The Best Pizza Near Il Grano di Pepe, by the Record
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A pizzeria sitting out in open countryside, which already tells you something about the regulars who make the drive. The menu breaks pizzas into revisited, award-winning, and chef's specials, and the fish options are taken more seriously than you'd expect. Wines and beers run deep, service is warm without being fussy, and 50 Top Pizza Italy has it among their Excellent Pizzerias.
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Rank 2. tRe in Pomposa
Pizza
A high-crust sourdough pizza place in the Pomposa neighborhood, where the dough ferments for up to 36 hours before it ever sees a flame. The toppings lean heavily on Modena's pantry, so expect the region's producers to do most of the talking. Wines and beers are well chosen. Skip dessert and order another slice instead; the kitchen seems to know which battle it wants to fight.
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Rank 3. Span
Neapolitan Pizza
The menu announces that pizza has no owners, no masters, and belongs to the people, which sets the tone immediately. This is a Neapolitan pizza spot, one of three Bologna locations, with classic and creative pies, a short beer list, and traditional southern desserts. Reservations aren't taken, so a wait is part of the deal. There's a small terrace if the noise inside gets to you, and the bill won't get to you either.
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Near the Teatro Municipale, this pizzeria channels southern Italian technique through a northern Italian lens, with a dough the kitchen clearly obsesses over. The menu travels the peninsula for regional combinations that rarely make it outside their home towns, like a Rossini pizza dressed with a custom mayonnaise and caper-dusted eggs. Seasonal toppings, territorial pride, and a tall, pillowy crust that holds up under all of it.
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Rank 5. Storie Dipinte
Pizza
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The pizza at Me put Ferrara on the map for a style the team calls "true contemporary," Naples-rooted but lighter than you'd expect, with a steam-cooked option that tilts the bill toward restaurant territory. The cocktail pairings are part of the pitch, though a thoughtfully assembled international wine list is there for the holdouts. Desserts come in jars. It's a pizzeria that takes itself seriously without being insufferable about it.
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A Neapolitan-style pizzeria tucked under an ancient portico in central Ferrara, where writing in Campanian dialect covers the walls and two ovens handle both traditional and gluten-free pies. The chef came up from Salerno and the dough shows it, long-leavened and properly puffy. Seating spills across two floors in a room that feels more southern Italy than northern. The "ruoto" pan pizzas, rooted in rural Campanian tradition, are worth the short walk from wherever you managed to park.
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Rank 8. Zio Mo’
Pizza
A sprawling pizza spot where the dough changes before you've settled on a favorite, because the kitchen is always mid-experiment. The mix of flours and hydration levels shifts with the seasons, so the menu runs from timeless classics to stuffed calzones to high-hydration variations that feel like a different argument for what pizza can be. The room is big and popular in the way a place gets when the neighborhood has actually adopted it. Ranked among 50 Top Pizza Italy.
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The place still has no sign out front, which either says something about confidence or about the family that built it on a Renault 4 delivery route. Balobino is a pizza restaurant in Lendinara, minimal and quiet, where the dough is taken as seriously as a religion and the crust aims for something the menu calls cloud-like. Natural wines and beers chosen with the same fussiness as the flour. It made 50 Top Pizza Italy's Excellent Pizzerias list.
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A small pizza spot in central Parma where the chef works with high-hydration, long-fermented dough in a style that doesn't answer to Naples. The crust sits at a moderate height, and toppings lean toward Campanian ingredients or pasta-sauce classics like carbonara, ragù, and amatriciana. Tables are close enough that you'll learn your neighbors' order. A newer "fried and deconstructed" menu has since joined the lineup.
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Rank 11. Passione e Tradizione
Neapolitan Pizza
A pocket of Naples transplanted into a Parma piazza, with plastic chairs outside and Neapolitan spirit inside. This pizzeria turns out classic and contemporary pies in the Neapolitan style, with toppings that follow the season and a finishing drizzle of good olive oil on every pizza. The fried snacks are worth ordering alongside. Seasonal ingredients do the heavy lifting here, and the kitchen clearly sweats the small stuff.
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Rank 12. Gigi Pipa
Wood-fired Pizza
A former match factory in Este is now a pizzeria with a garden, which is exactly the kind of origin story that sounds invented but isn't. The chef runs three styles of pizza, wood-fired classics, tasting pies in a contemporary style, and thin Roman rounds, with vegetables and ingredients pulled largely from small local producers. Ranked in the 50 Top Pizza Italy and World lists, it earns a Forno Verde special award for its green sourcing focus.
- 50 Top Pizza #88 · 50 Top Pizza World
- 50 Top Pizza #29 · 50 Top Pizza Italy
- 50 Top Pizza 2026 · Forno Verde · 50 Top Pizza Italy Special Awards
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Rank 13. Civico 25
Pizza
A pizzeria in Emilia Romagna built around a social mission, where young people with disabilities and survivors of bullying make up the team, and where the pizza itself is the thing that keeps people coming back. The crust runs high and crisps nicely, and the panuozzo from Romagna and the pinsa round out a menu that takes the food as seriously as the cause. The staff greets you like they mean it.
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Rank 14. Donatelli 3011
Italian Pizza
A pizza restaurant in San Giovanni Lupatoto that takes its crust seriously enough to offer a dedicated sauce menu for dipping the leftovers, which says something about confidence. The interior leans industrial chic with soft lighting, giving it more metropolitan energy than the address might suggest. Toppings run from a straightforward Margherita to combinations involving gin tonic, and the kitchen makes everything fresh. Named on 50 Top Pizza Italy's Excellent Pizzerias list.