Best Pizza in Catania: Where to Eat and What to Order

Which pizzerias in Catania are worth your evening

Between them the two local guides cover Squib, L'Evoluzione, Sazi e Sani and Cutilisci, while Frumento appears in the Identità Golose pizza selection and Portale Cantinaccia in the CiboToday map. Squib and L'Evoluzione work in the contemporary register, with carefully built doughs and modern toppings. Portale Cantinaccia and Cutilisci are broader restaurants where pizza is one part of the offer, which changes how you book and how long you stay.

A useful rule for choosing: pick by dough and format first, then by neighbourhood. If you want a light, long-fermented base, head to Squib or Sazi e Sani; if the appeal is a specific local format such as the pizzetta catanese or a padellino, L'Evoluzione is the address that builds its menu around those. If you want pizza inside a fuller meal with wine and dessert, the restaurant-pizzerias below are the better fit, and the wider scene is mapped in our guide to the best restaurants.

Squib: contemporary doughs in two city-centre locations

Squib has two addresses in the centre, at Largo Paisiello 9 and Piazza Scammacca, and the name refers to an old factory that once stood in the area, now a meeting point for younger Catania. The dough is made with organic Italian stone-milled semi-wholemeal flour and rests for 24 to 48 hours. That fermentation time is the reason to come: it gives the base an airy edge and a lighter feel than a standard quick-risen pizza.

The menu runs across several styles, including a reworked Neapolitan, a lighter dough, a Roman-style pinsa and a traditional dough made with sourdough. Pinsa is a Roman format with an oval, airy base and a crisper crust than Neapolitan, so it suits anyone who finds a soft-centred pizza too heavy. Order one of each across the table to compare the doughs properly.

Do not treat the styles as interchangeable: the lighter dough and the sourdough version behave very differently under the same topping, so ask which base suits what you have chosen. Pinsa is crispest straight from the oven and loses its edge fastest, while the sourdough version carries heavier toppings better. It is still worth checking current prices and opening days directly with the pizzeria before you go.

L'Evoluzione: five margheritas, padellino and the pizzetta catanese

Lele Scandurra opened L'Evoluzione on Via Quintino Sella 14 in 2022, building on his earlier work as a pizzaiolo. The ingredient selection leans deliberately Sicilian, with local sausage among the toppings, and the menu gives unusual space to its dough and cooking experiments. This is the address to choose if you want to try several formats in one sitting rather than commit to a single pizza.

The menu includes five margherita variations alongside the classic Roman style, four types of padellino, and the pizzetta catanese cooked three ways: steamed, fried and then baked on stone. Padellino is a small pizza baked in a round metal pan, giving a thicker, focaccia-like base with a crisp bottom; the doppia cottura, or double cooking, means the dough is fried first and finished in the oven, which produces a puffed, chewy crust.

There is also a considered wine list and a selection of oils to taste alongside the pizza, which shows how the condiments change the base. Because the kitchen runs several doughs, expect a slightly longer ticket time than at a single-style pizzeria; it suits a relaxed dinner rather than a rushed one.

Sazi e Sani: Sicilian grains on Via Sant'Euplio

Sazi e Sani sits at Via Sant'Euplio 122 and grew out of home baking: the founders started experimenting with a domestic oven, travelled, then returned to Sicily to open. The doughs are built on Sicilian grains, and the toppings draw on the island, from ancient grains grown around San Michele di Ganzaria to tomatoes from Scicli. The calzone, part-closed and finished in the oven, is worth ordering alongside a pizza.

Evening service runs daily from 19:00 to midnight, and booking is straightforward through the pizzeria's own site. In July the kitchen ran a set tasting menu at 15 euros per person, with coperto and drinks excluded, a minimum of four people and advance booking required; it was a monthly promotion rather than a permanent fixture, so treat it as history unless the site lists it again.

The format to look for is the pizza in doppia cottura, fried then baked, which arrives with a properly puffed rim. Pizzas here are designed to sit lightly, so this is a good choice before a long evening walk through the centre rather than a prelude to a heavy second meal. If you would rather learn the technique than just eat it, the cooking classes across the city take you through dough handling.

Frumento: three doughs, including Russello and Perciasacchi wheat

Frumento, the project of Catania-born Emanuele Serpa, sets out to be present in the historic centres of Sicily's art cities, and the Catania branch follows that brief. The menu offers three doughs: a long-fermentation Neapolitan made with white flour and stretched by hand, a Sicilian dough of durum wheat with stone-milled ancient Russello grain, and one made with Perciasacchi, another traditional Sicilian wheat. If you have only one pizza in Catania and want it to taste of the island, order the Russello.

