The Best Pizza Place in Every State

Chef John Hall worked in several esteemed New York City restaurants before coming to Birmingham to open a pizzeria with a friend in an old post office. Pies are topped with house-made mozzarella and cooked in a handmade wood-fired brick oven, which yields crisp, thin, char-edged pies. The essential order: Saw’s Soul Pie, topped with BBQ pork, Saw’s BBQ sauce, onions, and mozzarella, with Alabama white sauce on the side.

Fellow rock climbers Rod Hancock and Matt Jones had little restaurant experience when they started serving draft beer and stone-baked pizzas in the mid-1990s, but their pies have drawn lines ever since then. The menu features some 35 variations, but the Avalanche is the best known. It’s loaded with pepperoni, blackened chicken, bacon, red onion, cheddar, mozzarella, provolone, and BBQ sauce. Or go local with the Call of the Wild, which includes reindeer sausage among many other ingredients.

From its origins in the back of a grocery store in 1988, this pizzeria has grown into an essential destination for pizza-lovers in the West. Pies come from both a wood-fired oven (among them a version with house-smoked mozzarella, wood-roasted onions, and fennel sausage, with optional add-ons including San Daniele prosciutto and Gaeta olives) and a classic New York pizzeria-style deck oven (producing New York-style pizzas, not surprisingly, including one with three cheeses — aged provolone, montasio, and local Rovey Farms sheep’s cheese). Founder Chris Bianco was the first pizzaiolo to win a James Beard Best Chef award. Order a signature Margherita by all means, but the Rosa, with red onions, parmigiano-reggiano, rosemary, and Arizona pistachios, is a delicious specialty you shouldn’t miss.

Serving “The South’s Best Pizza,” according to Southern Living Magazine, DeLuca’s was founded by former New York City trader Anthony Valinoti. The place specializes in wood-fired brick-oven pizza, with a nice char on the handmade dough and a variety of Italian-inspired toppings like spicy soppressata, prosciutto, and homemade meatballs.

Award-winning baker and chef Nancy Silverton’s Los Angeles hotspot Osteria Mozza also happens to be home to what is arguably the city’s best pizzeria — Pizzeria Mozza, attached to the restaurant. The place turns out a wide range of pies topped with some of the finest seasonal ingredients you’ll ever see on a pizza, including corn, Fresno chiles, Meyer lemon, and squash blossoms.

This rustic Denver-area roadside pizzeria serves pies in one size only (roughly 14 inches across), in both red and white variations. The Margherita is classic. Less so the seasonal Peach Pit (fresh peaches, crispy prosciutto, mozzarella, ricotta, pistachios, arugula, and spicy honey) and the Street Taco (homemade chorizo, tomatillo salsa, mozzarella, red onion, cotija cheese, corn, and cilantro).

Hailed repeatedly by The Daily Meal as the home of America’s best pizza, Frank Pepe is a must-visit spot if you want to be able to talk pizza seriously. Opened in New Haven’s Wooster Square in 1925, it serves long, more-or-less oval, crisp-crust pizzas fired in the restaurant’s coal ovens. The fresh tomato pie, available only in the summer months, is a favorite, but the most famous offering here is the clam pie, topped with freshly shucked littlenecks, garlic, olive oil, herbs, and parmigiano-reggiano (no mozzarella).

The Neapolitan-style pizzas here — 12″ and 16″ pies cooked in a wood-burning oven at 600º-plus — range from a classic margherita to creations like the Besto Pesto (including house-made walnut pesto, fire-roasted chicken, peppadew peppers, and red onion). A few appetizers and pastas are also offered, and the dessert menu features handcrafted gelato.

Shaun Aloisio was one of the first pizzaioli in America to be certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, which sets the standards for authentic Neapolitan-style pizza. That was at the original Scuola Vecchia (which means “old school” — a hint as to Alosio’s culinary philosophy) in Delray Beach. He moved the restaurant to Coral Springs in 2021, where he continues to turn out pies that are mostly traditional (including a classic margherita), though he does offer a kid-pleasing variation topped with hot dog pieces and french fries.

