Best Pizza in St. Paul

Carbone’s Pizza
Carbone’s is a comfort food classic, a guilty pleasure if ever there was one. It’s proof positive that you have to eat some pies right when they come out of the oven or they seize up in your mouth like a defective gear box. Sure, the cheese is commercial, the dough extruded, and the sauce oddly seasoned, but we love Carbone’s for the greasy fingers we get after eating it, the jukebox, table service, and paper tenting on the pies ordered to go. (This Carbone’s is not affiliated with the other Carbone’s in the metro area, though we find their pizzas to taste pretty similar.) 1698 Randolph Ave., 651-698-0721

Cossetta Italian Market & Pizzeria
Best Sausage
Cossetta is one of the best pizzerias in town. The dough is hand-tossed, perfectly elastic, and chewy; sauce is made by hand and slowly simmered according to an ancient family recipe. Cossetta keeps long hours, always has slices available, and its sausage pies are crowned with hand-ground Cossetta-recipe sausage, making this slice a well deserved local legend. 211 W. 7th St., 651-222-3476

Green Mill
Green Mill makes a pretty good pizza. The crust is chewy and dense, with nice crispness throughout; the mozzarella is a step above standard commercial product; the sauce is superb if you love rich, thick, and zesty with a sweet finish. Pies are seasoned with dried oregano—a nice touch—and the sausage is some of the best in town, with great fennel flavor. Slices are always available, and three crust formats—hand-tossed, thin, and deep dish—are offered. Calzones and stuffed pizzas are quite good, and the list of toppings is voluminous. 57 S. Hamline, 651-690-0539 (delivery), 651-698-0353 (see other  sections for alternate locations)

Hot City Pizza
A drive-up pizza parlor on steroids, Hot City also has loads of hot “Philly” style sandwiches and makes a white pizza that is absurdly addictive. Instead of tomato sauce, sheeted dough is basted with a white garlic sauce and mozzarella cheese. We like the White Heat (onions, hot peppers, salsa), hold the salsa, add mushrooms. Hot City delivers, always offers slices, and makes a double-decker pie for the heavy-on-the-cheese-and-sauce crowd. 1017 W. 7th St., 651-690-1893

Italian Pie Shoppe & Winery
One of the best pizzerias in the west ’burbs is the New Hope outpost of Italian Pie Shoppe. What makes it so is the formidable and legendary thin-crust white pizza. Slathered in garlic, herbs, and mozzarella, it has the best flavor balance of any white pie we tasted in the metro. The crust needs work, but otherwise this one is an oasis in the desert. 1670 Grand Ave.

Punch Neapolitan Pizza
Best Crust
Best Sauce, Italian–Style
Best Staff
Punch’s John Soranno and his business partner, John Puckett, are obsessed with quality and authenticity, and their “verace pizza Napoletana” is perfection itself. Crisp-chewy, the result of a flawlessly hand-tossed dough created with a perfect protein ratio in the flour, this is a wetter pie and is best eaten unsliced with fork and knife. The toppings are of the highest quality and the vibe (and menu) has been co-opted by the other VPN restaurants in town. 704 Cleveland Ave. S., St. Paul, 651-696-1066 (also Mpls. and Eden Prairie)

Red’s Savoy Pizza
Best Attitude
The Twin Cities’ kitsch pizza leader. While many pizza freaks will argue about the quality of the pie here, Savoy is the place for a great pizza experience. Slide into a vinyl booth, order a pitcher of suds and a sauerkraut-sausage pizza, and wait for the magic to happen (take that any way you want to). People-watching is second to none, the bar makes a strong drink if you’re a regular, and the pie is addictive. There’s nothing fancy going on here, and the crust is an afterthought. The primary objective is fitting six pounds of cheese and a quart of sauce on each pie. Once you’ve tried Savoy’s—surly servers and all—you’re hooked. 421 E. 7th St., 651-227-1437

Roadside Pizza
It’s about as no-frills and unambitious as pizza joints get, but in a region of St. Paul with limited options, it is a top finisher in our taste test. The crust is crispy and toasty, the sauce is sweet and rich, and the sausage bursts with juicy, fresh fennel flavor. The specialty pie menu includes an Oriental pizza with sweet-and-sour sauce, chicken, snow peas, water chestnuts, onions, green peppers, and chow mein noodles. Call the carabinieri! Roadside delivers almost anywhere. 296 Larpenteur Ave., 651-778-8786

Villa Roma
Villa Roma sits in a converted wooden rail car, an unusual motif for a pizzeria, but its paper thin pies are very good. Cheese quality is a step above the ordinary, and the sausage is delightful—not your typical food-service prefab nuggets. The pies are slathered with a well-balanced sauce, boast an excellent cheese-sauce-crust ratio, and deliver an all-around great experience. Go for the calzone for a change of pace. It’s one of the best around. 603 W. 7th St., 651-228-9319