The best pizza in Montreal

Vesuvian stone wood oven, shipped from the port of Naples in one piece: pizza cooks in ninety seconds.

The Covone family has held 65 rue Saint-Zotique Est since 2006, back when Neapolitan pizza was still rare in Montreal. Giovanna runs the kitchen, her sons the room and the pizzas. Dough, sauce and gelato are made in house, the buffalo mozzarella comes from Caserta and the San Marzano tomatoes are picked by hand. Beyond the margherita, the list keeps white pizzas, stuffed pizzas and sfizi to share.

Seventy-five seats, white tablecloths, a wooden wine rack on the wall and Italian bottles chosen to go with the pizza. The house has since opened in Laval.

Melrose is a small room on Sherbrooke Ouest serving honest, simple, very well-made pizza — which in NDG has earned it a base of regulars in only a few years. The menu runs about ten options, including a pizza of the week, and the thin Italian-style crust carries direct toppings: margherita, classique, an eggplant lifted with chili oil, and the aptly named "NDG." Alongside the pizzas, the house rigatoni with sausage and rapini is worth ordering, as are the Caesar and fennel salads. Tiramisu and a Nutella pizza close things out. Plain decor, well-chosen music, service occasionally uneven at rush: a neighbourhood pizzeria that does what it promises.

On Jean-Talon Est, Michel-Ange does one thing and gives it everything: pizza. Antoine Roy-Camarda, trained in cooking at the ITHQ and in baking at the École hôtelière de Montréal, works his dough from selected flours and fires it in a deck oven shipped from northern Italy at very high heat. The result leans Neapolitan without copying it: a wide base, a modest cornicione, controlled bake, and a short but faultless list of toppings — the soppressata and the buffalo mozzarella margherita above all. The room is plain, service quick, and prices reasonable for this level of execution. Open Thursday to Sunday only: the best-kept secret in the area.

On Maguire Street, in a quiet corner of Mile End, Magpie bakes its pizzas in a wood-fired oven on a Neapolitan-inspired recipe, with dough that stays supple and a crust charred just enough. The menu runs faultless classics — margherita crowned with a whole burrata, polpette, spanakopita — and allows itself a more adventurous pizza of the week, buffalo chicken and ranch for instance. A gluten-free base is available and genuinely holds together, which is rare. The room is warm, a little loud on weekend nights, and the wine list keeps pace without taking itself seriously. One of the pillars of Montreal pizza for over a decade.

Open since 2017 on Ontario Est, Heirloom has accompanied the food transformation of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve with a simple proposition: wood-fired Neapolitan pizza, pasta, salads and traditional Italian desserts, in a bright, calming room. The kitchen is open, so you can follow the peel work and the bake, and the wine list — the "Vin" in the name is not decoration — keeps pace with a few good private imports. The mushroom arancini and the mozzarella sticks have become reflex orders. The crust is thin and well charred, the toppings stay classic. Reserving remains wise on Fridays and Saturdays, when the room fills quickly.