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Apr 18, 2024

The best pizza in America, from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles

America’s love of pizza runs deep. In some places it also runs thin, crispy, charred, folded and, occasionally, topped with a poached egg. The United States is home to more than 80,000 small-chain and

America’s love of pizza runs deep. In some places it also runs thin, crispy, charred, folded and, occasionally, topped with a poached egg.

The United States is home to more than 80,000 small-chain and independent pizza restaurants, according to Yelp and industry statistics. Pies and slices have many habitats: gas stations, mall food courts, decades-old slice shops and white-tablecloth trattorias. It’s almost always affordable and portable. As the pandemic showed, it’s our go-to comfort food.

The history of pizza in the United States mirrors the path of many immigrant foods. Italians brought a version of the Naples-born creation to America in the late 1800s and began opening shops in the early 1900s, pizza historians say. Their approach molded to their hometowns and the tastes of locals. Thin and crispy pies were used as salty snacks to soak up beer in taverns; industrial pans became the vessel for bubbly cheese-and-sauce-topped dough; and charred Neapolitan-style crusts served as the canvas for farm-to-table cuisine. And so America’s favorite regional pizza styles were born.

We set out to find the country’s best pizzas, from slice shops in New York City to fancy California-inspired pizzas, gathering favorites from experts, historians and pros around the country. For a more populist view, Washington Post data columnist Andrew Van Dam analyzed 7.5 million Yelp reviews of pizzerias to see which regional-style restaurants attract the most and highest ratings.

But who has the best? Well, that’s for you to argue.

[Quad City, Old Forge, jumbo slice and more quirky American pizzas]

To have the quintessential New York City pizza experience, grab a slice and take it on a walk.

“New Yorkers are nothing but multitaskers,” said Scott Wiener, founder of Scott’s Pizza Tours. “Sitting down to eat pizza is a waste of time.”

Sure, at some old-school pizzerias that don’t sell slices, you’ll have to grab a table or a box to go. But the need for pedestrian speed contributes to some of the defining characteristics of an iconic New York slice: “Thin in the center with a risen lip on the edge that’s flexible, foldable, portable, lovable, huggable, your best friend,” Wiener said.

Generally expect an herby tomato sauce, low-moisture mozzarella (no one wants to schlep a soupy slice up Broadway) and a sharp, salty flavor profile.

New Yorker Ed Levine — author of books about pizza, founder of Serious Eats and host of the Special Sauce podcast — won’t claim that the city has a lock on the best pizza because “there’s great pizza everywhere now.” But, he said, the city “certainly has the best slice culture.”

Like so many newcomers to America, pizza arrived via New York City. The first record of a pizzeria operating in the United States was listed in a 1894 city directory, according to research by pizza historian Peter Regas. That’s contrary to a long-repeated — though inaccurate, Regas says — claim that Lombardi’s in Manhattan was the first pizzeria to open in the U.S., in 1905.

[This Brooklyn pizza crawl proves the superiority of the New York slice]

There’s no description available of the first New York pizza, but Wiener said he assumes it would have been an iteration of the Neapolitan of the time: coal-fired and crispy with a dark char. Throwbacks to that coal-fired style include John’s of Bleecker Street and Arturo’s, both in Greenwich Village. Miriam Weiskind, a pizzamaker and former tour guide in Wiener’s company, calls the latter “one of the greatest hidden gems in New York City.”

Modern slice culture didn’t emerge until after World War II, Wiener said, with the arrival of gas-powered ovens.

“This is when they’re able to reheat slices,” said Weiskind. “That’s why you get a New York-style slice.”

That category may also include one of two pan pizzas, either a thick Sicilian square or a thinner “grandma” style.

Befitting a metropolis that is home to more than 8.3 million people, New York now contains multitudes of pizza cooked over coals, gas flames or wood-burning fires. In more recent years, a culture of what Wiener calls “nerdy pizza” has emerged. These higher-end shops “treat their pizza like it’s a bread, he said. “The dough is the focus.”

Ask a handful of pizza connoisseurs where you should go, and you’ll get several handfuls of answers; New York’s only downside is there are too many great pies to try in a single visit. — Hannah Sampson

Naples native Joe Pozzuoli opened this shop in 1975. Weiskind said in an email that Joe’s serves “one of the most iconic slices of NYC” that “folds like a dream.” While Joe’s has several additional locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and even Ann Arbor, Mich., and Miami, Weiskind recommends the original.

