To Find the Best Pizza Cutters, We Sliced Up More Than a Dozen Pies
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Our top pick is the Love This Kitchen Original Pizza Cutter.
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
Straight to the Point
The best rocking style pizza cutter (and if we’re honest, the best overall pizza cutter) is the Love This Kitchen Original Pizza Cutter Rocker Blade. It was easy to use, super sharp, and sliced through a variety of pizzas quickly and with little effort. The best rolling style pizza cutters were the OXO Good Grips Large 4-Inch Pizza Wheel and Cutter and the Mercer Culinary Millennia Pizza Cutter.
With the rise of Oonis, Gozneys, and backyard pizza-making culture (it seems like everyone is slinging Neapolitan-style pies these days), more people are investing in quality equipment to bake up some fantastic ‘za (an aside: Za is a great Scrabble word). But while pizza ovens, peels, and stones often take the spotlight, we are here to make a case for the humble—but still oh-so-important—pizza cutter. A good pizza cutter slices through cheese, toppings, and crust like butter. A bad pizza cutter tugs and squelches, smushing toppings and leaving dents in the cheese and crust instead of clean cuts—no one wants that.
As pizza lovers (who isn’t?), we set out to find a pizza cutter that would let us slice pizzas like a pro (you know, the grizzled pizzaiolo in your town who wields a rocking blade cutter and somehow cuts each pizza into perfectly even slices in, like, two strokes). We tested 10 popular pizza cutters, including rocking style cutters and roller-style cutters, by cutting up more than a dozen pies. Which cutters made the cut?
The Winners, at a Glance
The Best Rocking Blade Pizza Cutter: Love This Kitchen The Original Pizza Cutter Rocker Blade
This heavy-duty pizza cutter easily sliced through all kinds of pies, making quick work of crispy flatbreads, thick Chicago-style pizzas, and Detroit-style slabs. Users liked the comfy hand grips, which made slicing that much easier. Note: it does seem to go in and out of stock frequently, but if you can get your hands on it, it is a truly fantastic pizza cutter.
The Best Roller Pizza Cutter: OXO Good Grips Large 4-Inch Pizza Wheel and Cutter
The OXO had a nice, grippy handle and a sturdy blade that didn’t wobble, and users thought it glided nicely across the pizzas.
The Best Budget Roller Pizza Cutter: Mercer Culinary Millennia Pizza Cutter
While the part where the blade attached to the handle was a little wobbly, this budget-friendly cutter still impressed us. Users found it easy to use, fast, and thought it made “very crisp, clean cuts.”
The Tests
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
Sharpness Test: We used a professional edge tester to check the out-of-the-box sharpness of each pizza cutter.
Store Bought Pepperoni Pizza Test: We had four users with different hand sizes cut pepperoni pizzas with each cutter.
Detroit-Style Pizza Test (Winners-Only): We used our favorite pizza cutters to cut up thick crust Detroit-style pizza.
Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Test (Winners-Only): We used our favorite pizza cutters to cut slices of deep dish cheese pizza.
What We Learned
A Sharp Metal Blade Made All the Difference
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
Not all pizza cutters are as sharp as they could be. Dull blades mashed and mushed; they also made slicing a wrist and hand workout. In contrast, sharp blades made slicing clean-cut pieces quick and painless.
While we tested each blade out-of-the-box on a professional edge tester, we found the results weren’t necessarily indicative of the cutters’ true sharpness; the blades are more curved than a knife and were harder to measure. Instead, the proof was in the pizza.
Sharp metal blades made quick work of the task at hand, cutting through crusts in one fluid motion. The one non-metal cutter in our lineup (the Epicurean Pizza Chopper, which is made of paper composite) just wasn’t as sharp or honed as the metal ones, and required rocking back and forth to break through the crust.
Read More: Which Ooni Pizza Oven Should You Buy? We Compared Them All
Good Handle Grip Was Important
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
A comfy, grippy handle made applying pressure while cutting easier; users disliked slick, slippery handles, like the smooth plastic one on the KitchenAid, or small handles with oddly-angled thumb rests, like on the Rösle. Testers also had a tough time with the no-handle approach on the Kitchy Pizza Cutter, which features a rounded piece of plastic that covers the blade; it was tiring to hold and hard to push across the pizza. Instead, we preferred thicker, slightly textured handles like the ones on our winners. For rocking-style cutters, users disliked smooth and slippery handles, like the rolled stainless steel handle on the Checkered Chef, and also found the seamless, handle-less Epicurean hard on the palms.
Rocking-Style Pizza Cutters Were More Versatile
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
While a good round cutter will do a solid job slicing thinner pizzas, if you want a cutter that can tackle all manner of pies, a sharp rocking one is the way to go. We were especially impressed by our winner’s quick dispatch of Detroit style pies and Chicago deep dish pizza; the amount of force needed to use it was minimal, and it quickly and cleanly cut slices.
