What is Colorado-style pizza? Depends where you ask. At Beau Jo’s, home of the Mountain Pie, the crust is a sturdy container — thick-walled, sweetened just enough with honey, and weighing in at anywhere from one to a whopping five pounds. At Pizzeria Locale, it’s a softly bubbled and chewy-crisp Neapolitan crust. White Pie, meanwhile, goes for a final bite that’s blatantly charred. These pizzerias are some of the best picks for delivery around Denver.
White Pie
Denver didn’t have a New Haven–style pizza niche until the Connecticut-raised Wallenta brothers created it. Now their crusts — charred crisp and oblong shaped — are firmly placed within the local pizza canon. Order the namesake White Pie with a runny egg in its center. For a full carb load, start with a coal oven–baked puffed bread course slathered in garlicky rosemary butter.
Walter’s 303 Pizzeria & Publik House
Perhaps the best place to build your own pizza, Walter’s lets you customize based on preferences or restrictions. So you can start with a gluten-free or even a cauliflower crust, specify sauce (including house-made marinara), and pick toppings from various cheeses, meats, and more. For an easy order from one of their two Denver locations, try The B.O.M., with basil, caramelized onions, and sliced meatballs.
Audrey Jane’s Pizza Garage
Before opening her eponymous shop in Boulder, Audrey Sherman trained under World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani. Before that, she learned from her mother how to make a mean sesame-crusted pie dough. The result of this long pizza-making history is a menu that’s at once rooted in tradition and incredibly fun. Try her PB & AJ, which combines prosciutto, burrata, arugula, and jam.
Grabowski’s Pizzeria
Square-cut and bite-size, these slices make for great snacking. Technically, this pizza is made in the Chicago tavern tradition, which offers a cracker-thin alternative to the Midwest city’s more famous deep dish. In Denver, Grabowski’s tastes best topped with classic Italian sausage or pepperoni — nothing fancy.
Pizzeria Locale
This fast-casual Neapolitan pizza shop is a spinoff of Boulder’s Pizzeria Alberico (formerly also called Pizzeria Locale). Three factors have contributed to its success: the leadership of a James Beard Award–winning team, quality ingredients from the flour to the fresh greens, and pies cooked precisely in custom Italian ovens. After a simple dinner of the Mais, a corn, ham, and creme fraiche pizza, don’t forget the butterscotch budino for dessert.
Hops & Pie
This craft pizzeria’s sourdough starter has been around for 12 years and counting. You’ll want to taste the naturally leavened dough for yourself in a deep-dish, Detroit-style pie with perfectly caramelized crust edges. Or try one of the artisan pie-of-the-month combinations, like tomato vodka sauce, chicken, pickled onions, banana peppers, and balsamic-dressed arugula.
Fat Sully’s Pizza
Fans frequent Fat Sully’s walk-up window for foldable slices to eat on the run. But for delivery, a hand-tossed 20-inch pie can feed you and a small army back at the house. The simpler, the better here — onion-packed tomato sauce, fresh mozz on top. A two-topping pie and salad for two is a deal at $30.
Brooklyn’s Finest Pizza
Brick oven–fired pies, Italian chopped salads, and strombolis round out the menu at this homage to a New York pizzeria with two locations in Denver. Start the meal with stuffed pizza- dough pinwheels – try the chicken parm or Italian combo – before moving on to pies like the Brooklyn Bomber with chicken, artichokes, and pesto.
Marco’s Coal Fired
This is the only pizzeria in Colorado with VPN certification (Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana), so you know the ingredients and process are all true to the original, back in Naples. Think: a soft, bubbly crust, generous tomato sauce, and extra-virgin olive oil. The signature lunch special serves it all up on a personal-size pie with a simple side salad or soup and a soda.
Vero Italian
Andrea Frizzi is one of Denver’s top Italian chefs, and his cooking is perhaps most accessible at this wood-fired pizza counter, where an 800-degree oven churns out pies in 90 seconds flat. You can’t go wrong with the basics. Try a straightforward Margherita or heat-packed Diavola. Tip: Be sure to add chile-infused honey to the spicy soppressata, and don’t overlook the handmade pastas for a second course.
SliceWorks
New Yorkers in Denver appreciate these foldable slices brought to the Rockies by the Scileppi family, who previously operated Italian restaurants and pizzerias back east. Purists and first-timers should order a slice of cheese or pepperoni, but repeat customers can go for the pizza alla vodka or a stuffed meat slice that doubles your crust-to-filling ratio.
Ritual Social House
Ritual is all about options, starting with a choice of traditional hand-tossed, spongy Sicilian pan, or gluten-free crust and finishing with mozzarella or vegan cheese. Take your pick, but know that one house pizza creation is a must: The Real Dill pairs an otherwise unassuming bacon-topped white pie with sliced pickles and just enough dill on top.
Ian’s Pizza
Whether you need one indulgent slice or an entire pie, this Wisconsin transplant offers pizza toppings like mac ’n’ cheese, cheesy potato and ranch, and sausage penne Alfredo. Yes, there are also classic combinations to be had, but why bother when you can eat a pizza that combines, say, chorizo with blue cheese and cranberry?
Anthony’s Pizza & Pasta
Colorado’s original New York–style pizzeria has grown in its nearly 40 years to include nearly 20 locations across Denver and the suburbs. There’s a reason for its staying power. Devotees order Anthony’s stone deck oven pies over and over again in traditional Neapolitan and Sicilian styles as well as gluten-free varieties.
Bar Dough
One trick to enjoying this beloved local Italian spot at home is to order from the chef-driven pizza menu. Ingredients reign, from sunchoke puree and dandelion greens dotting the fungi pie to fennel sausage and dates topping the Diavolo Nuovo. And the best part about a cheffy pizza dinner is that dessert is also on another level; try the ricotta cheesecake with blood orange curd.
Marquis Pizza
Plant-based pizza eaters, head straight for The Tofugazi, which combines a white tofu sauce with Daiya mozzarella, spinach, and house-made buffalo seitan. And know that the rest of the menu at this late-night Larimer Street haunt is also filled with vegan-optional dishes, including the Jane Dough garlic knots and the Streetlight pie with seitan and pesto.
