A Charlotte pizza challenge: One family’s journey to find the best slice in town

You’ve heard it before: People complain that there isn’t good pizza in Charlotte (and, yeah, you know exactly who I’m talking about). But honestly, I’ve never agreed with that sentiment.

Sure, finding top-tier pizza in Charlotte might be a bit trickier than in Brooklyn, but it’s absolutely possible. You just have to do a little research.

A while back, I came across a Charlotte Foodies Facebook post setting up a March Madness bracket for the best pizza joints. As a pizza aficionado, I thought, What a brilliant idea! Who doesn’t love eating pizza, especially when it’s competitive?

So, my son Tristan and I decided to take on this challenge ourselves, and we had so much fun that my older son, Brady, decided to join us as a guest judge occasionally.

Who am I to judge pizza?

According to family lore, my great-grandfather Sinabaldo Graziano opened the first pizzeria in New Jersey back in the 19-somethings. He came to America from Casa Marciano, a village near Naples, and fell in love with Julia Truncone. Their story is one for another day, but here’s the important part: Julia’s father, Ben Truncone, was a master baker in Little Italy and eventually taught Sinabaldo the art of flour. In turn, Sinabaldo became a master himself.

Now, if the name Truncone sounds familiar, it’s because his bakery used to get its flour from Lombardi’s — yep, that Lombardi’s, the one recognized by the U.S. Pizza Hall of Fame as the first pizzeria in America. At some point, the bakery moved to New Jersey, where Sinabaldo began making 18-inch pizzas for a nickel on Friday nights.

Eventually, the Graziano men decided the baking business was too much work and switched careers to construction. (I know, right?) But the pizza-making tradition still lives on, passed down through six generations with the same family recipe from 120 years ago. So yes, this may be a little Portnoy-esque — but since he’s not going to be reviewing all these Charlotte pizza joints, I’m stepping up to do the work for you.

The pizza showdown

Tristan and I started by going to 16 local pizzerias. We then scored each spot and set up a playoff bracket for the top pizzas.

Now, we know there are all sorts of amazing pizza varieties out there, but we believe the best way to judge a pizzeria is by its cheese pizza. After all, if a restaurant can’t nail the basics, how can we trust it with anything else?

We scored on two main factors: appearance and taste. A great pizza should have some contrast — red sauce, golden-brown crust and maybe a pop of green from basil or oregano. As for taste, the key is balance. The crust, sauce, and cheese all need to be in harmony. A great pizza should be seared at a high temperature, not slowly baked. You need that crispy bottom and slightly charred top with just the right amount of bubbles.Here’s how we ranked the pizzas we tried:

• 10 – Best we’ve ever had.

• 9 – Amazing, I’m in love.

• 8 – Great pizza, worth a 45-minute drive.

• 7 – Good pizza I like a lot — our “daily driver” pizza, a go-to I’d eat any day of the week.

• 6 – I’d eat it again if we were next door, but I wouldn’t go out of my way.

• 5 – Meh, probably won’t go back, but it was still pizza.

• 4 – I wasn’t a fan.

Our Top 4 pizzas after the first round were:

• Bird Pizzeria

• Pizza Baby East

• Zeppedie’s

• Omaggio

For our finals, we went back to try all four places again. To determine the ultimate champion, we held a face-off between the top two restaurants in the same day.

Both Bird and Zepeddie’s served beautiful pizzas that were perfectly cooked and tasted great. Eating the pizzas back to back on the same day allowed us to determine that Zepeddie’s flavor was a little bit better, and the way the staff brushes the crust with olive oil pushed it ahead of Bird.

After months of testing pizzas, we are convinced that there are great pizzas in Charlotte and that Zepeddie’s has the best pizza in the Queen City.

Here are all 16 pizzas that we tried, starting with our favorites:

Zepeddie’s Pizzeria

Location: 4516 Nations Crossing Rd, Charlotte, NC 28217

Score: 8.7

Zeppedie’s gets pizza. At this NY-style pizza shop, it’s served well done with good char and minimal flop. The flavor balance is spot on — you can taste the sauce and the cheese, and it has the best crust in Charlotte.

We finished the entire 16-inch large pizza in one sitting — which, if we’re being honest, is probably the best benchmark for determining whether we really liked a pizza.

Bird Pizzeria

Location 510 E 15th St, Charlotte, NC 28206-3321

Score: 8.6

Bird makes a great pizza that’s not quite Neapolitan style and not quite NY style, but whatever it is, we love it — and it just missed the top spot in the head-to-head battle.