You wouldn’t mistake this Atlanta suburb for New Jersey, Motor City, or Long Island, but Anthony Spina’s “Jersey-style” pizzas (made with hand-pulled mozzarella), his cheese-crusty Detroit variations, and his accolade-showered New York grandma pies (basic square pizzas baked in a pan with various toppings) are better than many you’d find in their states of origin. (04W has a second location in Miami Beach.)

The only member of the authentic-pizza-defining Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana in Hawaii, Brick Fire Tavern was opened in Honolulu’s Chinatown in 2016 by Matthew Resich and the late Inthira Marks, both of whom studied the art of pizza-making in Naples with one of the Associazione’s founders. The restaurant closed in the face of COVID in 2020, but reopened a few months later in a new location and has been going strong ever since. Resich uses local ingredients in his array of classic and inventive pies.

The original Casanova — which claims inspiration from Naples, New York City, and the Connecticut pizza capital of New Haven — opened in 2004, but closed in 2015. Now it’s back, though, stoking its 700º oven in a new location, offering a wide range of specialty pies, including two versions with pineapple (one of them, the Medusa, also involving gorgonzola and figs) and the Idahoan, topped with Alfredo sauce, parmesan, chorizo, and…roasted potatoes.

Pequod’s late founder, Burt Katz, is legendary in Chicago’s deep-dish lore, and his tradition lives on with Pequod’s thin-crust pizzas in three sizes and pan (deep-dish) pizzas in four, featuring blackened caramelized crusts — chewy, nearly burnt cheese edges rimming a cheesy pool of sauce. In addition to the usual toppings an option offered for either kind of pie is Italian beef.

This Indy pizzeria and vinoteca (wine bar to you) prides itself on making not just its own pizza dough but its own pastas and sauces daily. The pizzas are 13″ pies, offered in about 20 variations (including a crowd-pleasing chicken barbeque version). Gluten-free crust and vegan cheese are available options. For customized pizzas, the ingredients include peppadew peppers, brussels sprouts, and capicola, in addition to more usual offerings.

With a name that sounds like a plaintive cry from a hungry frat boy, this local favorite in Iowa’s second-largest city doesn’t offer pre-made combinations – diners concoct their own. Pies, available with gluten-free and cauliflower crusts as well as the usual, are offered in three sizes (12″, 16″, and “massive”). The crusts all come with olive oil, garlic, oregano, and grated parmesan, and after that it’s up to the customer. All the usual choices are available (plus vegan cheese and meats), with a few unusual ones too — like sauerkraut, pickles, and mashed potato.

The crust is Neapolitan-style and the ingredients are largely sourced from northeastern Kansas at this popular establishment specializing in what a travel website once described as “wood-fired ‘neo-prairie’ style pizza.” The margherita is much praised, but the menu also offers such variations as a pie with such ingredients as Black Mission figs, house-made “rustic sausage” and Canadian bacon, and pork carnitas.

“Louisville-style pizza?” That’s what Benny Impellizzeri calls his pies made with two layers of cheese and two layers of toppings. While many pizzerias offer only one or two sizes, Impellizzeri’s makes four (10″, 12″, 14″, 16″) for standard pizzas, two for thin crust versions (14″ and 16″). A signature thin crust pie is the Old Forester Hickory BBQ made with Old Forester bourbon-spiked barbecue sauce, chicken, bacon, and cheddar, and mozzarella cheese.

The wood-oven pizzas were so popular at Domenica, the upscale Italian restaurant in the Roosevelt New Orleans Hotel, that they got spun off to their own dedicated venue around the corner (though pizza is still served at Domenica itself) and subsequently to two other locations in town. Specialty offerings include a ham and ricotta pie with apples, honey, and basil, but more conventional varieties are available as well.

Located in Portland’s old Public Market building, Slab advertises its “Sicilian street food” — which includes what the pizzeria describes as Old World-style dough, formed into thick square, well, slabs. The basic offering includes tomato sauce, mozzarella, provolone, and oregano, with pepperoni optional, and there’s a Spicy Meat pie with red pepper sauce, pepperoni, pepperoncini, mozzarella, provolone, and blue cheese dip. Thin crust pies are also available.

