Like the name suggests, Asheville Pizza & Brewing serves American-style bar pies, often with pretty wild topping combinations, like curry tofu on a coconut crust and spicy fried chicken with pimento cheese. While there are three locations now, the best spot for these pies is in the north location’s movie theater, often sold out and full of locals who wash down first-run films with the brewery’s specialty, a Perfect Day IPA.

A pop-up that appears around town at breweries and concerts, Tin Can cooks up cute little 10-inch pies in a 600-degree oven. The results are thin-crust pizzas headlined by a white pie with greens, red onions, and what seems like equal parts of garlic and bacon.

Pizza nerds take notice: Contrada hits all the key metrics. First, there’s the dough, simultaneously fluffy and firm, a bit sour from a 24-hour ferment. Then there’s the crackly bottom, leopard-spotted from a quick trip in a hot oven, and dusted with semolina. Finally, there are the toppings, which change nightly and have included a bold red-sauce-only rosso pie, peaches with prosciutto, and stracciatella with black truffles. The limited menu often includes a handful of salads and sometimes sandwiches, along with a fine wine list and cocktails on tap. All of this happens in a space no bigger than a walk-in closet that looks like a European aperitif bar, with shaded tables outside along pedestrian-focused Wall Street. If it’s raining and both of the two (that’s right: two) tables inside are taken, there’s always a tight row of window seats that can — luckily — just barely fit a pizza tray.

Before it became a brewpub in Asheville, White Labs produced the yeast used by lots of breweries in town. So it makes sense that the folks behind that kind of discipline created a pizza as if perfected by science — the spot-on dough is just the right amounts of charred and crispy. The ingredients also seem crowd-tested, like tried-and-true medlies of mushrooms and ricotta or sausage with peppers and onions.

It would be difficult to find a more idyllic spot for a pizza, with a minimalist yet charming dining room, a few picnic benches spread out under twinkling lights, and kids and dogs playing in the neighboring garden. It’s good news that the pies are equally as wonderful, made from ingredients sourced from North Carolina purveyors, including foragers who scour the forests nearby for mushrooms and ramps. The dough comes courtesy of local grains, milled and then long fermented into a dough that hits all the marks, sour and just-right chewy.

One of Asheville’s only Neapolitan-style pizza spots, Fresh Wood Fired takes the pizza-making process seriously, from sourcing some of its cheeses locally to an oven that burns at 800 degrees. With a background in the art world, owner Mark Tomczak opened Fresh in a quirky River Arts District location and added an undeniable flair to his toppings, including the Alaskan with smoked salmon and a white pizza with blue cheese, pears, and walnuts.

The owners of West Asheville mainstay West Asheville Lounge and Kitchen created another anchor to Haywood Road when they opened Pizza Mind in 2016. Pies here are crispy bar-style numbers with toppings like Carolina barbecue, taco, buffalo chicken, and roasted beets with cauliflower. There’s a sports-bar-esque vibe in the dining room, but Pizza Mind’s staff will also carry orders to Archetype, the brewery next door.

As the name suggests, the pizzas from this food truck are cooked in a very hot oven, resulting in a leopard-spotted bottom and bits of char along the edges. Owners Drew and Anne Soifer started the food truck in Orlando in 2013 and moved north during the pandemic, finding a spot behind east Asheville’s New Origin Brewing. The setup is unique: a flatbed truck with a shipping container in the back covered in a wall of windows that displays a kitchen within. And so are the pizzas, with combinations like apple, bacon, and garlic or coconut curry with sausage and jalapenos. But a simple margherita here also sings, telling of the quality ingredients that go into these pies. Get there early to avoid a common problem, as 900 Degreez often sells out.