Pizza is more than just a dish. It’s the story of intergenerational migration, collaboration and identity. It’s a way for artisans to build community, showcase local produce and join a global movement of modern pizza makers. While it is true that pizza was born in Italy – and some Italians believe it’s untouchable and that any deviation is sacrilege – I believe that clinging to a single iteration of a dish risks irrelevance. Pizza was shaped by the people and terroir of Napoli, but it has always been evolving. As Italians migrated, their traditions adapted to new places, new ingredients and new ideas. If pizza was born in Italy, it grew up in America and is now on its grand tour of the world.

Of course there is a space for traditional Neapolitan pizza, but this is Aotearoa in 2025, and something quite special is happening out here. Makers are drawing inspiration from the world’s best and filtering it through their own experiences. What we’re getting is pizza that’s truly of this place, using artisanal local produce, made by real obsessives.

With this in mind, I strapped the surfboards to the roof, checked the tyre pressures and set off to find some of the North Island’s best slices. However, what I had planned on being a sun-soaked week of waves and slices quickly turned into one of heavy rain, extreme weather warnings and the kind of driving that leaves you white-knuckled and shaking. But, it was all worth it to meet the passionate pizza makers committed to their craft and shaping the future of pizza in Aotearoa.

After setting off on a winding drive from my home in Wellington and across the Remutakas through gale-force winds, we headed north east to our first spot in the normally sunny Napier. As the storm battered the coast, I met Vince Michaelsen at his eponymous pizza joint, Vinci’s.

VINCI’S

There are arguably two types of people in this country: those who are evangelical about Vinci’s in Napier, and those who haven’t been yet. The small, bustling spot is as close to a New York pizza joint as you’ll find in Aotearoa. Opened in 2018, the shop was born from owner Vince Michaelsen’s long-held dream of running his own food business. Vince truly cares about pizza, about people and about the kind of hospitality that makes you feel like you’ve come home.

The pizzas here are huge – almost cartoonishly so – 18-inch neo-NYC-style pies. Vince says the size came from a familiar fear of going hungry. “[I was] stressing out that we’d eat it all before being absolutely stuffed. I think massive NY pizzas alleviated that fear a bit.” But it’s not just about scale. His dough has been a constant work in progress since day one; now it’s naturally leavened with a sourdough starter that’s nearly four years old. A leaven is made and left for a day, then the dough is mixed at 68% hydration, bulk-proofed and balled, before being cold-fermented for 72 hours. The pizza you eat on Friday began its life on Tuesday.

While the process is serious, the eating is just fun. Vince isn’t a purist when it comes to toppings. There are just a few non-negotiables: no chicken; all ingredients must be sourced in Aotearoa; meat is free range; and pineapple doesn’t make the cut. Fair enough.

We were greeted warmly by staff and one of the wildest wine fridges in the country, skilfully curated by general manager Scarlett Glackin. Thanks to deep relationships with producers, the list reads like a who’s who of exciting contemporary Aotearoa wine, and bottles are priced close to retail. As the rain battered the awning, we ordered a bottle of Halcyon Days Ceyx and chose one of those 18-inch pies. One half was topped with pea purée, spiced lamb, sesame and lemon dressing; the other half was The Banger, with seasoned cream, mozzarella, parmesan, red onion and sausage.

Vince cooks his pizza at a much higher heat than most, meaning the dough is crisp and blistered in all the right places, deeply savoury and holding the slice with minimal flop. This leaves the interior full of tiny pockets of air creating something almost crumpet-like. The balance of each slice is outrageous, all containing elements of sweetness which play against heat and fat and acidity. Vince’s dream is simple. “If the world were to end tomorrow and you had to choose somewhere to eat tonight (and it can’t be at home) where would it be? We aim for that to be Vinci’s.” I know it is for me. vincispizza.co.nz

The next morning, while staring out of our motel window into the grey swirling mass of rain and coming to terms with the impossibility of surfing, we knew we had to again brave the storm and make our way up the country past Lake Taupō and Rotorua to Tauranga and our next spot.

AVENUE

As we arrived in the early evening in Tauranga – with the storm at full tilt and the car buffeting sidewards on the road – we were lucky to have found our next stop in the safer confines of Lloyd’s Deli. By day a friendly neighbourhood sandwich shop, by night one of the most exciting pizzerias in the country. Behind the counter, Tom Davidson and Jo Thompson (Avenue co-founders and co-owners along with Job Van Zuijlen) were already busy with takeaway orders.

