I can think of a few contenders for best pizza that I have had (mostly in Italy) - but the worst was undoubtedly a ghastly slice of horror that I purchased at the big conference centre in Atlanta - the pizza topping had been burnt and this was remedied by heaping on more cheese and mystery meat to obscure this fact.

Worst pizza I've ever had was from a shop just off the Metro at the foot of Montmartre in Paris. Just a normal pizza, no weird toppings. I managed two bites (I was very hungry or bite two would not have been attempted).

Second worst was when I first had Imo's without knowing what provel was. I think I got through almost half a slice on that one. You must have to grow up eating it to find it edible.

The next few rankings after that, moving up the list, would be very cheap frozen pizzas. Like, the dollar or two a pie (on sale) kind.

The best pizza I've ever found was inside the Manhattan terminal of the Staten Island Ferry. This was over 50 years ago so who knows now. Growing up in the mid 50s and early 60s pizza was 15 cents a slice and a coke to go with it was a dime so my Mom would give my sister and I a quarter each and we would walk down the block to the local pizza parlor for a Saturday lunch treat. Large soft pretzels were a nickel each or 6 for a quarter from push cart vendors. It was a good time to grow up.

> but the worst was undoubtedly a ghastly slice of horror that I purchased at the big conference centre in Atlanta

Well duh. It's conference center food. Might as well complain how the worst hamburger you had was at a McDonalds in Portland.

"It's conference center food."

Believe me - I was allowing for that!

If we're comparing regional variations, I defy anybody to exceed Regina-style, as taken to it's extreme by Vern's:

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x531c1ec8469aabe...

Truly an abomination.

Hamilton, Ontario has a pizza style that I haven't seen anywhere else - it's similar but not quite the same as Sicilian pizza.

The pizza is rectangular, incredibly thick (almost a cake-like consistency and crumb), with tomato sauce on top and usually nothing else.

I like it, but probably more due to it being comfort food from when I was a kid at parties than the pizza actually being particularly good.

https://s3-media1.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/JkEI-lNlRm-ELKgV2keU...

That, like Chicago style, is lasagna. No one can convince me otherwise

Maybe the best pizza in the United States. I'm Italian, the classic United States pizza could hardly be called "pizza" here, since it's not risen enough for being a pizza.

Pizza quality varies wildly in America. There are a lot of places where the only "fresh pizza" you will find is something from one of the big chains. And there are a lot of places that serve pizza that just serve terrible quick food in general, so not surprising the pizza will be bad too.

Having said that, there is a lot of good Pizza in the US, especially in areas with heavy Italian immigrations like the north east. Obviously its a different style than most Italian Pizza, but its still really good.

I have only been to Italy once for three weeks to visit my cousins, but I read a lot about pizza. From what I have read/watched from Italian sources, even Pizza in Italy was in somewhat of a rut ~20+ years ago.

> Having said that, there is a lot of good Pizza in the US

Northeast region pizzerias are a given. Varasano's down south in Atlanta is pretty fantastic however.

Looks like a neapolitan style, which is maybe the third wave of pizza in the US. Lots of neapolitan style places have opened in in the last 15 years. I like that style, but I wouldn't say its my favorite.

I would probably put a well done Regina's pizza (Boston) or a Prince Street (NYC) spicy pepperoni square slice ahead of any neapolitan pizza, and I say that as someone who owns a pizza oven and makes a lot of neapolitan style pizza.

> Lots of neapolitan style places have opened in in the last 15 years.

Yep! But not in the American south.

I agree with you, though nyc pizza is actually really good (thin crust which tastes good and good ingredients)!! Im no italian, but as a frenchy that loved to tell americans how bad their pizzas are, i must tell that shut me up.

