Pizza

Apizza Scholls

Best for: Chewy, char-spotted, sweet-sauced pies with an adjacent arcade in case there's a wait.

4741 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-233-1286, apizzascholls.com. 5-9:30 pm Monday-Friday, 11:30 am-2:30 pm and 5-9:30 pm Saturday-Sunday. $-$$.

You could consider Apizza Scholls ground zero for Portland's rise to prominence as a pizza town. The restaurant in Southeast Hawthorne's Barmuda Triangle has offered the same classic, tasty pies since 2005, setting and riding out trends in crust and toppings by cranking out the same tasty pies for the duration. The classic among classics—the one to make sure to scratch off a bucket list of Portland dinners—is the Sausage & Mama ($26), named after the Mama Lil's Kick Butt pickled goathorn peppers spread across the dough along with sausage served crumble style. It is a wondrous combination. But the crust is what sets Apizza Scholls' golden-brown discs apart. The menu describes the kitchen's now-well-known use of an electric oven and high heat to create the consistent foundations, and house rules restrict customers to three toppings max, so as not to throw off the baking process. Any combination will make you happy. RACHEL MONAHAN.

Dove Vivi

Best for: Deep-dish pizza that tastes imported from the comfort food kitchens of the South.

2727 NE Glisan St., 503-239-4444, dovevivipizza.com. 4-10 pm nightly. $$.

Dove Vivi is not your average deep-dish pizza. It's better. Oven-baked and served in a large cast-iron skillet, the pies ($13.50 for a half, $26.75 for a whole) are light and buttery with a thick crust that tastes like a mix between cornbread and flaky biscuits. Vegetable toppings stand out the most. The corn and balsamic-marinated red onion pizza, for example, is a mouthwatering combination of savory and sweet that pairs perfectly with the baked cornmeal shell. And the creamy goat cheese, with large and juicy roasted tomatoes and a sprinkle of fresh rosemary, is an equally decadent addition. Aesthetics at the small restaurant are vaguely Southern, with plenty of barn wood and dim lighting. Settle in beneath rows of string lights and exposed beams to watch the pizzas get shuffled in and out of Dove Vivi's large wood-fired pizza oven. ELISE HERRON.

Ken’s Artisan Pizza

Best for: Eating wood-roasted vegetables off the planks of a roller coaster.

304 SE 28th Ave., 503-517-9951, kensartisan.com. 5-9:30 pm Monday-Thursday, 5-10 pm Friday, 4-10 pm Saturday, 4-9 pm Sunday. $$.

Wood smoke does remarkable things to vegetables. The roasted vegetables at Ken's emerge from the same wood-fired oven as the pizzas. Do the math. You already know about the pies: lightly charred, airy discs of Ken Forkish's peerless dough that for a decade have drawn Portlanders to don rain slickers, queue at a Laurelhurst doorway and sit among tables built from the Douglas fir wood of an abandoned roller coaster. (True story! It was called the Big Dipper!) But here's the real insider tip: Follow the veggies. Order whichever style of pizza features the widest swath of local produce—a late summer menu featured corn and Jimmy Nardello peppers—and spring for the roasted vegetable plate ($15). One recent lineup: rainbow carrots in an orange vanilla butter, padrón peppers decked with hazelnuts, and the richest beets I've ever had. The baking made Ken famous; the vegetables make this restaurant a Pacific Northwest treasure. AARON MESH.

Life of Pie

Best for: Watching cyclists clash with drivers on North Williams Avenue while enjoying a personal-sized pizza.

3632 N Williams Ave., 1765 NW 23rd Ave., 503-820-0083, lifeofpiepizza.com. 11 am-10 pm daily. $.

The pizza is fine along Portland's most Portlandian boulevard. The red-and-black dining room at Life of Pie is ruled by a white-tiled, wood-burning oven and accented by pizza peels mounted on the walls. When sunshine strikes, bicycles whir by in profusion alongside the usual cavalcade of Priuses and Subarus. The streetscape is best observed from sidewalk picnic tables or even inside when servers raise a streetside garage door. Toppings for the thin-crust, personal-sized pies starting at $11 range from traditional (sausage, mushroom, pepperoni) to kinda weird (kale, honey, roasted leeks). Try one of the house combos or build your own. Add a small salad (mixed greens $4, Caesar $5) or mozzarella-stuffed arancini ($7) to round out the meal. MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN.