A key part of the city’s Station North Arts and Entertainment District, Joe Squared specializes in (not surprisingly) square pizzas. The sourdough crust is said to be made with a 200-year-old starter and the 900º pizza oven is coal-burning. In addition to a selection of signature pies in four sizes, the restaurant offers more than 70 possible toppings for a build-your-own version. Among the many non-pizza items on the menu are chicken wings in 10 variations.

One of America’s oldest pizzerias, Santarpio’s is a tavern that opened its East Boston location in 1903. It serves damp, chewy pies, including plain cheese, The Works (mushrooms, onions, peppers, garlic, sausage, pepperoni, extra cheese, and optional anchovies), and a combination of mozzarella, sausage, and garlic that is said to be its most popular pizza. Though you might come here for the pies, don’t overlook Santarpio’s iconic “barbecue” skewers of lamb, steak tips, chicken, or sausage served with hot cherry peppers and fresh-baked Italian bread.

Detroit-style pizza has taken off in trendy pizzerias across the country, but Buddy’s owners would argue that Detroit-style pizza is Buddy’s pizza. The pizzeria opened as a tavern in 1946, and under then-owner August “Gus” Guerra, started serving crispy, sauce-topped cheese pies with inch-tall crusts, baked in square pans that supposedly were originally used for auto parts. They’re like the ideal open-faced grilled cheese sandwich turned into the pizza of your dreams.

Jordan Smith and Colleen Doran opened Black Sheep as the first coal-burning pizza restaurant in Minneapolis in 2008, serving 12″ and 16″ pies with classic toppings and also with such unique combinations as Persian beef, tomato, feta, and harissa, and oyster mushroom, smoked mozzarella, rosemary, and garlic. A house specialty is The Sicilian – a 16″ square pie topped with nothing but sauce, mozzarella, and extra-virgin olive oil.

Dan Blumenthal and Jeff Good — not Sal and Mookie — opened this tribute to New York-style pizza (and New York itself) in Jackson in 2007, later expanding to Madison and Biloxi (the latter of which closed earlier this year). Pizzas evoke the city not only with their crust but with their names: the Brighton Beach has mozzarella, provolone, cheddar, grilled chicken, and sautéed onions and bell peppers; the Penn Station references bagels with toppings including dill-caper cream cheese, smoked salmon, red onions, and tomatoes.

Run by the sons of the founders of the original Faraci’s Pizza in nearby Ferguson, Faraci’s makes (not surprisingly considering its proximity to the city) St. Louis-style pizza. That means square, and cut into squares, with an unleavened crust and generous portions of Provel cheese, a local specialty that’s in effect an amalgam of provolone, cheddar, and Swiss. All the usual toppings are available, and there are a few signature combinations — for instance, Nonna’s Meatball Pizza, with house-made meatballs and tomato sauce.

“Biga” isn’t a mock-Italian rendering of the word for “large” — it’s a dense, pre-fermented dough starter often used by Italian bakers, and the basis for the crusts here at New Jersey-born Bob Marshall’s pizzeria. Biga’s house pie is a margherita variation using garlic oil as well as tomato sauce, basil, and mozzarella. More unusual choices include one with sweet potato, bacon, toasted hazelnuts, mozzarella, garlic, and maple-chipotle drizzle.

Alfonso Orsi opened this Omaha institution in the city’s Little Italy in 1919. His son and then grandson later ran it (the latter overseeing a rebuild after the place was destroyed by fire in 1997), selling it to Orsi’s great-grandson, Bob Jr., and a partner, Jim Hall, in 2006. Four years later, Hall and his wife, Kathy, bought the place, and continue the Orsi’s tradition. Except for a small gluten-free round pie, pizzas are rectangular, and come with a choice of about 20 toppings. Orsi’s also produces four varieties of “Goudarooni” — double-crust pizzas (one with hamburger, broccoli, potato, onion, and cheese). Homemade breads and a selection of meats, cheeses, and other Italian deli items are also available.

If there’s a pizza style that Northern California-based pie king Tony Gemignani doesn’t know how to make, it’s hard to believe he won’t figure it out. Gemiginani’s colorful, bustling Vegas area joints serve no fewer than 10 different styles, including Roman, classic Italian, deep dish, thin crust, New York, and Detroit — and do them all admirably well.

