The best pizza in Italy? It’s in New York City, of course. Well, officially, it’s in Southern Italy — either in pizza king Naples or in Tramonti, a tiny coastal town that gives its big-city neighbor a run for its dough. But southern Manhattan has the next-best thing at Tramonti La Pizza pizzeria, on Saint Mark’s Place.

There, chef Giovanni Vittorio Tagliafierro — a Tramonti native, and a fourth-generation pizza maker training the fifth — slings pies in the style of his hidden-gem hometown. He’s dreamed of making pizza in NYC after living here for years as a boy, and now he’s finally making it happen.