Establishing Avenue in 2018, they initially built a following from a leased kitchen in a bowling alley, and in 2023 they found their permanent home on St John St. The project grew out of a desire to create a place that measured up to the pizza they had experienced in other cities around the world. As soon as Jo started developing his first dough he fell down the rabbit hole and never looked back. Back in those early days, Jo had little to no experience with pizza, so he teamed up with Tom, who had nearly a decade of experience working with Tom Kirton at Tommy Millions in Wellington. They draw inspiration from everywhere they look; from Napoli to Brooklyn, it all seems to influence their thinking. They’re self-confessed pizza nerds, constantly looking for ways to improve and move forward.

What they are doing right now is creating something that is both packed with heritage and respect, yet demonstrably modern and forward-thinking. We ordered a Supreme with red sauce, mozzarella, Italian sausage, pepperoni, capers, olives and red onion. It’s a pizza full of nostalgia: think Pizza Hut trips as a child and always choosing the one with everything on it. Avenue’s version is cooked hard, blistered with leopard spots all around and the base made crisp. It has the remarkable effect of somehow transporting me to my childhood, but one made demonstrably better – this is actually the pizza I thought I was eating all those years ago.

However, Tom and Jo are never satisfied with what they are producing. For them, it’s about “chasing the crème de la crème of pizza, and the only way to truly know is to make them all.” They have another kitchen across town serving Detroit-style square pizza at Rita’s, a lively bar on the Mt Maunganui strip. We duck back into the car, head over to Rita’s and order a Pepperoni alongside a locally brewed Hazy IPA. The bar owner insists we get hot honey on one half, and we don’t put up a fight. It’s such a fun pizza, with cheese pushed right up to the edges, meaning every slice has at least one edge that’s caught on the pan, rendering it charred, crispy and fatty. Every slice is like that perfect mouthful of crispy lasagna. avenuegroup.co.nz

The next day, as we woke up to another morning of winds that rendered any kind of surfing impossible, we instead chose to battle our way up Mt Maunganui in an attempt to alleviate some of the heft built up after three pizzas in two days and the anticipation of more to come that evening.

OOH-FA

VOLCO

We arrived back into an unimaginably beautiful Wellington day – the kind of day that has people grinning and waving at strangers at the joy of living in such a beautiful city – and made our way to Kelburn, the home of a very special pizza.

While many of the people who have featured as part of this pizza road trip around the country would likely not describe themselves as chefs, that cannot be said about Kirran Buckland, the creative force behind Wellington’s dough empire, Volco. At the age of 18, Kirran started his culinary career at the iconic Wellington restaurant Boulcott St Bistro under the tutelage of Rex Morgan. Fast forward to today and he has a career studded with some of the most lauded names and restaurants in the world: Pétrus under Gordon Ramsay, and Pollen Street Social under Jason Atherton, to name but two. He then went on to work in Ireland, Scotland and Australia before moving back to Wellington.

This more restaurant-focussed route into pizza making means that Kirran has a slightly different approach. He takes a chef’s view on what combinations could work, often thinking of dishes first and then adapting them for how they might come together on a pizza. A memorable example would be his take on a Turkish kebab: crispy lamb belly, chilli sauce, garlic yoghurt, lime and sumac-pickled onion.

This is not to say that he is all about toppings and does not take the dough seriously. His dough is exciting in that it sits somewhere between a flatbread and a pizza, purposefully avoiding any crispness in favour of something much more soft and pillowy. This is all down to a unique preparation that involves mash. Potatoes are boiled, peeled and mashed, just as you would at home for your midweek dinner. The mash is then added to a sourdough biga (a type of pre-ferment used in traditional Italian baking) with imported Italian flour before mixing. Just like most of our other pizzas, this is a four-day process that begins on Tuesday for our Friday treat. And so, on our final day, we sat outside in the sunshine and ordered that kebab pizza and another inspired by cacio e pepe, the classic Roman pasta. Both are billowing in how light they are, the potato creating something soft and unctuous. Both are the kind of pizzas that make you laugh with how clever they are, the essence of both meals distilled down and made real on dough. instagram.com/volcodoughclub

In the end the surfboards were never taken from the roof, but the trip was far from wasted. What I found across the North Island was a group of people deeply committed to their craft, drawing on global influences while staying rooted in their communities. Each place was different, but all shared a sense of care, creativity and pride. The pizzas they’re making aren’t trying to copy tradition, they’re building on it, making it their own and, more importantly, they are really bloody delicious.