Thick layers of toppings on thick crusts are the style here, and the House of Pizza obviously goes for fun over authenticity. The menu of specialty pizzas includes Tex-Mex, BLT, and Greek variations, as well as such over-the-top offerings as the Pastrami Bomb (pastrami, mushrooms, roasted peppers, and caramelized onions) and the Loaded Potato (fried potatoes, red onion, bacon, and Alfredo sauce).

New Jersey native Dan Richer opened Razza in 2012, but its reputation exploded in 2017 after New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells wrote provocatively that this New Jersey pizzeria served the best pizza in New York City [sic]. The pies, which use local and seasonal ingredients as much as possible, are a little larger than standard Neapolitan pizzas, but they truly are worth the hype — and the wait. One unusual pie is the Di Natale, with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, olives, pine nuts, raisins, garlic, basil, and chili oil.

Restaurateurs Greg Atkin, Rick Post, and Tom White, with then-partner Tom Hennessy, opened the original Il Vicino in Albuquerque in 1992. The wood-fired pies range from a classic margherita and straightforward pepperoni pizza to the Gamberoni (spicy shrimp, mozzarella, and asiago) and the Molta Carne (“Much Meat”), including pepperoni, house-made sausage, and capicola as well kalamata olives, mushrooms, and mozzarella. (There are additional Il Vicino locations in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Wichita, Kansas.)

Trying to choose one pizzeria to represent New York — arguably the country’s pizza capital — is a difficult task, but considering quality, consistency, and longevity, John’s seems like a reasonable choice. This 92-year-old classic serves 14″ and 16″ medium-thin-crust New York-style pizzas from a coal-fired oven. Some 15 toppings are available, and specialty pies range from The Sasso (parmigiano, oregano, black pepper) to the “staff favorite” Boom Pie, with Polly-O mozzarella, tomato sauce, roasted tomatoes, ricotta, garlic, and basil.

Long Island-born Anthony Guerra did a stint at Kesté in New York City and later, after a move south, opened Bella Mia Coal Fired Pizza in Cary, North Carolina, with his family. After they sold the place, Guerra started looking for a new location to make pizza the way he likes it — not in an oven fueled by wood or coal but in a customized Montague 1857 Hearth Bake gas oven. The Pizza Box menu is simplicity itself: Start with an 18″ conventional or white pizza or a 12″ x 18″ crispy square, then add toppings from a brief, conventional list. There’s nothing else on the menu except those options, a couple of salads, and cannoli (plus drinks).

Neapolitan-style pizza fans Kendra and Kenny Howard opened Fireflour — the name paying tribute to two essential elements of pizza-making — in 2012. Their wood-fired oven turns out both red and white pies (the former include the Peppy, with organic tomato sauce, hand-stretched mozzarella, pepperoni, and romano cheese; among the latter is the Uptown, with provolone, goat cheese, roasted red peppers, sliced tomatoes, zucchini, red onions, arugula, and walnuts). Gelato and a serious coffee program are added pleasures.

The pizzas Mike Griffin serves at both Crust locations aren’t fooling around. The hand-tossed or thin-crust pies, available in 12″ and 16″ sizes, include a Greek-flavored spanakopita entry (spinach, garlic, feta, mozzarella, lemon zest, extra-virgin olive oil), a Spanish chorizo version (on which the sausage is joined by goat cheese, fresh rosemary, roasted garlic, fire-roasted red peppers, and smoked mozzarella), and, for those who dare, the Hot Stuffed Banana Pepper pie, combining red sauce, oregano, fresh mozzarella, and pecorino with spicy ground-pork-stuffed banana peppers. Some 27 standard and premium toppings are also available if you want to create your own version. Don’t want a whole pie? You can also build your own “humungus” individual 8″x16″ slice.

The 20″ New York-style pies here come with names like Fungus Among Us (cremini and button mushrooms, spinach, and truffle oil), Foghorn Leghorn (sweet marinara sauce, roasted chicken, bacon, jalapeños, and a sriracha drizzle), and Ghostface Killah (ghost pepper marinara, pepperoni, poblano chiles, and BBQ chips). But this is a slice house, after all, so much of the attention goes to the daily-changing roster of five different $4.50 slices.