Pepperoni pizza. (Rana Düzyol for The Washington Post)

Most conversations about classic New York pizza start with a mention of John’s of Bleecker Street, where the awning outside provides a look at New York City’s pizza history. “Since 1929,” one part says. “No slices,” another message reads. The Greenwich Village institution still serves whole pies cooked in coal-fired ovens like the city’s earliest pizzerias — and highlights another piece of its past, the “original wooden booths sentimentally etched by our loyal customers.”

Cheese pizza. (Rana Düzyol for The Washington Post)

This Park Slope storefront with a classic black-and-white awning opened in 2022 after one of its owners, Thomas Gian Ardito, started selling pies from home during the pandemic. It specializes in “artisan NY style pizza” and boasts a jaunty red and gold Pizzeria sign. Fans include Levine, who says the shop offers “a really good elevated New York slice.” Weiskind highlights the “comfy backyard space” and crust, which she says is worth saving for dessert with a drizzle of Mike’s Hot Honey.

Various pizzas at Brooklyn DOP. (Rana Düzyol for The Washington Post)

32 Spring Street

New York, N.Y., 10012

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1 Front Street

Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201

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413 Eighth Ave.

New York, N.Y., 10001

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7 Carmine St.

New York, N.Y., 10014

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69 Seventh Ave. South

New York, N.Y., 10014

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The question of “what is Chicago pizza?” is a heated topic. There are the deep-dish pies the city is most known for — and then there’s a thinner cousin that Chicagoans are more likely to order.

“Tavern-style pizza really is Chicago-style pizza,” said Steve Dolinsky, journalist and author of two books on pizza in the city. “I talked to a third-generation owner in the South Side who didn’t have deep dish until he was in his 20s.”

[Does Chicago pizza mean deep dish? Depends who you ask.]

While the thin-and-crispy style came first, visitors still come to the city seeking out the city’s famed eat-with-a-fork, deep-dish version. That’s because high-traffic tourist neighborhoods like Downtown and River North are where you’ll find Chicago-born chains such as Lou Malnati’s, Pizzeria Uno and Giordano’s, though its pizza is considered “stuffed” deep dish (more on that later).

Tavern style — thin, traditionally baked in gas ovens, round but square-cut — made its first appearance in the late 1930s as pizza grew in popularity in the United States, according to Chicago-based pizza historian Peter Regas. It was served alongside drinks in bars on cocktail napkins, sometimes free. Deep dish was born in 1943 at the Pizzeria (later to become Pizzeria Uno), originally owned by Ric Riccardo. The deeper pies were possibly a result of pans left behind from previous tavern owners, the Pelican, Dolinsky says.

For deep dish, the dough is pressed into a pan and up the sides, and covered with mozzarella, then the toppings (traditionally sausage), then covered in a chunky tomato sauce. Diners can expect to wait 30 to 45 minutes for their pizza — far longer than the minute or so cook-time of a Neapolitan pie.

But if Chicagoans claim tavern style as their true pizza, how did deep dish become what we think of as Chicago’s signature dish?

“The concept of making pizza in the pan started to gain currency in the 1960s, slowly at first, and then by the 1970s. … We’d say today it went ‘viral.’ It just spread like wildfire,” Regas said. “Everyone, especially on the north side, got into the ‘pizza in the pan’ business.”

By the 1970s, deep-pan spots like Pequod’s and My Pi came on the scene. Other styles started to spin off, including stuffed pizza, originated by Nancy’s. This subset of deep dish, which has an extra layer of dough and shredded mozzarella, is where Dolinsky thinks the stereotypes of deep Chicago pies comes from.

“These are the pies that are normally mocked — the aboveground pool, the boat anchor — because they are … the height of the pan,” Dolinsky said. “That’s a big, big difference.” Dolinsky says he’s always looking for “optimal bite ratio,” which is his perfect measurement of cheese, sauce and dough in every bite. — Amanda Finnegan

Lou, along with his father, Rudy, worked at the original Pizzeria Uno before spinning off on his own in 1971. The restaurant is still in the family and has more than 50 locations in Chicago and its suburbs. Dolinsky and Regas both recommend the regional chain for an “authentic” deep-dish experience. “If they want deep dish the way it was made in the ’50s and early ’60s, I would take them to Malnati’s,” Regas said. There are locations all over Chicago, but you’ll have to go to Lincolnwood, Ill., to visit the original.

