The Pizza Scene in CDMX: Budget Bites, Upscale Slices, and Hidden Gems

Pizza in CDMX isn't just good—it's a conversation between tradition and bold experimentation. Case in point: La Santa’s empanadas with chimichurri, which might just be the most thrilling thing on this list. 1. La Santa C. Gabino Barreda 83, San Rafael MX$1–100 This tiny San Rafael spot is the real deal. For under $100, you get a wood-fired pizza with toppings like pear and serrano ham that taste like they’ve been aged in a cave. The empanadas here are legendary—stuffed with spinach, cheese, and a kick of argentinian flair. It’s the kind of place where the owner might chat with you in Spanish while your slice cools. 2. Coma Pizza Polanco Av. Horacio 542, Polanco MX$100–200 Polanco’s Coma Pizza serves truffle-laced Detroit style pizzas that taste like they belong in a Michelin guide. The fig and arugula pizza is a showstopper, but the real star is their truffle oil—it’s so good, you’ll consider ordering a side. Service is swift, and the music playlist? Pure vibes. 3. Farina Polanco Av. Isaac Newton 53-1, Polanco $$ Farina’s got the most refined vibe in the group. The fig and goat cheese pizza is a symphony of sweet and tangy, but don’t skip the ‘nutella’ dessert pizza—it’s equal parts genius and heresy. Bring cash for the $$ price tag, and save room for their rotisserie meats. 4. Ardente Pizzería Napoletana Jardines del Pedregal Blvrd de la Luz 777, Jardines del Pedregal $$ Ardente’s Neapolitan pizzas are textbook—thin crust, San Marzano tomatoes, and a 72-hour fermented dough. The artichoke and meatball combo is a crowd-pleaser, though the $$ price makes it a splurge. The terrace here is perfect for sunset, but the dough? That’s the real reason to come. 5. Ostería 8 Sinaloa 252, Roma Nte. MX$100–200 Ostería 8 is a hidden gem in Roma Norte. The four cheese pizza is a creamy dream, but the real surprise is their handmade pastas. The pappardelle a la salchicha is worth the MX$100–200 price tag alone. Just don’t show up on Monday—it’s closed, and you’ll have to wait till Tuesday to taste the magic. If you only try one pizza in CDMX, make it La Santa’s empanada. It’s cheap, bold, and proof that the city’s best flavors often hide in plain sight.

Mexico City's pizza scene goes way beyond the chain delivery joints you'll find on every corner app. The real action is in the sit-down spots where dough, sauce, char, and toppings get the same care that CDMX puts into everything it eats. I've been working through the list for months, and here's where I landed. Spoiler: my number one is Coma Pizza in Polanco. #1: Coma Pizza Polanco When a place puts pizza in its name and nothing else, it better deliver. Coma Pizza does. With a 4.6 rating across more than 700 reviews, this Polanco spot has built a following on consistency and focus. Expect to spend MX$100 to MX$200 per person, which is fair for the neighborhood. Polanco can charge double at flashier restaurants with less to show for it. Coma Pizza earns the top spot because it doesn't try to be everything. It's a pizza restaurant, full stop. While 50 Friends (my #2) draws bigger crowds with a wider menu, Coma Pizza wins because it sticks to what it does best. #2: 50 Friends Walk over to Av. Emilio Castelar 95 in Polanco and you'll find 50 Friends, an Italian restaurant with a 4.7 rating and more than 1,800 reviews. Open daily from 1 pm (closing at midnight on weekdays, 1 am Thursday through Saturday), this place draws a crowd any night of the week. The menu goes deep into Italian territory, but the item that keeps coming up is their chocolate pizza. Chocolate pizza. It sounds gimmicky until you try it. The higher review count and slightly better rating than Coma Pizza make this a close call for the top spot, but 50 Friends lands at #2 because its menu goes wide. Coma keeps things tight. #3: Torito Sports Bar Insurgentes Hear me out. The best pizza in any city doesn't always come from a place with "pizza" written outside. Torito Sports Bar on Av. Insurgentes Centro 1020 has a 4.8 rating with over 800 reviews. MX$100 to MX$200 per person. Open Monday through Saturday (closed Sundays), with Friday and Saturday hours running until 1:30 am. This is a sports bar where the food has to compete with cold micheladas and whatever game is on. And the food wins that competition. Reviewers keep coming back to the taste alongside the atmosphere and the drinks. If you want to eat well past midnight, Torito is your answer. It beats #4 because the food quality punches above the sports-bar category. #4: Chubbies Polanco Over in Granada at Lago Andromaco 17, Chubbies has the highest raw rating on this list: 4.8 with nearly 1,200 reviews. Casual comfort food in the MX$100 to MX$200 range, open seven days a week until 11:30 pm on weekends. Reviewers rave about how fast the food comes out and how good it tastes. The Granada location means you're close to Polanco without Polanco prices on everything around you. Chubbies sits at #4 rather than higher because the menu leans toward comfort food more than pizza, but when a place scores this well with this many people eating there, it earns its spot. #5: Michelanga Narvarte If you want to escape Polanco entirely, head to Av. Cuauhtémoc 808 in Narvarte. Michelanga brings beer-garden energy to one of CDMX's most underrated neighborhoods. 