Lovely’s Fifty Fifty

Best for: Pies with a kitchen-sink list of ingredients that miraculously work well together.

4039 N Mississippi Ave., 503-281-4060, lovelysfiftyfifty.wordpress.com. 5-10 pm Tuesday-Sunday. $$.

Many people go their entire lives perfectly content with pizzas made of three shades: red, yellow and brown. And that's OK. Some of the best pies feature just a handful of ingredients. But you probably didn't even know you wanted more on pizza than sauce, cheese and meat—at least not until you've had dinner at Lovely's. Sometimes the crusts here, which are dark and bulging at the edges, creating something similar to a giant bowl, come bedecked with what looks like an oversized salad that could be its own meal. Other nights, they'll be adorned with flowers as if the pizzas were miniature gardens. Whenever you see one that comes with an egg smack dab in the middle, be sure to get it. On my visit, the yolk pooled across what read like a kitchen-sink list of ingredients: shishitos, padróns, crushed potatoes, sweet corn, endive and pancetta ($25). What should've been too dry, too busy or just too novel for its own good was an artisanal lesson in ambition and balance. The roster of local farms supplying all that produce always gets mentioned in the nightly program. To sample some of those vegetables sans dough, there are a few oven-roasted dishes to choose from. In the waning days of summer, singed cauliflower and olives dusted in breadcrumbs nestled up to a cumin-spiked yogurt ($13), giving it an almost tzatziki-like character. Always save room for a sweet treat at Lovely's, whether that's a dish of homemade ice cream or an adult slushy ($12), which in September was a blend of rosé and strawberries that tasted like Hoods at their peak—summer frozen, for a moment, in that beverage. ANDI PREWITT.

Pizza Jerk

Best for: Thin Connecticut-style pies and pitchers of beer for $15.

621 SE Morrison St., 971-803-7960, 5028 NE 42nd Ave., 503-284-9333, pizzajerkpdx.com. Southeast: 11 am-9 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-10 pm Friday-Saturday. Northeast: 11:30 am-9 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11:30 am-10 pm Friday-Saturday. $-$$.

Tommy Habetz has cobbled together a fine career making what Portlanders love to eat most: pizza and sandwiches. Recently, Habetz shut down the original Southeast location of Bunk Sandwiches and opened a second outpost of his beloved pizza joint in its place. Unlike the Cully original, where spacious environs lend themselves to free-range parenting and small children taking full advantage, the new outlet has just a few tables and is situated close to several bars and clubs. Pizza by the slice is also an option here. Beyond that, though, the menu at both is the same, featuring thinner 18-inch New York/Connecticut-style pies and, for desperate Midwesterners, 12-inch pan pizzas. Habetz is a Connecticut son, so opt for the former, in particular the pepperoni ($25), with delectable, not-too-greasy pepperoni slices, or the East Coast classic Clam Jam ($27) with white sauce. MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN.

Rally Pizza

Best for: Gas-fired pies as good as Ken's and boozy milkshakes.

8070 E Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver, Wash., 360-524-9000, rallypizza.com. 11 am-9 pm daily. $.

If Rally's light, chewy, char-mottled crust seems reminiscent of Ken's Artisan pizzas, it's not mere coincidence—Rally co-owner Alan Maniscalco was Ken's pizza chef for nearly a decade. Though the dough here is gas- rather than wood-fired, the taste and texture difference is negligible, and the toppings—hand-pulled mozzarella, house-smoked belly bacon—certainly belie Rally's location in a nondescript strip mall anchored by a Parkrose Hardware. Maniscalco's wife, Shan Wickham, brings her expertise as Ken's former pastry chef to the extensive dessert menu, which offers boozy shakes like the Derby Day ($10), pairing mint syrup with Rittenhouse Rye, with upscale frozen custards, floats and seasonal sundaes like the Bumbleberry ($8), a swirl of smoked wildflower honey, blackberry sauce and honeycomb crunch into a glass cup packed with thick, made-to-order vanilla bean ice cream. If you've not yet had reason to cross the Columbia River for destination-worthy food, you do now. KAT MERCK.