Sausage deep dish. (Jason Little for The Washington Post)

Opened in 1971 by Larry Aronson in Rogers Park, My Pi is responsible for the first deep dish available outside of Illinois. It’s now only available in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood and run by Larry’s son, Rich. The pizza is unique because of its higher crust and special blend of spices in its sauce (fennel mimics the taste of sausage). It has Dolinsky’s “optimal bite ratio” and can even be eaten without a knife and fork, he notes.

Green pepper deep dish. (Jason Little for The Washington Post)

Three new-school pizzamakers are re-creating the city’s original pizza at Kim’s Uncle in the Chicago suburb of Westmont. Cecily and Billy Federighi and Brad Shorten started giving away pizza from their Ukrainian Village apartment as an Instagram experiment, and later opened Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream in 2020. Now they’re perfecting cracker-thin tavern style in the former space of Uncle Pete’s Pizza, with a name that pays homage to the last owner. “It’s the closest I remember to my childhood. Very thin, and they have the proportions the right way,” Regas said.

Roasted red pepper and giardiniera tavern-style. (Jason Little for The Washington Post)

439 N. Wells St.

Chicago, Ill., 60654

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2207 N. Clybourn Ave.

Chicago, Ill., 60614

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130 E. Randolph St.

Chicago, Ill., 60601

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1005 W. Argyle St.

Chicago, Ill., 60640

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162 E. Superior St.

Chicago, Ill., 60611

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Call it frico, a cheese skirt or a Maillard miracle: a crispy, caramelized exterior running up the sides of the crust is one of the hallmarks of a Detroit-style pizza.

Baked in an angled, deep-dish pan, these square pies should have a deeply browned bottom that contrasts with a soft, springy center. Pepperoni, the original topping, should be placed directly onto the dough before baking. Then a generous layer of shredded high-fat cheese — traditionally buttery Wisconsin brick, mozzarella or a blend — spills over the edges and makes for coveted corners. Sauce generally goes on top, unless you’re ordering from one of the hundreds of Jet’s franchises scattered across the country.

Decades before Detroit-style pizza fed hypebeasts from Austin to Brooklyn, it was a special-occasion food for working-class families. Since the beginning, when it was created and popularized at a former speakeasy called Buddy’s, this was the diet of Little League teams and birthday parties. Unlike a New York slice designed to carry into the street, it was a sit-down meal that demanded diners’ full attention, even a knife and fork.

A northern Italian immigrant named Gus Guerra invented Detroit-style pizza at Buddy’s in 1946, because he needed to serve his customers something to soak up their beer. In her book, “Detroit Style Pizza: A Doughtown History,” reporter Karen Dybis writes that Guerra was adapting a homestyle recipe from his Sicilian mother-in-law using a baking pan. According to local lore, the pans responsible for the city’s signature crust came straight off the Ford assembly line.

Dybis couldn’t authenticate that legend, but she did confirm Guerra worked for Ford Motor Company as a tile setter and that his children remember him buying industrial pans from hardware stores. Blue steel pans intended for use as drip trays and scrap metal collectors have become part of the Detroit-style mystique.

In the decades that followed, the forces that shaped American commerce influenced Detroit-style pizza. In 1978, brothers Eugene and John Jetts started the business in Sterling Heights, Mich., that would become Jet’s. Founded in 1959 in Garden City, Mich., Little Caesars started offering a deep-dish pan pizza in 1988 and formally adopted a Detroit-style in 2012.

As Americans began to prize the idea of “craft,” Detroit-style pizza followed suit. The late Shawn Randazzo, a former delivery driver and franchisee for Cloverleaf Pizza, drew widespread exposure when he won the highest prize at the 2012 International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. Brandon and Zane Hunt, brothers from Detroit, brought their hometown pizza to Austin with Via 313. Emmy Squared, started in Brooklyn in 2016 by chef Matt Hyland, then-spouse Emily Hyland and other investors, ushered the style into the Instagram age.

