Best pizza near Upper Arlington, ranked
A thin-crust pizza cut into squares with edge-to-edge pepperoni on a metal tray
Seven pizzerias within a 20-minute drive of Kingsdale, ranked by how well they do the square-cut Columbus style — and which one to order when you have kids, a hangover or an argument to settle.
What Columbus-style pizza actually is
Before you rank anything here you have to accept the local grammar. Columbus pizza is thin and crisp rather than foldable, sauced sweet, loaded with provolone instead of low-moisture mozzarella, hidden under cup-and-char pepperoni laid edge to edge, and cut into squares rather than wedges. The corners are the prize; the middle squares are the consolation. The style grew out of mid-century tavern kitchens on the east and south sides, and it survives because generations of families ordered the same pie every Friday and would riot if the recipe changed.
If you arrive expecting Naples, you will file a bad review for the wrong reasons. There is excellent wood-fired and coal-fired pizza within ten minutes of Upper Arlington, and it is in this ranking, but it sits below the tavern-cut places because the tavern cut is what this city does that nowhere else does as well. My ordering rule: get the pepperoni first, always, and judge the kitchen on how dark it lets the cups get. Sausage is the second test. Anything involving pineapple tells you nothing.
1. Tommy's Pizza, West Lane Avenue
The closest great pizza to Upper Arlington is also the best one, which almost never happens. Tommy's has been feeding this side of Columbus since the early 1950s, and the Lane Avenue kitchen turns out the platonic square-cut pie: cracker-thin base that holds up, sweet-edged sauce, provolone browned in patches, pepperoni curled into little cups of rendered fat. Order a large pepperoni and sausage and a house salad with the sweet-and-sour dressing, which is its own local institution and which people order by the pint to take home.
It is a neighbourhood room rather than a destination restaurant, and that is the point — wood, booths, families, a bar with the Blue Jackets on. Expect to pay somewhere in the $18 to $28 band for a large with toppings, and expect a wait on Friday and Saturday evenings between 6pm and 8pm. Call ahead for carry-out and you can be eating in a hotel room fifteen minutes later. If you only eat one pizza in Upper Arlington, eat this one, and eat the corner squares while they are hot.
2. Rubino's, Bexley
Fifteen to twenty minutes east on East Main Street, Rubino's has been running since the mid-1950s and has changed approximately nothing. The crust is thinner and drier than Tommy's, closer to a matzo than a bread, the cheese is aggressively provolone, and the whole thing arrives on a metal tray cut into shards. It is a pizza that divides people on first bite and converts most of them by the third. The room is small, wood-panelled and permanently smells of oregano.
Two honest catches. First, it is a purist's operation: the menu is short, and if you want a stuffed crust or a fancy topping list you are in the wrong place. Second, payment methods and hours at old-school Columbus institutions change without fanfare, so check before you drive across town with a car full of hungry people. Go with two or three friends, order two larges rather than one, and treat the trip as half pizza pilgrimage and half excuse to walk Bexley's Main Street afterwards.
3. Villa Nova, Bethel Road
Ten minutes north-west of Upper Arlington, Villa Nova is the red-sauce Italian-American restaurant that the square-cut pizza belongs to, complete with a bar that has clearly hosted the same regulars for decades. The pizza is a proper tavern-cut, slightly breadier than Rubino's, and the kitchen is generous with the sausage. What lifts it above the average is the rest of the menu: the ravioli, the spaghetti with meat sauce, the sort of garlic bread that ruins your appetite in the best way.
This is the pick for a group with a picky eater or a grandparent in it, because nobody has ever been unhappy with a table here. Reckon on $16 to $26 for a large pizza and roughly $15 to $22 for a pasta plate. Weeknights are calm; Friday needs patience. It ranks third rather than second because the pizza itself is very good rather than transcendent — you come for the whole restaurant, not just the pie. Sit at the bar if the dining room is deep in a wait.