The flavor was incredible. It had the perfect balance of cheese, sauce and greens, and it wasn’t floppy at all. Every time someone opened the window, the smell took us right back to New Jersey pizza shops from childhood. The pizza was perfectly cooked and packed with flavor.

Pizza Baby East

Location: 1601 Elizabeth Ave, Charlotte, NC 28204

Score: 8.6

Pizza Baby East is a pizza and sandwich shop offering both Neapolitan-style pizzas and Roman square slices.

The Neapolitan-style House Pie was a standout that might be even better than Bird. The sauce was flavorful with a hint of sweetness, and the cheese was salty in the best way.

The crust, however, was divisive. Pizza Baby is known for its big, fluffy crust, but we felt it was a little excessive, almost like wasted dough that could have been used to make the pizza bigger. That being said, the undercarriage was perfect, with a great sauce-to-cheese ratio.

Pizzeria Omaggio

Location: 1055 Metropolitan Ave #130, Charlotte, NC 28204

Score: 8.3

Omaggio serves Roman-style pizza, meaning it’s thin, crispy and light, a stark contrast to the other pies we’d had so far. The Classic immediately gave us high hopes just from the aroma alone. A great pizza should smell amazing before you even take a bite, and this one did.

The cheese was flavorful, and the ratio of cheese to sauce was spot on. As we said before, a truly great pizza isn’t drowning in cheese, and this one delivered on balance. The high-quality ingredients were evident in every bite.

800 Degrees Carolinas

Location: 6815 Phillips Pl Ct, Charlotte, NC 28210

Score: 8.2

800 Degrees is a stylish SouthPark spot with a high-end bar/restaurant vibe. The atmosphere is upscale and inviting, with a great drink selection featuring plenty of bourbons and craft cocktails. The food menu is solid, offering an almost Neapolitan-style pizza.

This pizza made an amazing first impression — it looked great, came out well done and had an incredible aroma. The initial bite was solid with minimal flop and a well-cooked undercarriage. It reminded us of a brick oven-style pizza.

While we enjoyed it, a few things held it back from reaching the top tier. The sauce was good, but the large, mushy chunks of fresh mozzarella made the pizza soggy too quickly. We know fresh mozzarella is trendy right now, but it’s tough to get right, and in this case, it was a bit of a letdown.

Inizio Pizza Napoletana

Location: 10620 Providence Rd, Charlotte, NC 28277

Score: 8.1

We live in the southern suburbs of Charlotte and frequent the Inizio location near Waverly when we’re in the mood for a more elevated Neapolitan pizza. The sauce was bright and flavorful, and the cheese had a nice tang.

We appreciated that they didn’t overload it with cheese, letting the sauce shine through. We have found that with its large pizza, if you don’t ask for it well done, it comes out floppy, and the cheese and sauce have a tendency to slide off.

Salud Cerveceria

Location: 3306 N Davidson St, Charlotte, NC 28205

Score: 7.7

Salud, a hipster lounge-meets-beer hall, complete with bar shuffleboard, couches, egg chairs and laid-back, low-key energy might just have the best atmosphere of any pizza spot we’ve visited.

The Hooti Hoo Margherita, a thin, bar-style pizza, had that crunchy crust reminiscent of New Jersey boardwalk pizza, which holds a special place in our hearts. Honestly, if this pizza came in a 16-inch pie, it’d be an amazing go-to for a casual night at home.

Geno D’s Pizza

Location: The Market at 7th Street, 224 E 7th St, Charlotte, NC 28202

Score: 7.5

Geno D’s is a stall in the Market at 7th Street best known for its Grandma Pie, so naturally, we had to give it a try. A Grandma Pie is a rectangular pizza baked in a pan and thinner than a Sicilian but still sturdy.

Traditionally, the cheese goes on the bottom, with a generous helping of rich, flavorful sauce spread over the top. However, Geno D’s Pizza’s take on the style had more cheese and less sauce than expected. While not quite what we anticipated, it was still a beautifully presented pie that we enjoyed and would order again.

Stagioni - Four Seasons of Food

Location: 715 Providence Rd, Charlotte, NC 28207

Score: 7.4

Walking into Stagioni makes you feel cool. The dim lighting, classic Sinatra-style big band music, and upscale vibe make this a prime date-night spot. The cheese pizza is a 10-inch, NY-style pie that comes uncut — so you get pizza scissors to cut it yourself, which we actually do at home, so we love this detail.

