-ton, custom-built coal-burning pizza oven the Galzins named "Enrico," described as the only coal-fired pizza oven in Tennessee. The restaurant occupies a converted space in the former Belle Meade Hosiery Mill on Centennial Boulevard, giving it real industrial character that fits the neighborhood's own transformation from mill town to one of Nashville's fastest-growing residential pockets. The pizza menu runs seven red and six white options, all built on daily sourdough crusts made from scratch and finished in Enrico's coal-fired heat, which produces a different char and texture than a standard wood-fired or gas oven. Beyond pizza, Nicky's runs a full Italian menu of house-made pastas, charcuterie and cheese boards, and gelato and other desserts, plus a private event space called The Maxwell Room — a broader ambition than a single-format pizzeria, closer to a full neighborhood Italian restaurant that happens to have built its identity around one very specific oven. That coal-fired distinction is a genuine rarity worth understanding: most American pizzerias chasing a wood-fired or Neapolitan reputation use wood or gas, and coal ovens require a specific, harder-to-maintain setup that few restaurants bother investing in — Nicky's built its entire brand around being the one Tennessee kitchen willing to do it. For a Nashville pizza list, Nicky's Coal Fired is the essential "the only coal oven in the state" entry — a family-owned Italian restaurant in a converted West Nashville hosiery mill, built entirely around a four-ton custom coal-burning oven no other Tennessee pizzeria has replicated.
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Pizza Perfect
Pizza Perfect has been making pizza in Nashville's Hillsboro Village since 1983, a genuinely long run for an independent, family-style pizzeria in a neighborhood that's changed dramatically around it as Vanderbilt and Belmont have both grown. The restaurant's own description of its approach is almost defiantly simple: handmade pies, baked to order in gas-fired ovens, fresh dough made every single day with no preservatives. That daily-dough commitment is a meaningful detail for a restaurant that's been open more than four decades — it would be far easier, and cheaper, to switch to par-baked or frozen dough at scale, and Pizza Perfect's decision not to is part of why regulars keep coming back for a pie that tastes handmade because it actually is. The menu offers both a classic thin round pizza and a thicker Sicilian-style option, plus pastas, salads, and subs for anyone not in the mood for pizza specifically. Pizza Perfect has been voted the number one pizza in Nashville in local polling, a distinction earned the slow way — more than 40 years of consistent execution rather than a single trend-driven moment of hype. Hillsboro Village itself has seen plenty of restaurant turnover in that span, which makes Pizza Perfect's staying power even more notable. The restaurant has since added a second location, but the original Hillsboro Village spot remains the one most closely tied to the Pizza Perfect name — an unpretentious, counter-and-table pizzeria that's never needed a rebrand or a flashy renovation to keep its regulars coming back. For a Nashville pizza list, Pizza Perfect is the essential "old-school neighborhood pizzeria" entry — fresh daily dough and gas-fired ovens in the same Hillsboro Village spot it's occupied since 1983, still voted the best pizza in the city by locals.
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