4 and 5. Harvest Pizzeria and Natalie's coal-fired
Harvest is the wood-fired counterargument, with kitchens in Clintonville, Bexley, German Village and Dublin turning out blistered 12-inch pies built on local produce — the spicy Yukon with pepperoni, jalapeño and honey has been the calling card for years. Crust is chewy and charred, the beer and cocktail lists are genuinely good, and the rooms are the sort you can take a date to. Expect $16 to $22 a pizza and add a shaved-vegetable salad. Choose the Clintonville branch from Upper Arlington; it is the shortest drive and has the best bar.
Natalie's runs coal-fired ovens at its Worthington original and its Grandview music room on King Avenue, and the higher heat gives a crisper, leopard-spotted base than wood-fired does. The margherita and the clam pie are both worth ordering, and the Grandview kitchen is roughly two miles from Upper Arlington, which makes it the best combination of good pizza and short drive in this list. The catch is that the Grandview room is built around live music, so on gig nights you are booking a show as much as a table. Check the schedule first.
6 and 7. Adriatico's and the late-night slice
Adriatico's near the Ohio State campus on Neil Avenue is a different animal entirely: a deep, heavy, cheese-slabbed pie known citywide as the Big Bite, sold by the enormous slice to students who have made questionable decisions. It is not refined and does not want to be. Ranked sixth because it is a specific mood rather than a good dinner, but on a game weekend, walking out of a bar and into a Big Bite is a rite of passage. Cash-fast, loud, and fifteen minutes from Upper Arlington by car or rideshare.
Seventh, and only for after 11pm, is the Short North late-night slice trade — the walk-up windows on North High Street selling pepperoni by the slice for a few dollars a piece to people leaving the bars. Nobody would rank it in daylight. At midnight after three drinks it is exactly correct. Skip the delivery-only ghost kitchens that keep appearing on the apps under invented Italian names; they are almost always reheated par-baked crusts, and you will pay more for worse pizza than Tommy's sells five minutes from your hotel.
The verdict, plus delivery, groups and timings
Order Tommy's on Lane Avenue. It is the closest, it is the best example of the style the city invented, and it survives the ten-minute drive back to a hotel room better than anything wood-fired does. Save Rubino's for an afternoon you are already going to Bexley, take a group to Villa Nova, take a date to Harvest in Clintonville, and use Natalie's Grandview when you want music with dinner. Adriatico's is for the campus crowd and the late-night slice windows are for people who should be in bed.
Practical notes. Most of these places take phone orders for carry-out, which is consistently faster and cheaper than third-party delivery apps that add service fees on top of inflated menu prices. Friday between 6pm and 8pm is the worst window everywhere in Columbus; 5pm or after 8.30pm is calm. For a group of six, two large square-cut pies plus a salad feeds everyone for roughly $60 to $75 before tip. Confirm opening hours directly with the restaurant, especially on holiday weekends when family-run kitchens close without much notice.
Before you book
What people ask before booking Upper Arlington.
A thin, crisp, cracker-like crust, sweet tomato sauce, provolone rather than mozzarella, pepperoni laid edge to edge so it curls into charred cups, and a square party cut instead of wedges. Corner pieces are the most sought-after. Tommy's and Rubino's are the two clearest examples near Upper Arlington.
Villa Nova on Bethel Road. The menu runs well beyond pizza into pasta and Italian-American classics, the booths are roomy, service is quick with kids, and weeknights before 6pm are quiet. Budget roughly $16 to $26 for a large pizza and around $15 to $22 for a pasta main.
Yes, but call the restaurant directly for carry-out where you can. Third-party apps add fees and often mark up menu prices, and thin square-cut crusts travel badly if they sit in a bag. A pie collected from Lane Avenue arrives at a nearby hotel in under fifteen minutes.
Adriatico's on Neil Avenue near campus sells its thick Big Bite slices late, and the walk-up slice windows along North High Street in the Short North run past midnight on weekends. Both are ten to fifteen minutes from Upper Arlington by rideshare. Hours vary by night, so check before you set out.
