A16

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• Top 6 Pizza in San Francisco

  Currently #6 · score 0

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• Golden Boy Pizza

  Golden Boy Pizza opened on Green Street in North Beach in 1978, founded by Peter Sodini around a style genuinely distinctive to San Francisco: thick, focaccia-style squares topped and baked more like a Sicilian pan pizza than a conventional thin round pie. The format caught on fast — Golden Boy became, in short order, "the place to be" in North Beach, eventually expanding to as many as seven locations across San Francisco and Berkeley along with a wholesale business supplying delis and schools. The pizza itself is built on a thick, chewy, olive-oil-brushed crust with a genuinely bready structure under the sauce and cheese — a meaningfully different eating experience from the thin, foldable slices most San Francisco pizzerias serve, closer to a proper focaccia than to a typical New York or Neapolitan pie. It's sold by the thick square slice, cash-friendly and fast, built for late-night North Beach foot traffic as much as for a sit-down meal. Sodini eventually scaled the business back from its multi-location peak, but he kept the original Green Street flagship running, and it's since passed to his sons, who've kept the format essentially unchanged while recently expanding again with a new Sunset District location — evidence the format still has real demand outside its original North Beach neighborhood. Close to fifty years in the same Green Street storefront, run across two generations of the same family, serving a thick focaccia-style square that's stayed genuinely distinct from the thin-crust and Neapolitan pizza dominating much of the rest of San Francisco's scene, makes Golden Boy a real North Beach institution rather than just a late-night novelty. For a San Francisco pizza list, Golden Boy Pizza is the essential "thick, focaccia-style square" entry — a dive-y, cash-fast North Beach counter that's been serving the same distinctive format since 1978.

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• Pizzeria Delfina

  Pizzeria Delfina opened in 2005, when Craig and Annie Stoll annexed the storefront next door to their already-acclaimed, James Beard Award-winning restaurant Delfina to open a more casual, pizza-focused sister concept. The idea was straightforward: bring genuinely Neapolitan-inspired pizza, drawing on both Naples and New York influences, to a Mission District that hadn't had a serious pizza specialist of that caliber before. The pizza itself runs on a thin, well-blistered crust built to carry real developed flavor rather than just function as a base for toppings, made by a kitchen that already had a proven fine-dining pedigree behind it before it ever turned its attention to pizza specifically. That pedigree is part of what set Pizzeria Delfina apart from typical neighborhood pizzerias when it opened — this was a James Beard-honored chef's restaurant applying serious technique to a more casual, accessible format. From that original 600-square-foot Mission storefront, Pizzeria Delfina expanded to additional Bay Area locations in Pacific Heights, Burlingame, and Palo Alto, extending the same thin-crust, Neapolitan-inspired approach well beyond its original neighborhood. The Mission original has more recently shifted to a takeout-and-delivery-only format, a notable change for the location that started the whole concept, even as full-service dining continues at its sister locations. That evolution — from a single annexed storefront next to an already-celebrated restaurant into a genuine multi-location Bay Area pizza group — reflects how much demand there was for a chef-driven, technically serious pizza option in a city that, at the time, had relatively few of them. For a San Francisco pizza list, Pizzeria Delfina is the essential "fine-dining chef's pizza" entry — a thin, Neapolitan-inspired crust from a kitchen that built its reputation on a James Beard Award before it ever opened a pizza oven.

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• Little Star Pizza

  Little Star Pizza built its reputation in San Francisco on a style the city otherwise has little of: proper Chicago-style deep-dish, with a thick, cornmeal-flecked crust holding up a hefty layer of cheese and chunky tomato sauce spooned over the top rather than tucked underneath. In a pizza scene dominated by thin crusts and Neapolitan-leaning kitchens, Little Star carved out a specific, durable niche as one of the only places locals reliably point to for genuine deep-dish. The build follows deep-dish convention closely — a pan-baked, high-edged crust, a generous cheese layer, and the reverse-order sauce placement that separates true deep-dish from a merely thick pizza — served as a substantial, fork-and-knife order rather than a quick handheld slice. That commitment to getting the format right, rather than offering deep-dish as a novelty option on a broader thin-crust menu, is what's kept the concept credible with people who've actually had the real thing in Chicago. The company has since grown into a small regional group operating under both the Little Star and The Star Pizza names, with locations spread across the Bay Area and into Portland, Oregon, while keeping the San Francisco outpost on Valencia Street as one of its most established addresses. That expansion, built entirely on a style genuinely uncommon to Northern California, speaks to how well the format has traveled beyond its Chicago origins. For a city with no shortage of thin-crust specialists, having a kitchen fully committed to the opposite extreme gives San Francisco's pizza scene real range rather than just variations on the same thin, blistered format. For a San Francisco pizza list, Little Star Pizza is the essential "the deep-dish outlier" entry — a thick, cornmeal-crusted, reverse-layered pie that's stayed the city's most reliable answer to genuine Chicago-style pizza.

