The Best Pizza Near Farmstead, by the Record

Detroit-style pizza in Napa Valley is a mild act of defiance, and Croccante leans into it. The thick, airy dough goes soft in the middle and properly crunchy at the caramelized edges, with toppings piled on hot and generous. The menu rounds out with sandwiches, meat dishes, and salads, and weekends bring brunch. The bar corner is well stocked with wine, cocktails, and non-alcoholic options, which fits the neighborhood. Named among 50 Top Pizza USA's Excellent Pizzerias.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza USA Excellent Pizzerias

The crusts here crack audibly when you bite into them, which sounds like a small thing until you're at a table in Windsor wondering why most pizza doesn't do that. Pizzaleah is a NY-style slice shop where Leah Scurto handles the dough personally, and the brick oven leaves a char on the underside that keeps everything from going soft. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of Sonoma County's best restaurants. Hot honey and Calabrian chile pies share the menu with the unironic classics.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in Sonoma County

1. San Francisco Chronicle #69 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

Vintage film posters and antique tools cover the walls, and the wood-fired pizzas at this Geyserville pizzeria fill the room within minutes of the doors opening. The house-cured meats and the blistered Neapolitan pies built around the team's own smoked salumi are the draw, though the back patio, a glass-roofed greenhouse reached through an alley that looks borrowed from an Italian hill town, is reason enough to linger.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in Sonoma County

Rectangular pizzas sold by the meal-size slice anchor the menu at this busy Cal-Italian bakery and kitchen on Highway One in Tomales, a natural pit stop for anyone driving or cycling the coast. The menu is tight, meatballs and salads alongside the pizza, but the bread is its own reason to pull over. The olive loaf, dense with Kalamata and green olives, travels well. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the Bay Area's best sandwich spots.

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Wood is stacked floor to ceiling against the walls and under the counter, which tells you everything about the priorities here. Cafe Reyes is a wood-fired pizza shop in Point Reyes Station, the kind of barn-sized, unfussy room that makes sense after a morning on the coast. The pies are named after local landmarks, the crust has real char, and the whole operation gives day-trippers a very good reason to stop before the drive back.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The flower-ringed patio on University Avenue is not accidental: this is Rose Pizzeria, and it commits to the bit. Thin, crispy pies here borrow from every regional tradition and answer to none of them, landing somewhere between Neapolitan char and California confidence. The Caesar with miso and Calabrian chiles is the kind of side dish that makes you forget you ordered pizza. A spot on 50 Top Pizza USA keeps the room lively most nights.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza USA Excellent Pizzerias
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants for outdoor dining in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle #27 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

A worker-owned collective in the Gourmet Ghetto, Cheese Board bakes one vegetarian sourdough pizza per day, rotating with the seasons, and you either want it or you don't. You probably want it. The line wraps around the block most days, but it moves fast, and the green sauce, herby and quietly ferocious, is non-negotiable. Grab a slice, claim a parklet table, and settle into the reliably frenetic sidewalk energy Berkeley does so well.

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Pan pizza is the move at this Berkeley slice shop, where the chef cycles through New York, Sicilian, Detroit, and Grandma styles depending on what she's feeling. The dough is the point, soft with a good crisp edge, and the toppings stay fresh and unfussy enough not to compete with it. The blue-painted room is cozy without trying too hard. Save room for the Sicilian cannoli.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza USA Excellent Pizzerias

A one-person takeout operation in Berkeley where the pre-orders open at 9 a.m. sharp and are often gone before the place does. The pies are 18-inch, NY-style, with charred and pillowy crusts, and you have to plan around them rather than the other way around. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best Berkeley restaurants, which feels about right for something this inconvenient to obtain.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Berkeley restaurants