The Best Pizza in Denver Right Now: 12 Spots Worth Knowing

Marco's Coal Fired

For Neapolitan-style pizza in Denver, Marco's Coal Fired is the name that keeps coming up, and for good reason. The coal-fired oven does something to the crust that a standard wood-fired setup doesn't quite replicate — you get that char and chew at the same time. It's one of the more established spots on this list and holds up well.

Big Bill's New York Pizza

If you're chasing a New York-style slice in Denver, Big Bill's is a legitimate option. The slices are big, the fold is there, and it scratches that particular itch without feeling like a pale imitation of the real thing. Worth knowing about if that's your style.

Redeemer Pizza

Redeemer is another spot doing New York-style, and it's gotten some attention — including from Barstool's pizza review crew. That kind of spotlight can go either way for a place, but from what I've seen, Redeemer has the goods to back it up. The pizza is legitimately good, not just internet-famous good.

Blue Pan Pizza

Blue Pan is probably the most decorated spot on this list when it comes to awards, and they're doing Detroit-style, which is still a little underrepresented in Denver relative to how good it can be. Detroit-style means a thick, rectangular pan pizza with a crispy, almost fried bottom edge and sauce on top of the cheese. Blue Pan does it well — this is the place I'd send someone who's never had a proper Detroit-style pie.

A quick note on the format here: I pulled these twelve spots for my video based on what I think represents the best of Denver's pizza right now, across different styles. The descriptions I have available for some of the spots are thinner than others, so rather than make things up, I'm going to be straight with you about what I know and what I've seen.

The Broader Denver Pizza Picture

What's actually happened in Denver over the last several years is that the city stopped being a pizza afterthought. For a long time, if you wanted great pizza, Denver wasn't really the conversation. Now there are spots doing serious work across multiple styles — Neapolitan, New York, Detroit — and the overall quality floor has risen. That doesn't make Denver Chicago or New York. It means Denver is a city where you can eat well if you know where to go, and pizza has become one of the categories where that's increasingly true.

The twelve spots I covered in the video represent a range of styles and neighborhoods. Some are downtown-adjacent, some require a bit of a drive depending on where you're coming from. None of them are the kind of place I'd tell you to skip.

What to Actually Order

One thing I'll say across the board: pay attention to what a place is actually known for before you order. If you go to a Neapolitan spot and order a heavily loaded pizza, you're probably going to be disappointed — that style is about simplicity and technique, not toppings. Detroit-style is richer and heavier, so go in with that expectation. New York-style is the most flexible — a plain cheese slice from a good New York-style spot is genuinely satisfying in a way that doesn't need explanation.

Blue Pan's Detroit-style, for example, is worth trying in its more classic form before you start customizing. Marco's Coal Fired is the kind of spot where a margherita or a simple white pizza tells you everything you need to know about what they're doing. At Big Bill's and Redeemer, the cheese slice is the benchmark.

On the Barstool Reviews

A few of these spots have gotten Barstool Pizza Reviews, which I mentioned in the video. I bring it up because it's become a real signal for a lot of people — Dave Portnoy's reviews drive traffic and generate genuine buzz. For Denver spots, getting that kind of national attention is a sign that someone outside the local food bubble thinks the pizza is worth talking about. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it's not nothing either. Redeemer in particular got some traction from that.

Should You Trust the "Best Pizza City" Study?

No. I don't know exactly what methodology was behind naming Denver the top pizza city in the country, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. New York, New Haven, Chicago, and a handful of other cities have decades of pizza culture, iconic institutions, and a density of great spots that Denver isn't close to matching yet. That's not a knock on Denver — it's just accurate. We have good pizza here. We have some legitimately great individual spots. We are not the best pizza city in America, and anyone telling you otherwise is probably trying to get you to click something.

What Denver does have is momentum. The restaurants are getting better, more styles are being represented well, and there's real competition now that pushes quality up. That's worth celebrating without overstating it.

How I'd Use This List

If you're new to Denver or just haven't paid much attention to the pizza scene, start with Blue Pan for Detroit-style and Marco's Coal Fired for Neapolitan — those two cover a lot of ground stylistically and both are doing something at a high level. If New York-style is your comfort zone, hit Big Bill's or Redeemer and see which one clicks for you. From there, work through the rest of the list in whatever order makes sense geographically.

Denver's pizza scene is worth exploring right now. Not because of any study, but because the food is actually good.