The Best Pizza in Belgium

A Neapolitan pizza spot in the Saint-Josse neighborhood where the dough gets treated like a serious project, soft inside with a caramelized edge that holds up without fuss. The menu mixes Italian classics with seasonal combinations, ingredients imported from Italy, and a rotating selection that keeps things from going stale. Cocktails, including a mandarin one worth ordering, round out the picture. It holds a spot on 50 Top Pizza Europe and 50 Top Pizza World.

The name refers to the pre-fermentation technique behind the dough, which is blended from wholemeal flours yet still lands with the airy lift you expect from a proper Neapolitan pizza place. A Neapolitan team runs the kitchen in Schaerbeek, folding Belgian produce like Brussels sprouts and purple cabbage into the rotating creative pies alongside southern Italian seafood. No alcohol on the premises, but the wine shop next door has you sorted.

Fried pizza sits on the menu alongside the classics at this Neapolitan pizza spot in the Sablon, which tells you the kitchen is not here to play it safe. The dough runs thin at the center in proper Neapolitan fashion, and the five-cheese pie is the one regulars tend to circle back to. The room is nicely turned out and draws a well-traveled crowd. Service can be a little loose around the edges, so patience helps.

A Neapolitan pizza shop tucked into Etterbeek where the staff will happily make you something off-menu if you ask nicely, which tells you most of what you need to know about the room. The dough is soft and light, the ingredients are the kind that make you notice the ingredients, and the cacio e pepe pizza lands creamy and sharp without tipping into heavy. It ranked 59th on 50 Top Pizza Europe, which is a long way from nothing for a neighborhood spot in Brussels.

A Sicilian word meaning "let's go" names this Bruges pizzeria, which takes that spirit literally: the dough is slow-fermented, the sourcing leans Slow Food, and a vegan menu sits alongside the classics without apology. The room is unfussy, the rounds are well-risen, and the margherita, built on good tomatoes and proper fiordilatte, is the spine everything else grows from. Service is warm enough to feel like you stumbled into someone's family kitchen.

A portrait of Maradona watches over the wood-fired oven at this Neapolitan pizza spot in Ixelles, and the menu follows suit: margherita, marinara, the classics, treated with enough seriousness that no one needs to explain the point. The crust leans contemporary, with a puffier cornicione than the old guard might prefer, and the fried starters hold their own. A neighborhood place that knows exactly what it is.

A Neapolitan pizza shop in the heart of Brussels that started, as many do, as a cure for homesickness and ended up pulling in everyone else on the block too. The dough is contemporary Neapolitan style, the ingredients are mostly sourced from Italy, and the whole operation runs on a refreshingly short set of principles. A good beer list keeps things honest. Two locations now, which tells its own story.

A pizzeria just off the Avenue Louise that leans into the raw-wood, exposed-structure aesthetic favored by establishments that know exactly what they're doing. The dough is well-leavened, the oven is wood-fired, and a bottarga and burrata pizza with lemon zest has become the one everyone orders. An Italian wine list longer than expected rounds things out, and the bread arrives with good olive oil before anyone asks.