Who makes the best slice in New York City? “That is a useless question,” Scott Wiener says. “Perfection is relative, and it’s subjective.”

Wiener founded Scott’s Pizza Tours, which has led well over 100,000 people on searches for the sublime slice.

For the WSJ‘s own journey, we had some rules: Only places that sell by the slice; one pick per borough; no limitation on type of 🍕— just delicious ones.

The Manhattan Upstart

Scarr Pimentel, an alum of Lombardi’s on Spring Street, opened his own spot in 2016.

His doughs rely on a blend of organic flours made from New York-grown wheat, including some milled in the shop, and a carefully tended fermentation. The resulting crust has a subtly nutty depth of flavor, and a crackle and chew most bread bakers would kill for.

The pizza is not fussy or stingy in the least: The $3.75 regular slice hangs well over the paper plate.

Another slice to try in Manhattan: Patsy’s Pizzeria’s original East Harlem location, opened in 1933, is one of the city’s few coal oven pizzerias to sell by the piece. Slices are smallish but splendid, sporting an airy, perfectly char-spotted crust.

The Brooklyn Time Machine

Luigi’s feels little changed since Luigi Lanzo first opened it in 1973.

Try the grandma slice. Square and pan-cooked like a Sicilian, but with a thinner, oil-bronzed crust, it inverts the usual order of toppings.

Tiles of mozzarella go first, followed by fresh tomato sauce, a sprinkle of Parmesan and a drizzle of pungent garlic oil. Out of the oven, it’s showered with more Parmesan and lashed with bright-green homemade basil oil.

A Walk-in Thin Slice on Staten Island

Joe & Pat‘s opened in 1960, by Giuseppe and Pasquale Pappalardo. Their cracker-thin but sturdy crust is Staten Island pizza.

The $2.75 regular slice uses cubed low-moisture mozzarella rather than shredded, yielding islands of cheese on a deep-red palette of bright, fresh tomato sauce.

On the $3.25 vodka slice, creamy vodka sauce and a sprinkling of Pecorino Romano cheese top a base of fresh mozzarella—a mellow, rich combination.

Another slice to try on Staten Island: Though the bar-style pizzas at Lee’s Tavern, next to the Dongan Hills station on the Staten Island Railway, are not technically slices, the small-size pies are essentially single servings. The clam pies are a local favorite.

The Bronx House That Pizza Built

It occupies the bottom level of a single-family house in Pelham Bay. Cosimo Tiso bought the pizzeria with his brother John in 1987.

The standout slice is topped with fennel-flecked sausage, notable not only for its quality—the nearby pork store Dominick’s S&D Caterers makes it—but for its quantity and application.

Roasted hunks are generously, loosely piled onto slices. But with a quick fold, the $5.25 piece lifts without a wilt.

Another slice to try in the Bronx: Everything at this Fordham University favorite, housed in a former junk yard, is maximalist, including generous amounts of sauce and cheese. The house made chile-garlic oil packs a wallop. Owner Sal Natale is an ebullient presence, either found making pizza, playing “God Bless America” on his saxophone or banging the gong behind the counter.

A Slice of the World in Queens

Randy & Ashlee Mclaren’s Cuts & Slices serves a wide assortment of extravagantly topped pies, many of which draw from Randy’s Trinidadian heritage.

Among the best: a slice covered with slow-braised brown stew oxtail—a closely guarded recipe. The curry shrimp slice stars crustaceans that stay plump and snappy. Luxury ingredients don’t come cheap: Expect to pay $12.49 for the oxtail slice, $10.40 for the shrimp.

Another slice to try in Queens: On Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, El Mercadito offers pizza by the slice with taqueria toppings, proving al pastor is the pork-and-pineapple slice the Hawaiian pizza always aspired to be.

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