Where to get the best pizza in Manchester

Once a stall at Levy Market, then a pop-up pizzeria above Fred’s Ale House, Cibus took baby steps to get to where it is today; a fully-fledged and much-praised Italian restaurant and bar on Levenshulme high street, and the winner of The Good Food Guide’s award for Best Local Restaurant North West 2024.

With its large alfresco terrace with a fully retractable roof, Piccolino Bramhall is perfectly located in the heart of the village, making it a beautiful date spot or family meal favourite. The Italian menu makes the best use of the finest seasonal ingredients and the service is always spot on.

NYC-style pizza via LDN. Voodoo Ray’s at Escape to Freight Island is the first opening outside the capital for these sell-‘em-by-the-slice pizza pushers. 

American Pies in Ancoats serves deep-dish pizzas when everyone else seems to be all about the slow-proved Neapolitan style. Sometimes it’s good to be different. After all, American Pies provides what might be the best cheese pull in the city.

Set in a Grade II-listed Charles Heathcote-designed Edwardian Baroque building, all that marble provides the perfect backdrop to a family-owned Italian restaurant and authentic pizzeria that combines traditional and modern, with an open kitchen and pink cocktail bar.

A Tavola has an offbeat charm. Don’t be put off by the exterior. Sicilian delights await within.

Inside, it is a bit of a squeeze. Intimate, as they say. It will be even more of a squeeze after you’ve stuffed yourself silly on authentic Sicilian food. And the food is the thing.

From the look of the place, you might be expecting a few simple pizzas and not much more but you’d be wrong. Pizzas are most certainly on the menu but there are all sorts of dishes, from Sicilian street food to decadently alcoholic tiramisu. What links them is the quality of the ingredients, with many shipped over from respected Italian suppliers.

Cult pizzeria Ciaooo may not be as well-known as some of its beautifully blistered-based brethren, but that’s all to the good. At least there’s a chance of getting a table. As it is, it’s often full of savvy locals who know just where to get some of the best pizzas in Manchester – on Swan Street at the top of Great Ancoats Street it transpires.

Service is excellent and the pizzas are even better. There is a wide selection with a mix of classics and modern inventions. Most importantly, the dough rises above its competitors. It is puffed-up pillowy perfection.

Like the interloping bird that gives it its name, Cuckoo was an odd-one-out when it first opened in Prestwich back in 2013. Since then a whole flock of likeminded, indie cafe-bars have landed in this suburb, but Cuckoo is still the favourite for many.

Diecast is a party venue and ‘creative neighbourhood’ five-minutes’ walk from Manchester Piccadilly station.

An authentic Neapolitan-style pizzeria, Double Zero in Chorlton has been lauded as one of the best in the UK.

Franco Manca started out as pioneers of sourdough Neapolitan pizza and natural Italian wine purveyors in Brixton Market in 1986. Now it’s all over London like a rash and has footholds outside the capital, including further north in Edinburgh and Leeds.

“On a mission to make really great sourdough pizza” since 2013, when they had a pop-up in rainy Ramsbottom, Altrincham Market saw the first bricks-and-mortar Honest Crust opening, now joined by outlets in the Northern Quarter’s Mackie Mayor and Picturedrome Macclesfield.

Leopard Pie is a lockdown baby. The pizza, with its slow-fermented 3-day dough, was perfected when everyone else was messing around with banana bread and getting to grips with Zoom calls. Now they’re a bricks-and-mortar business in Worsley.

Lucky Mama’s is a vibrant Italian restaurant on Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton, Manchester serving fresh Roman-style pizza, Veneto-style pasta and a range of Italian-inspired sweet treats.

This Brooklyn-style pizza joint was born out of a love of using the best ingredients with care and attention. Nell’s is known for its 22-inch pizzas with fresh, crisp bases and toppings that range from bright and fresh to classic and meaty.

If it’s a taste of Italy you’re after, think NQ for proper pizza – Noi Quattro, to be precise. Meaning “us four”, Noi Quattro is owned and run by four friends from Turin who wanted to share their proud Italian heritage through the food they put on your plate.

Proove Pizza has proven itself to be a success which is fortunate because there’s no shortage of eateries slinging out Neapolitan pizzas from their disco ball of a wood-fired oven. It’s up there, flinging around its fior di latte and spreading its San Marzano tomatoes with the best of the authentic slow-proved pizza pack and even if it’s not numero uno, it’s definitely a contender.

The interior is cool and sleek if a little lacking in character but the personality is all in the pizza. The bases are made with 00-grade Caputo flour and proved for 20 hours before being transformed into pure pizza pleasure.

Sitting in the old Dough Kitchen spot in the Northern Quarter, Purezza is yet another pizza restaurant for Manchester – but one with the distinction of offering solely vegan pizza and a menu that has many gluten-free items.

Predominantly a pizzeria, Ramona incorporates a bakery, margarita bar, coffee counter, stage and Firehouse restaurant, and is found in the rollershuttered ex-E & A Auto Services garage depot on Swan Street, complete with a tree-lined forecourt, now the campfire beer garden.

Listed amongst the world’s best pizzerias in international pizza guide, Where To Eat Pizza, Rudy’s Pizza has grown from a pop-up project into a full blown word-of-mouth phenomenon.

Tre Ciccio’s Ramsbottom restaurant does much the same thing as Tre Ciccio in Altrincham – and that’s no bad thing.