It was very good looking pizza with a nice browning on the cheese. The sauce was on the sweeter side, which we think is intentional because they give you red pepper flakes to put on top. We liked the other food better than the pizza, however, and thought it was one of the better Italian restaurants in the city.

Osteria LuCa

Location: 4127 Park Rd, Charlotte, NC 28209

Score: 7.3

We enjoyed our experience at Osteria LuCa, but the Neapolitan pizza didn’t quite stand out from the pack. It serves a well-made pizza with nice char and a good crust, but the flavor was basic. We would come back for the drinks, dessert and sides, but the pizza itself didn’t impress us as much as we had hoped.

Due Amici Pizza

Location: 5346 Docia Crossing Rd, Charlotte, NC 28269

Score: 7.3

Walking into Due Amici felt like stepping into a classic North Jersey slice shop. At noon, the display case was fully stocked for the lunch crowd, the walls were lined with Little League plaques from teams the restaurant has sponsored over the years and the faded pictures of Italy add to the old-school charm. This is the kind of spot where most people grab a quick slice and go — but, of course, we ordered a full large cheese pizza.

This is what Anthony Bourdain would call utility pizza — the kind of place you’d love to have around the corner as your go-to local shop. The pizza had a solid undercarriage with a little flop but stayed firm when bent at the crust. The taste was good but nothing particularly special.

After two slices, we felt satisfied but not necessarily eager to keep eating. Tristan even added some grated Parmesan to see if it would enhance the flavor. It’s a solid pizza — good, reliable and exactly what you’d expect from a neighborhood slice joint.

Pizzeria Sapienza CLT

Location: 620 N Church St, Charlotte, NC 28202

Score: 6.8

Pizzeria Sapienza is your classic NYC-style slice joint — the kind of place you’d grab a quick lunch at if you worked nearby or that you would hit after a night out. The pizza was fine — not bad, not great. We only ate half of it, and to us it wasn’t worth a drive to uptown.

Indaco

Location: 2046 South Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28203

Score: 6.5

Indaco is a fantastic Italian restaurant that serves Neapolitan-style pizza. While the sauce is decent, the mozzarella (fresh buffalo-style) comes in thick slices, which leads to structural issues.

When you take a bite, the entire piece of cheese slides off, forcing you to eat it all at once. The dough is too spongy, and the whole thing just doesn’t come together the way a great Neapolitan pizza should. The rest of the meal was great, and we would come back here again for the Tiramisu alone — but not just for the pizza.

Intermezzo

Location: 1427 E 10th St, Charlotte, NC 28204

Score: 6.4

Intermezzo is a Serbian restaurant that has a dark, bar old-school feeling and a great bourbon selection.

The Quattro Formaggio is a basic NY-style cheese and tomato sauce pizza. The flavors of the floppy pizza don’t stand out. From the menu, it seemed like Intermezzo specializes in topping-heavy pizzas — and based on the recommendations from the table next to us, that’s probably the way to go here.

Mama Ricotta’s

Location: 601 S Kings Dr AA, Charlotte, NC 28204

Score: 6.3

We had high hopes for Mama Ricotta’s. We’re longtime fans of Little Mama’s, where we’ve had some of our favorite comfort Italian food in Charlotte. So naturally, we were excited to try the pizza. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to expectations.

The Tomato & Mozzarella Large Pizza, was advertised as New Haven-style but definitely isn’t. If anything, it leans more toward Neapolitan. The pizza suffers from a lack of balance — too much cheese and sauce makes it floppy and undercooked. It needed way more time in the oven for a crispier bite and more seasoning (salt, pepper, garlic).

Rosati’s Pizza

Location: 9925 Rea Rd STE 100, Waxhaw, NC 28173

Score: 4.9

Rosati’s is a Chicago-style pizza chain offering both thin-crust and deep-dish options. We tried both of them, and the scores came in exactly the same.

The thin crust is a Midwest bar-style pizza, and honestly, it didn’t do much for us. It lacks flavor, even after piling on red pepper flakes, Parmesan and whatever else available just to make it enjoyable. For deep dish — which can be great when done right — this one is just OK. Having had some truly great deep-dish pizzas in our travels, it doesn’t stack up.

Tristan, a Weddington High School student, is plotting how to rule the world when he isn’t on the lacrosse field or hanging with his friends. Brady, a Weddington High School senior, is waiting to hear about his final college application so his parents will finally stop annoying him about his decision. Jamie, aka The GrazFather, is a graduate of the University of Florida, an employee of a Fortune 500 company and dad who dreams of starting his food review and travel website, TheGrazFather.com. He can be reached at jamie.p.graziano@gmail.com.