World’s best pizza chef from Italy opens first U.S. restaurant in Miami

Even the most passionate, pepperoni-addled fan might think twice before calling a pizza joint “fine dining.”

But Francesco Martucci, the glamorous new restaurant in Wynwood from the world’s best pizza maker, could inspire you to rethink this assessment.

Named for its Italian creator, Francesco Martucci Miami is now open next to Cha Cha Cha, the Mexican restaurant that took over the former space of Wynwood favorite Beaker & Gray.

It’s the first U.S. restaurant for Martucci, a Caserta native who was named the world’s best pizza chef for 2025 and who has partnered with the Toronto-based hospitality group Liberty Entertainment for this concept.

Known for his restaurant I Masanielli in Caserta about 40 miles north of Naples, which opened in 2001 as a takeout restaurant and was named the best pizzeria in Italy in 2025, Martucci himself said that this concept was a perfect fit for Miami.

“Miami has its own heartbeat,” he said in a statement. “It’s vibrant, creative, always in motion. It reminds me of the moment a pizza comes out of the oven: hot, alive, meant to be shared. I wanted to bring that energy here, with flavors rooted in Italy but a spirit that feels very Miami.”

Dark and dramatic, with an eye-catching vertical wine vault and a sleek bar, the restaurant certainly looks like Miami, or rather, slides neatly into the upscale expectations of the ever-more-stylish Wynwood neighborhood. There’s even a private dining room. Rumor has it the Backstreet Boys, at least a few of them, have checked it out.

But what you’re probably wondering about, and rightly so, is what sets this pizza apart from your local favorite or the 10,000 other pizza spots in and around Miami. The answer? The light, airy, meticulously crafted dough that makes up the crust, fermented over a long period and hydrated to maintain its lightness.

And while the restaurant offers classic wood oven pizzas — the margherita ($28) or, say, the Mani di Velluto with Friarelli cream with buffalo milk, pork sausage with fennel and aged pecorino romano ($32) — there are two styles you won’t find anywhere else. Le 7 Consistenze della Cipolla ($38) features seven different types of onion atop that miraculous crust: creamed, fermented, crispy, burnt, as a mayonnaise, as a jam and as a gel as well as fior di latte, a soft Italian cheese. It’s the best thing that has ever happened to an onion since someone got the bright idea to caramelize one.

Already a favorite of the staff and guests, the other notable pie is the Futuro di Marinara ($36), which offers cream of roasted San Marzano tomato, Itrana olives, anchovies, pesto of wild garlic, Salina capers and wild oregano.

Both, of course, are created atop a crust to die for.

The pizzas are baked in a wood-fired oven made by Italian masons using traditional brick and cement from the hills of Campania. There was an oven already in the restaurant, a leftover from a previous incarnation, when Francesco Martucci moved in, a staffer reported. But Martucci, fiercely loyal to the traditions that made him a success, insisted on having his own oven installed.

The menu also includes pastas, like a spaghetti pomodoro ($30) and tortellini cacio e pepe ($36), along with various starters, salads and starters like bluefin tuna belly with fried zucchini flowers and provolone ($60).

There’s also a $200 multi-course tasting menu with an optional wine pairing for $110, not something generally on offer from your neighborhood pie shop. The tasting menu includes the two specialty pizzas, classic pizzas, a taste of the tortellini and tiramisu for dessert, among other treats.

Francesco Martucci

Where: 10 NE 27th St., Miami

Hours: 5 p.m.-midnight Monday–Thursday and Sunday; 5 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday-Saturday

Reservations: OpenTable

More information: martuccimiami.com or 786-907-4084