4.7 stars from nearly 900 reviews, with prices under MX$100. That's the budget king of this whole list. Open daily from 1:30 pm, the place is famous for its micheladas and its shrimp dishes, with tamarind running through the drink menu in ways that pair well with whatever the kitchen sends out. You're not coming here for a Neapolitan masterpiece. You're coming because the food is solid, the drinks are cold, the price can't be beat, and Narvarte on a Sunday afternoon might be the most relaxed feeling in all of CDMX. Michelanga rounds out this list because eating well in this city should not always mean spending MX$200. If you only try one place from this list, make it Coma Pizza. Walk in and eat. No overthinking required.

Mexico City is not Naples. Nobody pretends it is. But somewhere between the late-night tacos and the Sunday barbacoa, this city developed a pizza obsession that runs deeper than most visitors expect. Well over a hundred spots compete for your pesos across colonias from Polanco to Coyoacán, and after eating my way through far too many of them, I'm committing to a ranked list. Number one goes to 50 Friends in Polanco, and it's not close. #1: 50 Friends (Polanco) This Italian restaurant at Avenida Emilio Castelar 95 in Polanco IV Sección has racked up close to 1,900 reviews and holds a 4.7-star rating for good reason. The pizza here is the kind you think about the next morning. Their chocolate pizza has become something of a cult order, splitting diners into two camps: those who think dessert pizza is genius and those who haven't tried it yet. The regular menu runs deep, but the pies are what keep me coming back. Open daily from 1pm (until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays), 50 Friends is built for a long lunch that accidentally becomes dinner. Pricing sits at mid-range for Polanco, meaning you won't panic when the bill arrives with that second bottle of wine. It beats #2 because of sheer consistency. When nearly 1,900 people agree something is good, you trust it. #2: Farina Polanco The name tells you everything. "Farina" is Italian for flour, and when you name your restaurant after the most fundamental pizza ingredient, you'd better deliver. They do. More than 1,500 reviews at 4.6 stars put Farina firmly in Polanco's upper tier for Italian food. Mid-range pricing here feels generous for the neighborhood. What keeps Farina at #2 instead of #1? The gap in review volume and that slight edge in rating give 50 Friends the nod. But Farina's tighter focus on Italian craft gives it a different feel, quieter and more intentional. #3: Michelanga Narvarte Step outside the Polanco bubble. Head to Narvarte, where Michelanga is doing pizza at prices that will make Polanco regulars feel foolish. Under MX$100 per person. Close to 900 reviews at 4.7 stars, which matches or beats every Polanco spot on this list except 50 Friends. Narvarte has quietly become one of CDMX's more interesting food neighborhoods, and Michelanga is part of why. If #1 and #2 are for the "treat yourself" crowd, this is where you eat twice a week without checking your bank account. #4: Chubbies Polanco Chubbies at Lago Andromaco 17, near Granada, carries the highest raw rating on this list: 4.8 stars across nearly 1,200 reviews. They're famous for burgers, and the burgers are earned. But the rest of the menu runs hot too. In the MX$100-200 range, you're paying for quality that shows up plate after plate. Reviewers keep circling back to two words: taste and speed. Open from 12:30pm daily, until 11:30pm on weekends. The pizza won't dethrone the burgers here, but when a kitchen executes everything at this level, number four on a pizza list is a compliment, not a slight. #5: Pipiris Fries (Coyoacán) The wildcard. Down on Calle A in Coyoacán's Educación neighborhood, Pipiris Fries is doing loaded fries, bolognese pasta, jalapeño poppers, pulled pork, and monthly specials that keep over 700 reviewers coming back at 4.7 stars. All of it for under MX$100. They open at 3pm, so this is an afternoon-into-evening spot. Pizza isn't the headliner here, but the Italian side of the menu holds up alongside everything else, and the Coyoacán location gives you an excuse to wander the neighborhood afterward. If you only hit one place on this list, walk into 50 Friends on a Friday evening, order the chocolate pizza for the table, then follow it with a proper pie. You'll understand the ranking.