Today, another wave of cooks are putting their own spin on the Motown method, including vegan pizzas from Brittany March’s pop-up out of an East Detroit community center; halal lamb and za’atar pies made by a staff of formerly incarcerated workers at Down North in Philadelphia; and an Ethiopian American tibs pizza from chef Paulos Belay at the Motown Square carryout in D.C. — Gabe Hiatt

Although it has expanded into a Michigan chain with more than a dozen full-service locations, Buddy’s maintains the vintage vibe — and the bocce court — at the original. According to chief brand officer Wes Pikula, who started as a teenage dishwasher in 1975, the spirit of community at long adjoining tables was a big part of the brand’s success. “If four nuns walked in and four bikers walked in, they would sit next to each other,” Pikula said. Guerra sold his stake in 1953, going on to found Cloverleaf Pizza, but Buddy’s kept his recipe.

The cheese pizza and Super 6 Mile pizza. (Rebecca Simonov for The Washington Post)

Louis Tourtois lived a peripatetic pizza life, leading the kitchen at Buddy’s when it won a Detroit News pizza contest in 1970 and bringing the recipe to Shield’s Pizza before hanging his own shingle. Regulars return to Loui’s for the extra-cheesy pie, antipasto salad and nostalgic, red-accented dining room with string lights and strung-up chianti bottles in wicker slips. “I do love Loui’s because literally they put a pound of cheese on that pizza and you’re not going to have anything else like it,” Dybis said.

The extra cheese pizza. (Rebecca Simonov for The Washington Post)

Along with Michigan & Trumbull, which is in the process of relocating, experts say Grandma Bob’s is leading the pack for Detroit’s next generation of pizzamakers. One popular, if unorthodox, summer special is a lobster roll pizza (dine-in only) topped with the shellfish, herb crème fraîche and Cape Cod potato chips, then served with a side of drawn butter. “It really isn’t a gimmick. It actually is delicious,” said Lyndsay Green, the restaurant and dining critic for the Detroit Free Press.

A cheese pizza. (Rebecca Simonov for The Washington Post)

23141 Dequindre Rd.

Hazel Park, Mich., 48030

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17125 Conant St.

Detroit, Mich., 48212

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1222 E. Eleven Mile Rd.

Royal Oak, Mich., 48067

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2135 Michigan Ave.

Detroit, Mich., 48216

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24443 Gratiot Ave.

Eastpointe, Mich., 48021

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To determine whether you have eaten a true New Haven-style pizza, check your fingertips. Your digits should be smudged with soot from the charred crust, a defining feature of the Connecticut pie.

“Char is a huge hallmark and tradition of New Haven-style pizza,” said Frank Zabski, owner of the New Haven Pizza School. “People who aren’t familiar with New Haven-style look at that as a negative. But for those of us who grew up around here, it’s part of the taste.”

Like most pizza-creation stories in the United States, New Haven’s pizza started with Italian immigrants. According to Colin M. Caplan, a New Haven pizza historian, many of the 19th-century arrivals found work in a lock and hardware factory. Once settled, they started to integrate bits of home into their new world. They built coal-fired brick ovens behind their tenement housing and baked rolls, pastries, cakes and, of course, pizza. They delivered their pizzas to factory workers and peddled pies on the street.

The original tomato pie features a thin, chewy and crispy crust topped with crushed Italian tomatoes, grated pecorino Romano and extra-virgin olive oil. However, most diners want more gooeyness and order their pie with mozzarella, or “mootz” in the local vernacular.

“Our original pizzas are really a baker’s pizza,” said Caplan, author of “Pizza in New Haven” and a local food tour guide. “When they made bread, they also made pizza.”

The bakers eventually built proper storefront bakeries and pasticcerie. Eventually, some bakers started to focus on pizza exclusively. Caplan said New Haven’s first pizzeria opened in 1899 in a grocery store with an oven in the basement and spawned a colony of pizza joints in New Haven and surrounding towns.

Two of the three pizzerias that form the “Holy Trinity” are within steps of each other on Wooster Street: Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, founded in 1925, and Sally’s Apizza, which Pepe’s sister and nephew established in 1938. Modern Apizza, dating from 1934, is about a half-mile away on State Street. (Apizza, which is pronounced “ah-beetz,” derives from the Neapolitan word for “pizza.”)

Many of the pizza places offer a signature creation, such as the mashed potato pizza at Bar, the Italian Bomb pizza at Modern and the legendary white clam pizza at Pepe — washed down with a Foxon Park soda, a local beverage company founded by an Italian immigrant in 1922. But experts say visitors should not overlook the city’s ancestral tomato pie.