Ranch PDX

Best for: Crispy, pillowy Detroit-style pizza that's engineered to be eaten as leftovers.

1760 NE Dekum St., 971-288-5187, ranchpdx.com. 11 am-10 pm daily. $$.

Prior to opening its brick-and-mortar, half the fun of eating Ranch was the mystery. Its early distribution model involved hand-delivering orders to Southeast Division Street beer bars like Apex and BeerMongers, but little was known about the operation aside from the owners' brazen disregard for the idiotic diktat that forbade asking for ranch with your pizza. After a brief stopover in the kitchen of the aging punk bro bar Poison's Rainbow, Ranch is a full-fledged operation in the Woodlawn neighborhood, complete with negronis ($9), draft beer from Barley Brown's and Baerlic ($6 for a pint, $18 for a pitcher) and a radicchio Caesar salad ($8) that's as comically outsized as the pizza. You're welcome to enjoy an entire pie, which starts at $17 for cheese and hits the $23 mark for more tricked-out offerings like the sausage, ricotta and chiles on the Number Four or the aptly named Meat Tornado, but the density of the crust is all but guaranteed to put even the most hardened pizza addict in a coma by the end of just one slice. PETE COTTELL.

Scottie’s Pizza Parlor

Best for: Fast, no-frills slices scarfed standing up before a night of bar-hopping.

2128 SE Division St., 971-544-7878, scottiespizzaparlor.com. 11:30 am-9 pm Monday-Saturday, noon-8 pm Sunday. $.

Pizza aficionados, or anyone visiting from New York, won't be bowled over by Scottie's. But the hole-in-the-wall pizza parlor isn't somewhere you go for an elevated experience. This is a place where you grab a paper plate and a slice and scarf it down while walking to the next bar. (That's partly because seating is limited to a few barstools and handful of outdoor tables.) The thin-crust slices ($3-$4) come with an extra-thick layer of mozzarella and bake at rapid speed in the pizzeria's electric oven. Seasonal slices, with toppings like squash or heirloom tomatoes, are standouts. And vegans will be satisfied with basil, marinara and creamy non-dairy ricotta. Pro tip: Smother your slice with a side of hot honey, a gooey concoction of spicy sweetness that enhances just about everything. ELISE HERRON.

Tastebud

Best for: Complicating the pineapple pizza debate with adventurous toppings.

7783 SW Capitol Highway, 503-245-4573, tastebudpdx.com. 5-9 pm Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 5-10 pm Friday-Saturday. $$.

There are those people who will die defending the merits of pineapple on pizza and then there are others who swear that the little golden chunks of fruit are an abomination as a topping. But if you really want to start a debate, let's talk about grapes. Or lemons. Both were recently on the menu at Tastebud, which takes ingredients you might not normally associate with wood-fired pies and melds them perfectly with mozzarella and dough. For instance, the peach pie ($24), topped with jalapeño and Calabrian chile oil, has a delightfully complex flavor profile of sweet meets heat. And the tasty, tasty pork and grapes ($29) highlights another fruit you'd normally just pop into your mouth without thinking much about it by pairing it with pancetta, sausage and three different cheeses. The Multnomah Village bistro has less eccentric preparations if you're not down with the peachness, like the basil pistou ($25) with Mama Lil's Peppers and whipped cashew cheese. And the cherry tomato ($25), while as risk-taking as the color beige, is executed beautifully. There's a posh bar with a wide assortment of wine, making it a great night spot, as long as you're fine listening to a Colbie Caillet-heavy soundtrack. JORDAN MONTERO.