On Rocking Style Cutters, A Slightly Curved Blade Was Better
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
We found that a slightly curved blade, rather than one that had a more extreme curve, was better for slicing pizza quickly in one motion. The more-curved blade of the Epicurean pizza cutter caused the blade to seesaw, and we had trouble cutting in one fluid motion. Cutters with a less extreme curve, like those on the Original Pizza Cutter and Checkered Chef, cut more of the pizza with less work.
A Little Wobble Was Fine—A Lot Wasn’t
The amount the blade wobbled on rolling cutters made a difference in how easy it was to cut in a straight line. The wobblier ones, like the Winco and KitchenAid, were difficult to keep on track and required users to grip and push more firmly. However, while the Mercer pizza cutter did have a slight wobble, it didn’t flex too much and was still able to cut straight and true.
The Criteria: What to Look For in a Good Pizza Cutter
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
First and foremost, it’s gotta be sharp; a dull blade requires more runs through the pizza and mashes toppings. We also liked pizza cutters with comfortable, grippy handles that made it easy to apply even pressure when cutting. Finally, we liked rocking-style cutters the best; our winner was sharp, easy to hold, and made cutting up slices easy and fast.
The Best Rocking Blade Pizza Cutter: Love This Kitchen The Original Pizza Cutter Rocker Blade
What we liked: This was a pleasure to use. The two plastic handles were comfortable to grip, and because of the sharp, slightly curved blade, very little effort was required to crisply cut slices. We also liked that it came with a blade cover (since this thing is sharp!).
What we didn’t like: It’s not the most attractive pizza cutter, what with bright orange handles and a rather utilitarian-looking blade (if we’re honest, it’s a little scary looking). It’s also quite large (not exactly easy to fit in a drawer). And while it is dishwasher-safe, hand washing is recommended.
Price at time of publish: $17.
Key Specs
Style: Rocking blade
Blade dimensions: 14 inches long
Materials: Stainless steel, plastic
Care: Dishwasher-safe, but hand-washing is recommended
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
The Best Roller Pizza Cutter: OXO Good Grips Large 4-Inch Pizza Wheel and Cutter
What we liked: This was a solid pick for a roller-style cutter. The blade was firmly attached and made cutting in straight lines easy. The plastic handle was also easy to grip, since it was textured and rubbery-feeling.
What we liked: While sharp for a rolling cutter, it still took slightly more effort to quickly cut clean slices than with the rocking blade Original Pizza Cutter.
Price at time of publish: $16.
Key Specs
Style: Roller
Blade dimensions: 4-inch diameter
Materials: Stainless steel, plastic
Care: Dishwasher-safe (though we'd recommend hand-washing)
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
The Best Budget Roller Pizza Cutter: Mercer Culinary Millennia Pizza Cutter
What we liked: This no-frills pizza cutter punched above its weight. Although the blade wobbled slightly, it was still quite sharp and we had no issue cutting neat slices. The grippy, textured handle also had a nice heft and feel.
What we didn’t like: The slight wobble is undesirable, and hand washing is recommended; you might not want to toss it into the dishwasher.
Price at time of publish: $11.
Key Specs
Style: Roller
Blade Dimensions: 4-inch diameter
Materials: Carbon steel, Santoprene, polypropylene
Care: Hand-washing recommended
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
The Competition
KitchenAid Classic Pizza Wheel: The slippery, plastic handle was unpleasant to hold and the blade just wasn’t as sharp as our winners’.
Checkered Chef Pizza Cutter: Users found the all-metal construction (the “handle” was really just a curved piece of metal) slippery and not quite as comfortable to hold as cutters with plastic grips. It also was just a smidge less sharp than our winning rocking cutter.
Rösle Stainless Steel Round-Handle Pizza Cutter: This all-metal pizza cutter didn’t do a bad job cutting pizza, but it wasn’t as sharp as our winners. Some users also found the metal handle and thumb rest uncomfortable.
Kitchy Pizza Cutter Wheel: While the rounded handle covering the round blade was a nice idea in theory, this pizza cutter was awkward to push across pizza, and wasn’t super sharp.
Epicurean Pizza Chopper: This paper composite pizza cutter just wasn’t as sharp as its metal counterparts. The lack of a handle also made it uncomfortable to hold.
Winco Winware Pizza Cutter: This basic cutter had a wobbly blade that made it difficult to cut clean, straight lines.
Steelmade Pizza Cutter: While easy on the eyes, this pizza cutter was heavy and didn’t cleanly cut through crust and toppings.
FAQs
What are the different styles of pizza cutters?
Two popular styles of pizza cutters are the rolling cutter and the rocking-style cutter; both have their pros and cons, though we generally prefer the rocking-style for fast, clean slicing. Some people use special pizza scissors (we haven’t tested these) to cut slices as well.
What is the best pizza cutter?
We found that rocking-style pizza cutters, like the Love This Kitchen The Original Pizza Cutter Rocker Blade, were generally faster and better at cutting clean slices.
Read More: We Made a Dozen Pies in Ooni’s First-Ever Electric Pizza Oven—It Was Awesome
