I hear a lot of bragging among cities about the best pizza: New York pizza, Chicago deep dish, St Louis thin crust, Detroit pizza.
I’ve read online magazines and it seems like cities that keep popping up over and over again are:
Chicago
New York
New Haven
Honorable mention:
San Francisco
Philadelphia
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Washington, DC
Detroit
I can vouch for DC - best pizza I ever had came from some joint my parents and I went to back in the 1980s when I was a teenager (somewhere in NW). Las Vegas is pretty much good at anything, just pick a good hotel/casino, so I don’t question Vegas being included. Ironically, never eaten pizza in Chicago. I’ve eaten bratwurst and tuna on rye - among the best in both categories. Had some great corn beef hash there as well. But never pizza, ironically.
Well, Chicago is not all about deep dish, not even close. It’s just our most famous pizza. I personally think the range of pizzas you can get here is pretty fantastic, but I’m partisan.
I haven’t been to New Haven yet, and that is bucket list for me. I have a feeling that is a pizza that will win my heart.
Otherwise, places I’ve been where I seek out the local pizza (and this is going to be an idiosyncratic list):
New York/New Jersey
Old Forge, Pennsylvania
Detroit
Quad Cities (Illinois/Iowa)
Phoenix (I know; I was surprised as well, but, when it’s on, the Pizza Rosa at Pizzeria Bianco is my favorite pizza in America. But there’s a number of great places there, like Pomo and CIBO, and they have a good variety of styles, as well, from Neapolitan to New York to deep dish to Chicago thin crust.
)
Philadelphia
For many years Portland, Oregon had horrible pizza. but there are now two incredible pizza places: Apizza Scholls with NY-style pizza and Ken’s Artisan Pizza with Neapolitan-style, wood oven baked pizza. They are both as good as any place I’ve eaten outside Italy. But there is not a pizza culture like NYC or Boston.
Innersting you mention NJ because the old Philadelphia mob used to have guys that lived in Cherry Hill if I recall correctly (and Phila mafia, please don’t track my IP and whack me for outing you if you’re reading this). I’d imagine metro Philadelphia has a lot of good pizzerias and yet I can’t recall ever eating pizza in Phila despite many visits and months in that place. Seafood? Hoagies (nothing like a cold hoagie in summer)? Hillary’s ice cream? Geno’s cheese steaks? Yep. But no pizza.
Phoenix doesn’t surprise me. It’s got a great food scene from what I’m told, and a lot of energy. Shit, if Californians can make a good pizza kitchen, why can’t PHX?
Bucket list?
New Haven!
Detroit!
St. Louis (I’ve been to The Hill but never had pizza)
Portland’s a great foodie scene par excellence! Obviously the beer’s great, but Portland has world class food, ranging from Indian to Japanese to Korean to Chinese to…pretty much anything.
That a pizzeria in Portland, Oregon calls itself “Apizza Scholls” is an indication that they are familiar with New Haven-style pizza. From the FAQ page on their website, “We were often compared to the Pizzerias in New Haven, CT by many of our regulars. Many of those pizzerias have Apizza in their name.”
There are three pizzerias in New Haven that are really well-known. Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana was founded in 1925 and is the oldest and best-known. Their signature pie is a white clam pizza. For a long time, there was only the Wooster Square location but in recent years, Frank Pepe’s grandchildren have opened additional locations elsewhere in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. Sally’s Apizza is also highly regarded, and was founded in 1938 by Frank Pepe’s cousin. A standard question is whether you think Pepe’s or Sally’s is better. Personally, I think Modern Apizza (founded in 1934) is best. And there are other pizzerias in and around New Haven that are also really good.
Ok, tricky question. I have had great pizza at specific places in cities you’d not associate with great pizza. Hound dogs pizza in Columbus for instance. Or a place in suburban Pittsburgh (bridgeville) that I sadly forgot the name of. Hell, even Gusano’s here in ft. Smith Arkansas is pretty good. But as a city on the whole, I’m not sure I’d say any of those three cities. LA certainly had lots of great places but also lots of crap. I think that just comes from being a large city.
Las Vegas should not be on that list. Finding a decent pizza in this town is way more difficult than it should be. NO, a $50 pie at a casino is NOT “a decent pizza”; it’s a ridiculous thing that we laugh at tourists for buying, even as we thank them for our spiffy roads.
That is and isn’t true. We definitely eat deep dish here, but, at least in my experience, it tends to be “special occasion” pizza. If you pop into Uno’s/Due’s, or a Geno’s or Malnati’s, the bulk of people there will most likely be local denizens, but they may not be a regularly recurring crowd. I grew up in the city proper, and I didn’t have a proper deep dish until I was in my teens. We have our own style of thin crust that is your typical party pizza or shit-I-don’t-feel-like-cooking-tonight pizza. That’s the pizza I’m used to here as the day-to-day pizza. When I go over to a friend’s house for a party and they say they’re going to have pizza, it’s never been a deep dish. Like, literally, never. Now, I’m sure it happens, but the problem is deep dish or stuffed generally require utensils and if you’re dealing with a party, you don’t want to deal with that.
I had great pizza at “Extreme” (Xtreme?) pizza in Long Beach, and there was also this pizza place near Napa, the name of which I forgot but it had outstanding pizza. Their wild boar pizza was to die for - wish I could remember the name.
I ate pizza in a Brooklyn neighborhood restaurant about 2 years ago. It was great pizza, except that it was gourmet and wasn’t what I had ever imagined eating in Brookyln. But then again, many of my stereotypes and preconceived notions of Brooklyn where crushed by my visit there LOL
Dayton, Ohio, should be on the list. Dayton has a style of pizza I haven’t found anywhere else yet—available at Marion’s Piazza and Cassano’s Pizza King. It’s heaven.
Looking at Google images, a lot of those pictures look like Chicago style thin crust/tavern pizza, including the square “party cut,” except that the sausage pizza looks like it’s crumbled sausage rather than clumps of sausage like we do here. The crumbled sausage reminds me of Quad Cities pizza, but their crust is different. and they have a funky way of cutting their pizza (down the middle and then laterally into wide strips.)
So, to me, sounds like a lot of local thin crust pizza here in Chicago (and in other parts of the Midwest–Milwaukee in particular, but also parts of Indiana and other parts of Ohio) with the square cut and no outer crust. A dusting of cornmeal is popular with some places, and the sweetness of the sauce will vary (Aurelio’s and Palermo’s, for instance, being examples of the “sugar sauce” places.) You won’t see that style of crumbled sausage here, I don’t think. Only place I know that does it in Chicago is Roots Pizza, but they do Quad Cities style.
I live in DC and love my city, and while we do have a vibrant food scene, we do not do pizza well. There are a couple of places, like Timber, that do a nice job, but I’m sorry to say we don’t belong on this particular list.
I’ve never been to NY, but I’ve tried the “NY style” pizza from Jimmy’s and Santullo’s in Chicago. I will never understand why NY pizza is a thing. It’s greasy, flavorless cheese like substance on charred cardboard. Some day, maybe, I’ll get to NY and try a real place like that, but for now, I have no idea why it’s a thing.
And having lived in St. Louis for a few years now, I can unequivocally say there are some great pizza places here (Deweys and Pi are very, very good), but “St. Louis style” pizza is the worst pizza I’ve ever had.