The Best Pizza in Toronto, Compared by Style: New York Slice vs Detroit Square vs Sourdough

Arguing about the best pizza in Toronto is unproductive largely because people are arguing about different foods. A foldable New York slice and a thick Detroit square with caramelized cheese welded to the edges are not competing products, and ranking them against each other tells you nothing useful. Sort by style instead, and the city's pizza map suddenly makes sense.

Here is what each style does well, and where to go for it.

New York style: thin, foldable, by the slice

This is the format built for walking and for indecision — buy one slice, decide whether you want another.

Pizzeria Badiali on Dovercourt Road is the reference point, and the lineups outside are the giveaway. House-made ingredients go into both slices and whole pies, with seasonal specials and comfort classics filling the display case. Regulars have worked out the shortcut: pre-order for pickup or delivery and skip the queue entirely.

Mac's Pizza, also on Dovercourt, takes a looser approach — slices, whole pizzas and natural wines in the same room. The pizzas are thin, crisp and easy to fold, generously topped and reliably gooey, whether you order the Angry Pepperoni or the quietly excellent Lemonhead.

Detroit style: thick, square, caramelized at the edge

Detroit-style is the most structurally different pizza on this list — baked in a pan, cut into squares, with cheese pushed right to the perimeter so it fries against the metal and forms a crisp brown border.

Descendant Pizza in Leslieville is the city's Detroit-style landmark and was the first pizzeria in Toronto to commit to the format. The pies are thick, rich and comfortably shareable, and the menu rewards actually reading it — options like the Electric Avenue and the vegetarian Jaffina are built from a long list of ingredients rather than one or two.

This is the style to choose when you are feeding several people, or when you want pizza that eats like a full meal rather than a snack.

Sourdough and long-ferment: the one for crust obsessives

If your interest in pizza is mostly an interest in dough, this is your category.

Acute Pizzeria in Brockton Village runs a 72-hour ferment, which gives the base a complexity, lightness and distinct tang you cannot fake with a same-day dough. The toppings are fresh and generous, but the crust is the argument.

Superpoint on Ossington works a similar seam with a sourdough base and premium components — San Marzano tomatoes, house-made ricotta — and has the added advantage of late-night hours, which narrows the field considerably after midnight.

Neapolitan and the wood-fired hybrids

Pizzeria Libretto is the traditionalist pick, and one of only a small number of Toronto pizzerias certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana — a genuine standard rather than a marketing line. Go for the Margherita and judge it on those terms.

Revolver Pizza Co. in Etobicoke deliberately splits the difference: wood-fired pies that come out crisp and gently charred, part pliable New York slice and part bubbly Neapolitan. Orders run to 18 inches, and the Nduja Special and the hot-honey-and-spicy-sausage Stinger are the ones people come back for.

North of Brooklyn has grown from a single location to several, including Queen West and Rogers Road, on the strength of blistered, fresh, tender pies — from the Truffle Shuffle and Green Out to a straightforward Margherita. Bar Sugo in Bloordale Village, sister to neighbouring Sugo, runs wood-fired pizzas alongside Italian-American plates, with the bacon-pepperoni-jalapeño-pineapple Little Manila and the whipped-ricotta Little Italy leading the order.

Worth the trip east

Mark's Pizzas in Scarborough regularly sells out, so ordering ahead is less a tip than a requirement. The reward is hefty slices and whole pies dressed with genuinely unusual combinations — ricotta garlic lemon cream, roasted potatoes, Toulouse sausage.

How to choose

Pick by occasion, not by ranking. Feeding a group, or want leftovers? Detroit square from Descendant. Eating alone, on foot, undecided? A New York slice from Badiali or Mac's. Care more about fermentation than toppings? Acute, or Superpoint if it is late. Want the classic done to an actual certified standard? Libretto.

Two practical notes that apply across the board: the best-regarded shops here queue or sell out, so pre-ordering is the single highest-value habit you can adopt. And menus at these places rotate seasonally — the specials named above are illustrative of the style, not a guarantee of what is on the board tonight.