Pizza in Mexico City is better than you expect, and the gap between the best and the rest is wider than you'd think. You can eat a forgettable pizza almost anywhere in this city. The five places below don't do forgettable. My number one is Farina Polanco, a small room on Isaac Newton that has turned visiting travelers into repeat-visit obsessives. 1. Farina Polanco — Av. Isaac Newton 53-1, Polanco IV Secc Farina wins on consistency. A sourdough-based crust — denser than Neapolitan, with just enough tang to hold up against heavier toppings without collapsing — separates it from every other pizza place in this neighborhood. The room has a few tables, a patio, and soft lighting that makes it work for a quick lunch or a proper date. Joshua Garcia, who has returned five times in two years, called it his "favorite spot in Polanco/CDMX"; Steve Spencer wrote that it was "just right in every way — fantastic pizza with sourdough crust." What they're responding to is repetition without decline. The bar handles mezcal as seriously as the kitchen handles flour, gluten-free crust is available, and the kitchen runs until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Mid-range pricing. 2. Ardente Pizzería Napoletana — Blvrd de la Luz 777, Jardines del Pedregal Farina is technically the higher scorer, but Ardente is the more dramatic experience. You walk in and see the wood-fired oven first — its name in tile on the dome, flame visible inside. This is a dedicated Neapolitan pizzeria, and everything it does points at that. The artichoke pizza and the margarita are the two to order; the tiramisu is worth staying for. Oscar P. put it plainly: "Amazing pizza. Great crust, great ingredients. Easily one of the best pizza spots in CDMX." Ardente is in Pedregal, which means you're driving south out of the central neighborhoods — and that actually works in its favor. Less tourist traffic, a more settled crowd, a terrace that feels like it belongs to the regulars. Open until midnight Thursday through Saturday. 3. La Santa — C. Gabino Barreda 83, San Rafael San Rafael isn't a neighborhood you associate with destination pizza. That's what makes La Santa interesting. It's Argentine-influenced, budget-priced (under MX$100 for most items), and closed Mondays — the kind of operation that earns its following by doing a few things extremely well rather than by scaling up. The thin-crust pies come with chimichurri on the side, and one reviewer described them as having "a combination of original ingredients, and a punch of flavor" that needs nothing extra. The empanadas — egg, corn-and-cheese, ham-and-cheese, and sweet varieties — compete seriously with the pizza for attention. Ivan Fuentes called it "a neighborhood restaurant of the kind you don't find anymore." Service has had rough moments in reviews, but the food quality has held. 4. Coma Pizza Polanco — Av. Horacio 542, Polanco V Secc Detroit-style pizza — thick, square, caramelized edges where cheese meets the side of the pan — has no Mexican equivalent, and Coma Polanco arrived with it and made it work. The crust is focaccia-like and airy; it holds toppings without going soggy by the second slice. Priced in the MX$100–200 range, it's comparable to Ardente on ticket size but entirely different in character. Reviewer Bradley Spain called it "the best pizza I ever had in my whole life," which is a big claim, but for Detroit-style in this city it's probably not far off. The place is small — arrive early or expect a wait. Coma ranks below La Santa only because La Santa is more singular; Coma's style could exist in other cities, La Santa's couldn't. 5. Tommy Pizzas — Av. Pdte. Masaryk 249, Polanco IV Secc Tommy is fifth because the pizza is inconsistent. The al pastor pie is genuinely good — one reviewer says it's "very tasty" and pairs well with "a yard of beer," which is exactly right — but other visits have produced thin sauce and canned mushrooms. What Tommy trades on is location: a terrace on Presidente Masaryk, one of the better people-watching spots in this city on a Tuesday afternoon. It's also the easiest place on this list to walk into without a reservation, and the only one where ordering a yard of beer before 2pm feels entirely reasonable. In the MX$100–200 range. If you only try one: go to Farina on a Friday, sit on the patio, and order the sourdough crust pizza. Stay long enough to need another mezcal. Then drive to Ardente another night and see why it keeps showing up on every best-of list in this city.