“New Haven-style really is more of an archaic style of pizza. It is perhaps the way it was made 150 years ago in Italy,” Caplan said. “My argument is that New Haven-style is the original style of pizza.”

New Haven-style pizza has bigger aspirations than just being a hometown celebrity. Pepe has locations in seven states, and Sally’s is expanding in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

For an authentic experience beyond its birthplace, Caplan advises diners to ask for their pizza well-done. “They tend to cook it underdone everywhere outside of New Haven,” he said, “because they get yelled at.” — Andrea Sachs

Colin M. Caplan refers to Pepe as “the godfather of pizzerias.” Zabski describes the historic Wooster Street location as “a blast from the past.” Start with a pair of classics: the original tomato pie and the white clam pie starring little necks from Long Island Sound and Massachusetts. Lines can be long, but Caplan recommends arriving early or checking the Spot, the annex that houses the coal-fired brick oven in use since 1925. “You’ll get the same amazing pizza but in a more chill atmosphere and usually next-to-no line,” he said.

The classic Neapolitan cheese pizza. (Rana Düzyol for The Washington Post)

Pat DeRiso doesn’t just run the joint that his father, Ernie, opened in 1971; he makes all of its pies, too. “You’ll find the most consistent and high-level pizza being made [in New Haven],” Caplan said. Zabski said Ernie’s has a strong local following; a fan favorite is the pizza loaded with freshly made meatballs and mozzarella. For Caplan, two standouts at “the pizzeria of my childhood” are the plain mozzarella pizza and the broccoli rabe — hold the mootz. “It can overpower the delicate flavors of this pie,” he said.

The Meatball pie. (Rana Düzyol for The Washington Post)

Next Door started as a mobile operation 20 years ago, when Doug Coffin outfitted an oregano-colored truck with a wood-fired oven and hit the pizza party circuit. In 2018, he opened a stationary pizza parlor adjacent to his Big Green Truck Pizza garage. The establishment has three rooms where diners can tuck into such specialties as the mashed potato with caramelized onions and bacon, one of Caplan’s top picks, or the meatball appetizer.

The cheese pizza and the mashed potato pizza, with caramelized onions and bacon. (Melissa Hom for The Washington Post)

157 Wooster St.

New Haven, Conn., 06511

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874 State St.

New Haven, Conn., 06511

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254 Crown St.

New Haven, Conn., 06511

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175 Humphrey St.

New Haven, Conn., 06511

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687 State St.

New Haven, Conn., 06511

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It’s pizza dressed up for date night — sometimes just enough and sometimes, like a suitor trying too hard to impress you, totally overboard. You’ve seen it at trendy restaurants. The base is always the same: a personal-size thinnish dough, puffed and blistered in a wood oven. The toppings are where it gets creative.

Gourmet, Neapolitan-ish, wood-fired — whatever you call it, it started in California before spreading across the country. Well, it technically started on a vacation in northern Italy.

On a cold November night in the 1970s, Alice Waters — chef and pioneer of the farm-to-table movement — stopped for dinner with friends in Turin, Italy, and had her first pizza from a wood-burning oven. “We all thought it was the best thing we had eaten on the whole trip,” Waters later wrote in the Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook.

After several pizzas and a few bottles of wine, Waters returned to the Bay Area and hired a “cantankerous German bricklayer” to build a wood-burning oven. What she cooked in it was not traditional Neapolitan pizza.

There’s strict criteria to be a certified Neapolitan pizza, according to Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana, its governing body. Pizzas can’t have toppings beyond canned peeled tomatoes, certain cheeses, olive oil, basil, oregano and salt.

[How pizza went from cheap commodity to chefs’ obsession]

But Waters wasn’t going for a certification. She made pizzas with tomatoes, shrimp and green onion. Fennel and mussels. Crawfish tails and yellow tomatoes.

“Whatever was good at a moment in time, we put on a pizza,” Waters says. “In the fall, we would get nettles from our farmer … and we made this nettle pizza with lots of garlic and olive oil, and everybody loved it.”

One fan was Wolfgang Puck. Waters recalls the celebrity chef dining at the then-new Chez Panisse Cafe and remarking that it reminded him of his days cooking in the south of France.

