A minimally beautiful little slice. Life rafts of mozzarella float atop a bright-red sea of fresh-tasting, chunky sauce—it's little more than crushed canned tomatoes, some salt, and a some basil. The crust is crisp and pliant and thin. You'll probably want a couple. More

Salvatore of Soho 1880 Hylan Boulevard, Staten Island NY (Grant City; at Slater Blvd.; map); 718-979-7499; salvatoreofsoho.com Pizza Style: New York–Neapolitan/coal-oven Oven Type: Gas-coal hyrid oven The Skinny: Longtime pizzaman Salvatore Ganci is turning great, thin, chewy-crisp pizzas that stand shoulder to shoulder with the best coal-oven places in the city Price: Small Margherita, $9; large, $18 Just a couple blocks down from Pasticceria Bruno of Greenwich Village you'll find Salvatore of Soho. Geographically impossible, you say? Then you haven't been to Grant City, on the eastern shore of Staten Island, where this pizzeria has been cranking out coal-oven... More

A slice from Nunzio's is a pristine exercise in elegant pizza minimalism. It's not very big, so pizza-by-the-ton Ray's fans should go elsewhere. Yet everything about it is right: the ratio of sauce to cheese, the crisp yet pliant crust, and the tangy sauce enlivened by fresh basil. I love the sausage Nunzio's puts on its slices. It's nubby, loaded with flavor, and has plenty of fennel in it. Nunzio's even looks the way a pizzeria should: It is a white stucco shack with a tiny dining room brightened by black-and-white photos of the original Nunzio's in South Beach, Sraten... More