Every style we've built a Dough Companion for. Hydration, oven type, format and timing per style — pick one and the planner reverse-engineers it from your dinner time.
Flames = skill level (Easy · Medium · Advanced)
Neapolitan, New York, Detroit — the three pizza styles bakers start with most often. Two are wood-oven-friendly, one is the friendliest pan pizza you'll ever bake.
Most bakedLeopard-spotted cornicione, wet airy crumb, lightly charred edges — the original wood-fired blueprint that started global pizza culture. Made with Tipo 00 flour, ~60 % hydration and long cold fermentation. Includes a Contemporary variant with ~68 % hydration for an even airier crumb.
Good for:Classic pizza purists and pizza-oven owners.
Most bakedBig foldable slices with a crispy bottom and chewy bite. Long cold fermentation, oil-enriched dough, walk-and-eat culture from the boroughs. Bread flour with 62 % hydration gives the chewy strength that makes a slice foldable.
Good for:Home cooks with a baking steel.
Most bakedFrico crust, airy crumb, caramelised cheese edges. Detroit pan pizza is comfort food at its best — a rectangular steel pan, brick cheese pushed all the way to the rim, sauce on top.
Good for:Cheese lovers and pan-pizza beginners.
Thin, Roman, classic — Italian dough culture at its source. Roman tonda for paper-thin crackle, Pinsa Romana for an airy multi-flour crumb, both rooted in centuries-old pizza tradition.
Paper-thin Roman pizza with a shatteringly crispy crust. Low hydration, direct method, rolled (not stretched) — zero margin for error and zero airy crumb by design.
Good for:Precision bakers who love crackly thin crust.
Ancient Roman pizza recipe with mixed flours (wheat, rice, soy) and high hydration. Oval shape, airy crumb, crispy crust — and unusually light to digest.
Good for:Adventurers who want crispy + airy in one bite.
Square, thick, crispy on the bottom. The pan pizza family — Detroit, Sicilian, Sfincione, Roman teglia, pizza al taglio, Chicago deep dish and Grandma all share an oil-fried base and bake brilliantly in a home oven.
The Italian-American Sicilian: a thick spongy square pan pizza built to feed a crowd. Often par-baked, with a soft fermented crumb, full-coverage cheese and an oil-fried crispy bottom. The American descendant of Palermo's Sfincione — see the separate Sfincione style for the traditional original.
Good for:Family dinners and weekend bakes.
Palermo's original Sicilian bakery-style pizza. Spongy high-hydration crumb topped with onion, anchovy, tomato and breadcrumbs — the savoury ancestor of modern pan pizza.
Good for:Bakery-style traditionalists.
Cloud-like airy crumb with a crispy oiled bottom. High-hydration Roman pan pizza built through long cold fermentation, traditionally baked in a sheet pan and cut by weight.
Good for:Bakers chasing the open-crumb Roman dream.
Light Roman crumb with a crisp base built for creative toppings. Rectangular pizza al taglio, cut and sold by weight in Roman bakeries — endlessly remixable.
Good for:Crowd cooks who want endless topping combos.
Tall buttery crust layered with cheese, fillings and chunky tomato on top. Deep-dish pan pizza — eaten with a knife and fork, never folded.
Good for:Maximalists who treat pizza as a casserole.
Long Island's home-baker classic: a square, thin, oil-fried pan pizza with a crackly bottom and a soft interior. Pressed cold from the fridge straight into a well-oiled sheet pan, ready faster than Sicilian.
Good for:Weeknight cooks who want pan pizza fast.
Wild yeast, long fermentation, deep flavour — the patient path to the most digestible pizza dough you can make. Includes 72-hour long ferment with micro-yeast and a high-hydration focaccia for the most forgiving entry point.
Wild fermentation, tangy crumb, maximum digestibility. The most flavourful path — and the most patient one. Built around an active starter and a 24–48 h cold ferment.
Good for:Sourdough bakers chasing deep flavour.
Minimal yeast, maximum patience. 72 h long fermentation builds deep flavour and the best digestibility possible with commercial yeast.
Good for:Planners who decide pizza three days early.
Pillowy dimpled bakery-style flatbread dripping with olive oil. The most forgiving high-hydration dough you can bake — and a perfect on-ramp to airy crumb work.
Good for:Beginners who want guaranteed wins.
Pizza cousins from Turkey (lahmacun, pide), Germany (flammkuchen), Lebanon (manakish) and Georgia (khachapuri). Thin, fast, regional — and all live in the same flour-water-salt-leaven family as pizza.
Paper-thin Levantine flatbread topped with spiced minced meat, herbs and lemon. Quick high-heat bake, rolled and eaten by hand — pizza's spicier cousin.
Good for:Lovers of spice and quick bakes.
Alsatian-German flatbread with crème fraîche, onion and bacon over a crispy crust. Direct yeast, no fermentation drama, ready in under two hours.
Good for:Beginners who want results in two hours.
Boat-shaped Turkish flatbread with a chewy crust, folded edges and savoury toppings. A bakery-style staple of Anatolian ovens, always shared.
Good for:Cooks who love a shareable centrepiece.
Levantine breakfast flatbread topped with za'atar, olive oil or cheese. Soft chewy crumb, crispy edges, eaten warm — pizza for sunrise.
Good for:Breakfast cooks and za'atar enthusiasts.
Georgian cheese-stuffed boat-shaped flatbread, topped with butter and a runny egg. Indulgent, rich, unforgettable — a meal in itself.
Good for:Cheese-loving showstopper bakers.
Detroit Style, Grandma and Focaccia are the most forgiving. High hydration, pan-baked, and the dough does most of the work. Neapolitan is harder because it depends on stretching technique and a very hot oven.
Neapolitan pizza is small, thin, soft and baked in a 450 °C+ wood oven with a wet 60 % hydration dough. New York Style is larger, foldable, made from oil-enriched bread flour at 62 % hydration and baked on steel at 250 °C. The textures and tools are completely different.
Detroit, Sicilian, Roman Teglia, Pizza al Taglio, Grandma and Focaccia all bake brilliantly in a normal 250 °C home oven. Neapolitan needs much higher heat; pizza-oven owners or steel + broiler setups handle it best.
Detroit Style for a steel rectangular pan, Sicilian or Grandma for a sheet pan, Chicago Deep Dish for a deep round pan. All four reward high hydration and long fermentation with a crispy oiled bottom.
Hydration is the weight of water as a percentage of flour. 60 % is classic Neapolitan, 65–70 % is Detroit, 75–80 % is Roman Teglia and Pinsa. Higher hydration means an airier crumb and a wetter, harder-to-handle dough.
Sourdough and 72 h Long Fermentation Neapolitan top the list with 48–72 hours of cold ferment. Long fermentation builds deeper flavour and better digestibility — but needs planning days ahead.
Tips on pizza dough, fermentation, hydration, and modern pizza styles. Plus: get free access to the first RISE Pizza Handbook PDF.