The Best Pizza in Rio de Janeiro, by the Record

A pizza spot in Botafogo with an internal garden that makes the whole evening feel like a better idea. The dough is what the kitchen obsesses over, and that foundation stays consistent in a way that's rarer than it should be. The drink list runs past the usual suspects, which helps. It landed on the 50 Top Pizza Latin America list, and also picked up the 2026 special award for best dessert list, which is a plot twist for a pizza place.

1. 50 Top Pizza #23 · 50 Top Pizza Latin America
2. 50 Top Pizza 2026 · Best Dessert List · 50 Top Pizza Latin America Special Awards

A Neapolitan-style pizzeria in Tijuca, the kind of neighborhood where the owner knows your name before you've ordered twice. The mozzarella carries most of the weight here, and the dough is the quiet reason regulars make the subway trip north. Weekly specials keep things from going on autopilot. It landed at number eleven on 50 Top Pizza Latin America, which gives you a rough sense of the seriousness involved.

1. 50 Top Pizza #11 · 50 Top Pizza Latin America

The Italian flag flies over this Jardim Botânico pizzeria, and the kitchen takes that seriously. Capricciosa is a big, bustling room with a famous buffet, proper pasta, a dessert menu worth staying for, and pizza that holds its own through all of it. Tables fill fast and the service keeps pace without breaking a sweat. It landed at number 20 on 50 Top Pizza Latin America, which gives you a sense of the stakes.

1. 50 Top Pizza #20 · 50 Top Pizza Latin America

A pizzeria tucked into the noble quadrilateral of Ipanema, a short walk from Nossa Senhora da Paz square, where nearly everything on the menu, including the appetizers and desserts, orbits the wood-fired oven. The dough follows an orthodox path, but the toppings tend toward the provocative. Ranked 31st on the 50 Top Pizza World list, which gives you a sense of the company it keeps.

1. 50 Top Pizza #31 · 50 Top Pizza World

A wood-fired pizzeria tucked next to the botanical garden in Jardim Botânico, Ella is small and a little intimate, with a glowing bar at the entrance and an open kitchen where the oven does most of the talking. The tomato is the thing here, turning up on pizzas and in baked first courses served in aluminum pans that feel genuinely homey. Cocktails get the same careful attention. One useful fact: Ella is open for lunch, which the neighborhood's imperial palms make a convincing argument for.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza Latin America Excellent Pizzerias

A Neapolitan pizza spot on Avenida Atlântica that somehow resists the Copacabana circus around it. The dough follows the real elastic, blistered tradition of the school, and the seafood pasta and tiramisu suggest the kitchen has other things on its mind besides ticking boxes. In the evening, foliage and warm lighting frame a sea view that would feel theatrical if the food weren't keeping everyone's attention. Named among the 50 Top Pizza Latin America Excellent Pizzerias.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza Latin America Excellent Pizzerias

A Neapolitan pizza spot tucked inside a shopping center in Recreio dos Bandeirantes, close enough to Grumari that you could come sandy and no one would mind. The dough goes through a long fermentation and comes out light and blistered, carrying toppings that slide between Campania tradition and Brazilian combinations without making a fuss about either. The Neapolitan panini at the start are hard to pass up.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza Latin America Excellent Pizzerias

The dough at this Leblon pizzeria is the argument: long-fermented, fragrant, crispy at the edge and soft at the center in the way that takes patience to pull off. Sìsì runs Italian-serious on one of Rio's most restaurant-dense streets, with a menu that goes beyond pizza into agnolotti del plin, a pasta you rarely find anywhere near this latitude. The room draws a Zona Sul crowd that dresses for dinner without trying too hard.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza Latin America Excellent Pizzerias