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• Arinell Pizza

  Arinell Pizza's San Francisco location on Valencia Street operates as a sister shop to the original Arinell, which Ron Demirdjian opened in Berkeley in 1975 after training under an Italian pizza-maker in upper Manhattan and concluding that nobody in the Bay Area was making real New York-style pizza. The Mission District location has carried that same format and reputation across the bay, becoming, in its own right, one of San Francisco's most reliably cited cult-favorite pizza-by-the-slice spots. The pizza itself is unapologetically New York in style — large, thin, foldable slices sold fast and cheap, cooked with minimal fuss and served without much in the way of decor or ceremony. It's the kind of counter that trades entirely on the quality of the slice rather than atmosphere, a genuine dive in the best sense: bare-bones, inexpensive, and built for speed rather than a sit-down experience. That format has made Arinell a specific late-night and post-bar staple in the Mission, the kind of place regulars duck into for a quick, reliable slice rather than plan a meal around. Nearly fifty years after the Berkeley original opened on the belief that authentic New York pizza simply didn't exist yet in the Bay Area, the Mission location has helped prove that belief right by building its own loyal following on the same basic conviction. The shop's continued commitment to a classic, unfussy New York slice — no gourmet toppings, no elevated presentation, just a well-made thin crust sold fast — has let it hold its own against flashier, more expensive competitors for decades. For a San Francisco pizza list, Arinell Pizza is the essential "no-frills New York slice" entry — a thin, foldable, cheaply priced pie from a dive counter that's been proving Demirdjian's original thesis right since the 1970s.

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More in Restaurants

• JB's Smokeshack

  JB's Smokeshack built a devoted local following in the greater Charleston area around a straightforward, no-frills approach to South Carolina barbecue, operating with a smaller, more counter-service-focused format than some of the city's larger, more restaurant-formatted barbecue destinations. Its traditional preparation and mustard-based sauce options reflect a commitment to South Carolina's native barbecue style, serving a genuinely local, unpretentious version of the region's barbecue tradition without the added draw of a celebrity pitmaster backstory or a broader bar-and-music concept. The restaurant's smaller scale and straightforward format have made it a particularly popular choice among Charleston-area residents specifically seeking a quick, reliably good barbecue meal without the wait times that come with the city's more nationally recognized barbecue destinations. For a Charleston BBQ list, JB's Smokeshack is the essential "no-frills local favorite" entry — a straightforward, counter-service barbecue operation serving traditional South Carolina barbecue without the wait times of the city's bigger-name destinations.

• Bessinger's Barbeque

  Bessinger's Barbeque has operated in the greater Charleston area for decades as one of the longest-running names associated with South Carolina's distinctive mustard-based "Carolina Gold" barbecue sauce tradition, a regional sauce style largely unique to South Carolina among the country's major barbecue regions. Its whole-hog, mustard-sauced barbecue reflects a specific German immigrant culinary influence on South Carolina's barbecue tradition, since the mustard-based sauce style is generally traced back to German settlers in the region who brought mustard-forward condiment traditions with them. The Bessinger family name has been associated with South Carolina barbecue for multiple generations, and the restaurant's continued operation reflects one of the more historically significant family barbecue lineages in the entire mustard-sauce barbecue tradition. For a Charleston BBQ list, Bessinger's is the essential "Carolina Gold" entry — a multi-generational family operation carrying forward South Carolina's distinctive German-influenced, mustard-based barbecue sauce tradition.

• Melvin's Legendary BBQ

  Melvin's Legendary BBQ traces its roots to a Charleston barbecue tradition stretching back to the 1930s, with the current operation carrying forward a family barbecue legacy that predates most of the city's other current barbecue restaurants by decades. Its traditional South Carolina mustard-based sauce, along with its barbecue hash served over rice — a distinctly Lowcountry regional specialty less commonly found outside South Carolina — reflects a deep commitment to the state's specific historical barbecue traditions rather than a more generalized regional approach. The restaurant's long operating history has made it a genuine multi-generational Charleston institution, the kind of barbecue spot longtime residents specifically associate with the city's barbecue tradition predating the more recent wave of nationally recognized pitmasters opening restaurants there. For a Charleston BBQ list, Melvin's is the essential "decades-deep local tradition" entry — a barbecue operation tracing back to the 1930s, serving traditional South Carolina mustard sauce and barbecue hash well before Charleston's more recent barbecue boom began.

• Home Team BBQ

  Home Team BBQ built its Charleston-area following around a combination of traditional South Carolina barbecue technique and a more contemporary, music-and-craft-beer-driven bar atmosphere, distinguishing it from more purely traditional, food-first barbecue joints elsewhere in the region. Its menu draws on multiple regional barbecue traditions rather than committing exclusively to South Carolina's native mustard-based style, offering a range of sauce options that let diners compare Carolina, Texas, and other regional approaches within a single visit. The restaurant's expansion to multiple locations across the greater Charleston area, each maintaining the same live-music-and-barbecue combination, reflects its broader identity as much as a social gathering spot and music venue as a straightforward barbecue restaurant. For a Charleston BBQ list, Home Team BBQ is the essential "barbecue as a night out" entry — a multi-location barbecue-and-live-music concept offering a wider range of regional sauce styles within a more social, bar-forward atmosphere than the area's more traditional barbecue joints.

• Lewis Barbecue

  Lewis Barbecue brought Texas-style, post-oak-smoked brisket to Charleston, founded by pitmaster John Lewis, who spent years working at Austin's legendary Franklin Barbecue before relocating to South Carolina to open his own restaurant, giving Charleston a genuinely serious Texas-style barbecue option within a region otherwise dominated by whole-hog tradition. Its smokehouse, built specifically to Lewis's Texas-trained specifications and fired with post oak rather than the hickory or oak more commonly used in South Carolina barbecue, produces a bark and smoke profile closely modeled on the Central Texas tradition rather than the vinegar-and-mustard sauced barbecue native to the Lowcountry. The restaurant's introduction of genuine Texas-style brisket into a South Carolina barbecue scene historically defined by whole-hog and mustard-based sauce traditions gave Charleston diners a meaningful side-by-side comparison between two of the country's most distinct regional barbecue styles. For a Charleston BBQ list, Lewis Barbecue is the essential "Texas transplant" entry — a Franklin Barbecue-trained pitmaster's post-oak-smoked brisket operation, bringing genuine Central Texas technique into South Carolina's traditionally whole-hog barbecue territory.