The topping list leans on the sea as well as the land, with combinations such as stracciatella, tuna fillets, olives and oven-roasted yellow cherry tomatoes, and the wine list, beer selection and cocktails make it an easy aperitivo stop. Stracciatella here is the creamy shredded mozzarella-and-cream cheese, not the chocolate-chip gelato of the same name.

Portale Cantinaccia: a Catania institution on Via Calatafimi

Portale Cantinaccia at Via Calatafimi 1 opened in 1978 and has been run since 2013 by the brothers Ferdinando and Luigi Portale. It has become a steakhouse as well as a pizzeria, with a serious focus on beef and other Etnean specialities, so it is the address for a group where not everyone wants pizza. The wine list is strong, and the desserts, particularly the millefoglie and the sacher torta, count among the highlights.

Book this one as a full dinner rather than a quick pizza stop: the kitchen is built for multiple courses, and the room fills with a mixed crowd of longstanding regulars and younger diners. Order a pizza to share alongside the meat, then finish with one of the desserts; the wine list rewards a second glass with the steak.

Cutilisci at San Giovanni Li Cuti: pizza by the old fishing harbour

Cutilisci stands among the lava rocks of the San Giovanni Li Cuti harbour at Via San Giovanni Li Cuti 69, in a corner of the old fishing village that keeps its colours and sea air. It has been open for more than twenty years and offers four doughs, all built on sourdough and a biga pre-ferment with roughly 48 hours of rising. Biga is a stiff starter that gives a slower, more structured rise than a straight dough, which is why the bases here hold up to generous toppings.

The four options are a classic, a higher-protein version with cereal flour, a semi-wholemeal organic farro dough and a thin Roman style. Pizza is only part of the menu, and the kitchen also runs a fuller restaurant offer and aperitivo, so it is the pick for a longer evening by the water rather than a fast centre-city dinner.

How Catania pizza differs from what you expect

The biggest surprise for visitors is variety. Catania's pizzerias do not line up behind one local style the way Naples does; a single menu can carry a Neapolitan base, a Roman pinsa, a pan-baked padellino and a triple-cooked pizzetta catanese. The city's pizza culture is contemporary and experimental, with bakers using Sicilian ancient grains as a point of pride.

The second difference is the setting. Many addresses are restaurants first, so pizza arrives alongside steaks, seafood and full wine lists rather than as the Sole reason to be there, and that shapes the shape of the evening. A centre-city pizzeria built around one dough is a more focused meal than a restaurant-pizzeria of this kind, where wine and second courses sit alongside the pizza.

The styles you will see on menus: Neapolitan, Roman, padellino, doppia cottura

Neapolitan means a soft, pliable base with a raised, airy rim, usually stretched by hand; a ruota di carro, or cartwheel, is the traditional hand-stretching motion that leaves a wider rim. Roman style, including pinsa, is thinner and crisper, with an oval or round base and a firmer bite. Padellino is a small pan-baked pizza with a thicker, focaccia-like crumb.

Doppia cottura means the dough is cooked twice, typically fried then baked, which gives a puffed, chewy crust and a distinctly different texture from a single oven bake. The pizzetta catanese follows the same logic in miniature, passing through steam, frying oil and a stone oven in succession. When a menu lists a dough by grain, such as Russello or Perciasacchi, it is telling you the flour is a specific Sicilian variety chosen for flavour rather than a generic wheat blend.

How to order and what to expect at the table

At most of these addresses you order a pizza each and share antipasti, rather than splitting pizzas across the table as you might at a takeover. Where the menu offers several doughs, choose the dough first and then the topping, because the base is the point of the exercise. If you are unsure, ask which dough the kitchen recommends for the topping you have chosen; the combination is not arbitrary.

Budget for a cover charge and drinks on top of the food, as the Sazi e Sani tasting offer makes explicit, and expect wine lists at these pizzerias to be more serious than the setting suggests. The rest of the city's eating picture, including the first-course classics such as pasta alla Norma, is worth planning around your pizza nights. If you want to learn the dough side yourself, there are options beyond the table.

Which pizzeria should you book first?

For a first evening in Catania, book L'Evoluzione if you want to taste several formats at once or Squib if you want a long-fermented base in the centre. For a slower meal where pizza is one course among many, choose Portale Cantinaccia for the steak-and-dessert line-up or Cutilisci for the harbour setting.