Best Pizza in Raleigh
Raleigh, North Carolina — updated August 21, 2026
New York slices on New Bern Avenue, wood-fired pies off Whitaker Mill and a brewery kitchen on West Morgan: eight Raleigh pizzerias ranked by how convincingly the ratings hold up.
Listings verified
Raleigh's pizza argument mostly runs along New York lines, with two of the strongest contenders sitting a mile apart on New Bern Avenue and more downtown at City Market. The counterweights are a brewery kitchen on West Morgan Street and a wood-fired operation off Whitaker Mill. The list below is ordered by how settled each reputation looks: a high average backed by a thousand reviews outranks a higher average backed by a couple hundred.
1. Oakwood Pizza Box
The best rating-to-volume combination in the city: 4.7 across 1,016 reviews, which is enough traffic to call the score proven rather than promising. It sits at 610 N Person St, on the Person Street strip at the edge of the Oakwood neighborhood, so it draws a walk-in crowd from the surrounding blocks rather than a parking-lot one. That also means the dining room is small relative to demand, and peak weekend evenings are the hardest time to walk in cold. The brief carries no menu or hours detail beyond the address, so call ahead if you are planning around a specific night.
2. Frank's Pizza & Italian Restaurant
A 4.6 average over roughly 1,200 reviews puts Frank's just behind Oakwood on the evidence, and its schedule is the thing to plan around: open Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 9pm, with the dining room closing at 8:30 and last orders taken at 8:40. Closed Sunday and Monday. Gourmet and specialty 12-inch pizzas run $17.99. Cheese slices are served after 5pm only, at $2.50, and the 16-inch Sicilian square, $24.99 for cheese, becomes available after 4pm on Fridays. Arriving at 8:35 is not a plan.
3. Mike's Pizza
New York style done at 3919 New Bern Ave, a 4.6 average from 975 reviews, which is close enough to a thousand to treat as settled. The kitchen covers Italian dishes and sandwiches alongside the pizza, so it works as a full sit-down dinner as well as a pie pickup. Hours are the constraint: it opens at 11am Monday through Saturday and closes at 8pm, earlier than most of this list, which makes it a lunch and early-dinner option rather than a late one. Ordering online is available through the restaurant's own site.
4. Trophy Brewing & Pizza
The most-reviewed pizza place in Raleigh here, with 2,430 reviews holding a 4.5 average, which is a hard number to argue with. This is Trophy's flagship location for pizza and beer, on the western edge of downtown at 827 W Morgan St. It opens at 4pm Monday through Thursday and closes at 10pm, then runs 11am to 11pm Friday and Saturday and 11am to 10pm Sunday, so weekday lunch is out. The kitchen rotates seasonal features alongside the standing menu: recent ones have included fried green tomato caprese and a peach barbecue chicken pie.
5. Timber Pizza Co. Raleigh
The highest score on the list, 4.8, but from 213 reviews, so read it as promising rather than proven. Wood-fired pies, salads and sides at 627 E Whitaker Mill Rd, open seven nights: 11:30am to around 9pm Sunday through Thursday and until roughly 10pm Friday and Saturday, with the restaurant's own listings hedging those closing times. Pickup and delivery run through the same phone line as the dining room. If the rating holds as the review count climbs, it moves up this list.
6. Vic's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria
The late-night answer downtown. Vic's holds a 4.5 average across 1,586 reviews at 331 Blake St in City Market, serving New York style pizza alongside a full Italian menu. Weekday hours run 11am to 10pm, Friday and Saturday to 11pm, with a late-night service continuing past 11pm on those two nights. Sunday hours vary between the restaurant's own listings, so check before a Sunday visit. Slices are sold at the counter if you want one pass through rather than a table.
7. Randy's Pizza
A 4.3 average from 1,011 reviews, which is a large enough sample to say the middling-to-good score is real rather than noise. The Lake Boone Shopping Center location at 2458 Wycliff Rd trades on a weekday lunch window, 11am to 2pm, aimed at the office and hospital crowd nearby. Beyond New York style pizza the menu covers pastas, salads, subs, wings, calzones and stromboli, so it handles a group where not everyone wants a slice. Choose it for convenience and range rather than for the pie itself.
8. Lilly's Pizza
The longest-standing name here and the most divisive: 4.1 across 1,383 reviews, the lowest average on this list with plenty of evidence behind it. What keeps it in contention is the specialty pie roster at 1813 Glenwood Ave, including The Aristocrat, The Big Shindig and Dante's Inferno, each priced by size with a gluten-free option. Note the split service: 11am to 2:30pm and 4:30 to 9pm Monday through Thursday, with the evening service running to 10pm Friday and Saturday. That mid-afternoon gap catches people out.
What we left off
Nancy's Pizza Raleigh on Creedmoor Road is a franchise location of a Chicago deep-dish group with a national locations directory, which puts it outside a local guide, and at 4.0 from 1,053 reviews it was the weakest score in the set regardless. Benny Capitale's on Fayetteville Street is also excluded: its hours and information are published under a multi-location Virginia parent brand rather than as an independent Raleigh restaurant. It rates 4.3 from 1,161 reviews and keeps the latest hours downtown, until 2am Friday and Saturday, if a chain affiliation does not bother you.