These 12-inch crusts are light and chewy like typical Neapolitan pies, but with a slightly darker crust like you might see from a coal-fired oven. The Neapolitan wave has washed across Kansas, and in its wake, about an hour and a half west of Kansas City, chef Rick Martin and his partners created a style in Lawrence they call “neo-prairie.” That’s Neapolitan-style pizza made with Kansas ingredients, which means they use flour made from locally grown wheat (instead of Italian “00” flour) and fire their American-made Le Panyol limestone oven with local and renewable hedge wood. Here are the best pizzas from each of the 50 states (plus Washington, D.C.) we’d want to hit if we were landing in each one.Īddress and phone: 814 Massachusetts St, Lawrence (78) But ultimately they are here to serve you: to support your nationwide journey following the t he siren song of ronicups curling, the sound of sauce bubbling, and melted cheese crisping. After all, great pizza is about exploring sauce coastlines, testing the limits of untested cheese pulls, catching a glance of that perfect leopard spotting, or finding that ultimate pizzeria where there is no cornicione left behind. Rules and regulations served on the ivory paper plates of pizz-academia have their time and place. New Yorkers may be too cocky about pizza. The Neapolitan wave may have gone too far, too long.ġ5. There are great pizza styles beyond those in New York, New Haven, and Chicago worth trying across this great country.ġ4. Deep-dish is technically a casserole, but yes, it’s still pizza, and it can be great, but that’s not the only pizza style in Chicago.ġ3. The more toppings there are, the less likely it is, on average, to be a great pie.ġ2. When it comes to slice joints, always be skeptical of a reheat but not dogmatic about refusing one.ġ1. There’s nothing okay about a $1 slice.ġ0. No slice is too big and no price is too big, but the bigger and more expensive the pizza beyond conventional standards, the less likely it is to be good.ĩ. You can’t completely judge a pie by delivery, but you can judge how well a pizza is delivered.Ĩ. Pizzerias don’t always know their best pies.ħ.
Fancy pizza isn’t necessarily great pizza.Ħ. Signature pies, crazy toppings, bizarre topping combinations, and various styles at a pizzeria should always be sampled, but guarantee nothing.ĥ. The way sausage, pepperoni, and mushroom pies are made all say a lot.Ĥ. A plain cheese pizza always establishes a baseline.ģ. Believe in tradition but also in defying tradition for a transformative pizza.Ģ. (Let’s pretend Pizza Moses didn’t drop that third tablet.) The following core principles held true while researching America's best pies:ġ. Keeping in mind the most obvious, “a line is a good sign,” call these the 10 commandments of seeking out great pizza. Some pizza questing principles bear explaining first, though. That’s why we’re here to assist you in your journey. Truth is, there’s so much good pizza these days, finding the best is more difficult than ever. So, over the years, I’ve collected every pizza tome, read every list, talked to and polled local and national experts, made detours on vacation and business trips, and spent weekends and nights after work, researching pizza, tasting pizza, and compiling lists of America’s best pizza for my friends, myself, and various publications. That three-hour wait could match the hype.
But I've also held out for pies cooked to perfection by pizzaiolos across the nation, at places I’ve had long, torrid affairs with.īut, you never know, right? That place you doubted might serve a slice of heaven. In the quest for America’s best, I’ve had pretty average-and at times downright bad-slices that’ve made me wish I’d swiped left on them. It makes me suspicious that whoever first said that actually hadn’t had very much sex, very good sex, or, for that matter, good pizza. “And pizza’s never bad” the thinking goes, right? Maybe. They say pizza’s like sex-that even bad pizza is still, well, pizza.