These 3 fiery pizza joints have one big thing in common 🔥

When it comes to Greater Cincinnati pizza, your options are anything but limited. For Queen City purists, there are the thin-crust, sweet-sauced pies invented by pizza pioneer Buddy LaRosa and his imitators. There are local versions of pizza styles that have made their way from Detroit, New York and Chicago. Heck, even Trenton, New Jersey, is represented here thanks to Rosie’s Italian, Downtown.

But if you’re looking for traditional wood-fired or brick-oven pizzas – the kind with the craggy, blistered, old-world crusts that are spotted on the bottom and taste like fire and char and happiness – your luck just keeps getting better. For you, there's Fireside, Forno, A Tavola and Catch-a-Fire, among many others.

As a wood-fired pizza fan myself, I recently tried three wood-fired (in one case, gas-fired) pizza spots, all of which happened to be located in the growing culinary destination that is Northern Kentucky.

Read on to learn more.

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Strong's Brick Oven Pizza, Newport

The first thing you'll see when you walk inside Strong’s Newport location is a 1938 brick oven that was born in Italy before making its way across the Atlantic to Brooklyn and ultimately the Bluegrass State. Originally wood-fired, it's now fueled with gas, though you might not even notice.

Strong’s is one of those pizzerias that Enquirer readers have encouraged me to visit over the years, but for some reason, I never got around to it. Stupid me. The margarita I tried recently was exceptional, cooked until its crust was craggy and blistered before it was topped off with a sauce of hand-crushed plum tomatoes and dollops of fresh mozzarella cheese. But it's the crust I'm still thinking about. It's the crust I can't shut up about when I'm talking to friends. It's chewy and stretchy with a complex flavor that goes from funky to sour to familiar and comforting. Unlike traditional Neapolitan pizzas, the slices at Strong's are floppier and a little less wet in the middle, resembling more of a New York-style pie than anything else.

Strong's Newport location is nice-looking, too. It's housed inside a Federal-style townhouse that was built in 1833 by riverboat captain James Curtis Reed. Seating is tight (the front room is occupied by the oven, though there's a small dining room and bar behind it). That doesn't stop customers from gathering in the close confines to catch up with one another over pizzas, calzones and cold cans of beer. Strong's other locations can be found in Union, Reading, Bridgetown Road on the West Side and Lawrenceburg, Indiana.

While Strong's other locations are owned by the pizzeria's namesake, Christian Strong, he sold the Newport one about 18 months ago to his good friend Cindy Hahn, who operates it with her business partner, Steve Glacken, though the menu and recipes remain the same.

Bircus Brewing, Ludlow

The pizzas that Damien Berkheimer, a professional juggler and pizzaiolo, churns out at Bircus Brewing hit me on some sort of emotional level that's hard to describe. Maybe it was just a reminder of how good a pizza can be when the person making it lends it a bit of personality and a dash of something new. Licked by fire, Berkheimer's crust is golden, airy, a little crunchy and unmistakably artisanal. He honed his pizza-making skills during the four years he spent working at Goodfellas' Covington location before he signed on with Bircus in 2020. (Along with pizzas and beer, Bircus also offers regular circus performances, live music and the occasional flea market.)

But let's get back to the pizza. The goetta and potato-topped pie is a great place to start. Berkheimer uses extra-fine Caputo 00 flour, resulting in a soft, chewy crust that he tops with roasted potatoes tossed in rosemary, garlic and salt, Finke’s goetta and San Marzano tomatoes. Wash it down with a Bircus' Smaschlager Vienna Lager and you might just think it's "the greatest pizza show on earth."

Camporosso, Fort Mitchell

Located in a repurposed 1934 gas station just across from the famed Greyhound Tavern, Camporosso offers some of the best Neapolitan-style pizzas Greater Cincinnati has to offer. Locals sidle up at the restaurant's bar to watch pizzaiolos work their magic, navigating wooden peels in and out of a wood-fired Italian brick oven until their crusts are blistered and beautiful, the sauce bubbling like Vesuvian lava. The pizzeria, which is owned and operated by Eric and Amy Redfield, recently received some national recognition when it was named one of the top pizzerias in Kentucky by Food & Wine magazine. It's easy to see why.

So far, I’ve only tried Camporosso's margarita because when it comes to Neapolitan pizza, why mess with perfection? It's topped with hand-pulled mozzarella, sweet, tangy crushed San Marzano tomatoes and fresh basil leaves. Other variations include the Sopressata hot honey with crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, Sopressata and local hot honey – and a barbecue chicken pizza with grilled chicken, wood-fired corn, bacon, red onion and fresh mozzarella.

While you're there, be sure and try Camporosso's Italian-style chili. A favorite of mine, it's spiced with a medley of Italian herbs and smoky, fruity Calabrian chilis.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Wood-fired pizza perfection found at 3 spots in Northern Kentucky