Pizza 22 cm

A pizza chain hailing from St. Petersburg, Pizza 22 cm regularly tops the high-profile restaurant rankings, even ranking among the top 50 pizzerias in Europe. The minds behind the chain picked Moscow's most “Italian” neighborhood for their local establishment: Solyanka Street already boasts numerous Italian-themed restaurants with sprawling porches. Housed in the subterranean floor of a building that used to serve as a salt warehouse, Moscow's Pizza 22 cm is impressive even without outdoor seating. The ceilings reach as high as four meters, and the wall niches imitating windows only highlight the vastness of the space. The décor is quite subdued, as are the chain's original restaurants in St. Petersburg, with a minimalistic design and abundance of metal structures. 

The menu features 13 different pizzas, split between the Old World and New World sections. The Old World menu offers Neapolitan classics such as Margherita, Pepperoni, and Marinara. The other part is more experimental, including selections like the vegetarian Ortolana and Pizza Burratina (with tomatoes and burrata cheese). Apart from the pizzas, the menu has no shortage of contemporary variations on classic Italian food: the likes of spicy tomato soup, stracciatella and avocado salad, or Angeletti fried dough sticks with sauce. The wine list is short but to the point, with a strong emphasis on classic Italian wines and a smattering of Spanish red and Portuguese sparkling titles.

Photo: Pizza 22 cm