Puck went on to open Spago in the 1980s and commissioned Waters’s bricklayer to build a wood oven. Then he hired San Francisco chef Ed LaDou to run his pizza program. LaDou “was mastering the puffy-crusted, wood-fired pizzas that would become a California pizza trademark,” Nancy Silverton, Los Angeles-based chef and another early California pizza pioneer, said in an email.

Like Waters, Puck was more interested in finding the best ingredients than following any pizza-making traditions at Spago. “I said, ‘We have to make the pizza with great ingredients’ instead of just using tomato sauce,” Puck remembers. “So we went to the farmer’s market.”

A fresh catch of Santa Barbara shrimp meant a pizza with Santa Barbara shrimp. If they got their hands on perfect white corn, Puck and LaDou put it on a pizza. Puck says his most famous creation, a smoked salmon pizza with crème fraîche and caviar, was made on the fly for actress Joan Collins.

California’s burgeoning pizza genre was “more refined,” says Michael Fox, founder of the weekly audio show “The I Need Pizza Club.” “Something a little bit more matured than a very basic kind of pizza.”

The novelty also drew criticism, particularly from East Coast purists. Puck said the pizza chef that LaDou had replaced at Spago quit because of the affront to tradition.

“We get made fun of regionally because we put all sorts of wacky stuff on top of our pizzas,” said Farley Elliott, senior editor at Eater LA and author of “Los Angeles Street Food: A History From Tamaleros to Taco Trucks.”

And yet, the style prevailed — and boomed as Neapolitan took hold of the American pizza scene in the mid-2000s. Elliott notes you can spot the influence of California-style pizza from Phoenix to New Jersey to Ohio. LaDou eventually left Spago to start California Pizza Kitchen, which catapulted creatively topped pizzas into the mainstream. — Natalie B. Compton

This Long Beach, Calif., spot serves a range of styles, from Sicilian squares to Chicago tavern style. But Elliott says this former pizza van turned bricks-and-mortar spot is emblematic of the California pizza movement. “You can get squash blossoms on one and fennel-crusted sausage on the other and nobody bats an eye,” he says.

The Truffle Shuffle, Tie Dye and LBC pizzas. (Sean Scheidt for The Washington Post)

Sarah Minnick’s pizza menu at Lovely’s Fifty Fifty in Portland, Ore., reads like a culinary fairy tale. Pies — made in an electric oven after a decade of wood-only cooking — have included cherry tomato confit with shaved summer squash, orange olive oil and flowers; and one with housemade fennel sausage, lacinato kale, rosemary and Sleeping Beauty cheese from Washington’s Cascadia Creamery. Save room for the housemade ice cream.

Cosmic gold potatoes two ways with curly kale, parsley pesto and egg. (Dina Ávila for The Washington Post)

Citing Waters and other California chefs as his inspiration, Chris Bianco has become famous for artisanal Neapolitan-ish pizzas at his Phoenix and, more recently, Los Angeles restaurants. A visit to the James Beard Award-winning chef’s pizzerias isn’t complete without ordering the Rosa, his legendary creation, with Parmigiano-Reggiano, onion, rosemary and pistachio.

The Rosa pizza. (David Blakeman for The Washington Post)

1093 Hemphill Ave. NW

Atlanta, Ga., 30318

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623 E. Adams St.

Phoenix, Ariz., 85004

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101 N. Harbor Blvd.

Fullerton, Calif., 92832

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5104 Wilson Blvd.

Arlington, Va., 22205

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2308 E. Route 66

Flagstaff, Ariz., 86004

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We created our own national directory of pizza styles by asking Yelp to search more than 85,000 independent and small-chain restaurants for reviews that mentioned 35 styles. To pinpoint reviews specifically about the regional pizza, not the city, we only counted “Detroit style” or “Detroit pizza,” but not just any mention of Detroit. We only considered pizzerias that had at least 100 reviews and where a substantial share mentioned the pizza style in question. We ranked them with a simple formula that accounted for rating (most important), number of reviews (important) and how often reviews mentioned that particular pizza style (less important). For most types, we limited our search to the metro area of the pizza’s birth. Neapolitan doesn’t have a clear U.S. birthplace, so its ranking is national. In a few cases, we removed errant listings.

Editing by Amanda Finnegan and Gabe Hiatt. Illustrations by Dylan Moriarty. Art direction and design by Katty Huertas. Photo editing by Lauren Bulbin. Design editing by Christine Ashack. Copy editing by Jamie Zega and Jim Webster