International pizza consultant Anthony Falco dubbed Portland “America’s greatest pizza city” — and among Portland pizzerias, Apizza Scholls is royalty. There are specials to select from — for instance the Bacon Bianca, a sauceless pie topped with whole-milk mozzarella, grana padano, pecorino romano, “lots of fresh garlic,” herbs, black pepper, extra-virgin olive oil, and of course house-cured bacon. You can also choose your own topping combos for the 18″ pies, of course — though for reasons of balance, the pizzeria limits toppings to three ingredients, including two meats per pie.

Joe Beddia had the idea of making the best quality New York-style pizza he could, his way, using the best ingredients he could find. His Pizzeria Beddia, which he founded in Philadelphia in 2013, was named the country’s best pizzeria two years later by Bon Appétit. Beddia’s place immediately became the Franklin Barbecue of pizza, with lines around the block for the mere 40 pies he made daily Wednesday through Saturday. But Beddia himself was making all the pies so he could pay close attention to detail, and this took its toll. He closed his place in 2018 and reopened Beddia 2.0 nearby — this time with partners and other pizza makers. They may not all have Beddia’s same master touch, and the pies aren’t exact facsimiles of the earlier ones, but they still have all the great flavors of his original work. They come in only one size, 16″, and in four house variations — though patrons may also customize their own tomato/whole-milk mozzarella/grana padano pie with a choice of seven toppings.

When noted food writer John Mariani reviewed the original location of Nana’s — in Mystic, Connecticut, six or seven miles west of the Rhode Island border — he described the pizzas as being as “close to any I’ve had in Naples and Sicily, with a crust with a crisp but pliant texture.” He would presumably say the same about this nearby offshoot. Nana’s is the work of James Wayman, former chef and partner at Mystic’s acclaimed Oyster Club, and at Nana’s he focuses (as he did at that restaurant) on local and regional ingredients, though he keeps things simple. He produces a classic tomato pie, with just local tomatoes (in season, of course), olive oil, and basil. Add mozzarella and it becomes a Margherita. A few other variations and additions are available (including Seacoast mushrooms from Mystic), and it’s all more than enough.

Two veterans of Charleston’s esteemed Fig restaurant, Matt McIntosh and Ricky Hacker, launched EVO (which they say stands for “Extra Virgin Oven”) in 2005 as a wood-fired pizza oven on wheels. It was a success, enough so that in 2007 they opened this brick-and-mortar restaurant, offering such unusual choices as a pistachio pesto pizza with local fromage blanc, ground pistachios, crème fraîche, mozzarella, and parmigiano, and a bacon and beet pie, which includes beet purée, Keegan-Filion Farms bacon, pickled fresno peppers, wilted arugula, mozzarella, parmigiano-reggiano, and panko gremolata. Local produce is featured throughout.

The Bell family’s Dough Trader — operating out of a former Tastee Freeze that was moved to Spearfish in the 1950s and remodeled in 2011 — serves hand-stretched sourdough-crust pizzas in two sizes: Little (6″-8″) and Big (12″-14″). Among the imaginative (and imaginatively named) signature pies are the Dances with Goats (chicken, onion, Roma tomato, corn, artichoke, feta, cheese blend, and Alfredo sauce) and Luigi’s Hidden Star (marinara sauce, sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, olives, banana peppers, and cheese blend). A create-your-own option with 26 possible additions, dubbed Humble Pie, is also offered.

With both a sit-down side and an informal counter-service section, the two locations of this Music City favorite advertise “Hot Pizza * Cold Beer” — the former meaning 14″ and 18″ pizzas baked in gas-fueled brick ovens. Among the choices are a pesto pie (house-made walnut pesto, mushrooms, red onions, artichokes, and mozzarella) and a habanero cream sauce pie (house-made habanero cream sauce, bacon, oven-roasted tomatoes, red onions, basil, and mozzarella). The dough is vegan, and vegan cheese and pepperoni are available, and those who consider beer and pizza to be the perfect combination will appreciate the 16 rotating taps.

Chef Michael Sohocki closed his acclaimed Restaurant Gwendolyn in late 2021 but is still going strong with four other establishments — including this pizzeria serving wood-fired, thin-crust Neapolitan-style pies. They’re available in one size only (12″) and in only 11 variations, with no customization offered. The sausage, coppa, and other meats are house-made, though; the margherita is classic; and diners love such choices as the Carbonara (with garlic, mushrooms, guanciale, egg, and roasted onion) and the four-cheese Quad

This original location of this old-school Salt Lake City institution occupies a brick-walled basement under a pharmacy (it’s styled as The Pie Underground). The place is a popular student hang, where the specialties include three kinds of pizza-adjacent “Pull-A-Parts” (basically rounds of dough sectioned into flat breadsticks, with various toppings) and variations made with “ApocalyptDough” — in which spices in the dough create a “creeping, unique burn that slowly approaches and has an undetermined lingering effect.” Vegan and gluten-free options are available.

Thin-crust Neapolitan-style pizza cooked in a “very hot” wood-burning oven is the deal at this Burlington pizzeria, opened in 2012. Sixteen house specialty pies range from a traditional margherita to one topped with gorgonzola and fig preserves to an unusual Cherry Amore, with tomatoes, fior di latte mozzarella, parmigiano, dried cherries, arugula, fresh basil, and a drizzle of hot honey. Three gluten-free pizzas, cooked in a dedicated gluten-free oven, are also offered.

Opened in 2010 by the owners of the same community’s upscale French-accented 2941 Restaurant, and under the supervision of its executive chef, Daniel Boulud veteran Bertrand Chemel, Orso bakes Neapolitan-style pizzas in an imported Italian wood-fired dome oven. Besides the house creations, from a simple cheese pizza to the Capricciosa (ham, artichokes, cremini mushrooms, olives, basil, mozzarella, and tomato sauce), the menu proposes about 25 optional toppings for do-it-yourselfers, and also sells a home pizza kit including dough, San Marzano tomato sauce, bufala mozzarella, grana, and fresh basil.

Seattle pizza maven Brandon Pettit slings seven variations on 18″ rounds or square Sicilian crusts, using his custom brick ovens. Extra toppings are available, but as a note on his website points out, “more than three toppings will be expensive and won’t be any better.” His Sicilians are the right move, airy and crunchy, with sides crisped with blackened cheese. Note that only patrons 21 and older are allowed.

Hand-stretched Neapolitan-style pizzas are the thing here at what bills itself as “West Virginia’s first and only coal fired pizzeria.” (And it’s not just any coal: According to the pizzeria website “We use domestic Anthracite, the oldest, hardest and cleanest type of coal…virtually free of smoke and particulate emissions.”) Available in 8″, 12″, and 16″ sizes, the specialty pizzas include the Mia Margherita (a conventional Margherita with house-made pesto added) and the West Virginia Via San Francisco (Mia’s own pepperoni, Italian sausage, mozzarella, ricotta, and parmigiano). More than 20 toppings are offered for those who want to customize — including grilled limoncello chicken, spinach, and broccolini, as well as more usual options.

Christiano’s owner Larry Wise is said to have sampled countless cheeses before finding the right mozzarella for his pies (it’s from Wisconsin, of course), and the other ingredients that go into the pizzas here were doubtless subjected to the same scrutiny. In addition to a number of classic variations, the pizzeria offers such innovations as the Pesto & Pistachio (basil pesto, mozzarella, bacon, and pistachios) and the CBR (garlic butter, chicken, red onion, bacon, mozzarella, arugula, and ranch dressing).

Mark Dym and Kristy Latorraca Dym opened their first pizzeria in Denver in 2008 — the first such operation in Colorado to be certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, which defines authentic Neapolitan-style pizza. Today, they maintain two Colorado locations, both called Marco’s Coal Fired, as well as this Wyoming outpost. Ten 12″ specialty pizzas include the Toscana (fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, arugula, prosciutto di Parma, pecorino sardo, and grape tomatoes) and the Liguria (fresh mozzarella, pecorino romano, limoncello chicken breast, red onions, grape tomatoes, and pesto). About 30 toppings are available for DIY pizza aficionados to add to regular or gluten-free crusts.