Chicago pizza and its dip dish really on the other hand, was one of the biggest deception of my life ^^

But i’ll definitely agree - i find your typical usa pizza (HUGE crust, terrible ingredients) impossible to enjoy ;p

The true Chicago pizza that is more ubiquitous in the region than deep dish is Tavern style pizza. It is a cracker style crust, sweeter sauce, cheese to edge of the crust, and cut in squares. It also best well-baked. https://www.bonappetit.com/story/real-chicago-pizza-tavern-s... Check it out next time your in Chicago.

I went to a well-famed pizzeria with a few friends. Among them was a woman from Napoli who was in France for a few months. When we asked what she thought of her pizza she said:

> It's good. Nothing great, but once I stopped thinking of it as a pizza, I found it was good food.

I've never had pizza in Italy, but I've had pizza from places in the US certified by Vera Pizza Napoletana.

It's truly delicious... and nowhere near my favorite pizza in the US.

Where in Italy are you from? I've spent quite a bit of time there. I've had pizza in Florence, pizza in Rome, pizza in Sorrento, pizza in Palermo and at a few Autogrills in between. I can't comment on the pizza in New Haven, but I can say for sure there's no standard dough in Italy.

Have you had pizza in Rome? Rome is a good example: Rome has a tradition of thin and crunchy pizza, which is far from the "standard" pizza (which is the Naples one). Rome pizza is pretty common in Rome, tough there are also many places serving Naples pizza. The point is: Italian people living in Rome and going out for a pizza usually distinguish between the two kinds of pizza: for example, I have lived in Rome for some years and, since I don't like Rome pizza ("pizza romana"), I always chose places serving Naples pizza.

In the rest of Italy is the same: you call it "pizza", but you distinguish between places that make good Naples pizza, bad Naples pizza, good not-Naples pizza, bad not-Naples pizza.

A Neapolitan just died of heart attack reading this comment :)

The pizza on that page looks extremely greasy and - most importantly - burned! Hope it's not representative of New Haven pizza in general.

I have eaten those style of pizza. They are tasty. Not everything must be Neapolitan to be edible. I think it may depends on local ingredients - since Italy has amazing ones it is just a matter of putting simple toppings with minimal heat processing not to fuck them up and serve.

If there were no good local substitutes you have to pump up the grease and toast the ingredients a bit more to make it flavorful enough.

For cases like New Haven Style pizza and some of the original NYC pizza places like lombardi's, they use coal ovens which get really really hot but don't really have a flame like wood oven. So you end up cooking them longer than in a wood oven, which makes them crispier but also a little charred around the edges.

Given that these places served a lot of immigrants when they opened, I also wouldn't be surprised if it helped having a sturdier pizza that you could take to work with you.

Oh I know it can be tasty, I have eaten my fair share of greasy pizzas too. And I’m not saying neapolitan is the only possible pizza style, although in my opinion it’s the best one. Neapolitan is actually charred on the crust too, but it’s not that extreme - the crust from the pizza above is basically coal... Don’t get me wrong, I would eat it anyway (maybe skipping the crust), but it definitely doesn’t look like a “best in the world” pizza.

As for the ingredients, I’m not sure why Italy would have inherently better local ingredients. I can understand why northern Europe has shitty tomatoes (too cold to grow compared to, for example, southern Italy), but with its size, population and diversity of climates I imagine you can grow pretty much anything in the US at a decent quality, without the need to grease stuff to give it flavor.

The quality of American produce is surprisingly mixed. For a lot of it, you've got to shop around and maybe pay a little more to get the same as baseline normal quality in large parts of Europe. I don't know why, but that's how it is. OTOH we have lots and lots of very cheap, kinda bad produce. So there's that.

It's also possible to live among wheat fields and not be able to buy good bread for anything less than insane luxury food prices here. All I can figure is our ovens cost more to run? I mean I know it's not that but I can't figure out WTF else could be the problem.

Decent cheese is also a lot more expensive—but again, we have lots and lots of fairly bad but very cheap options. And the cheaper end of our wine market is (much) less consistently good than in, say, France.

PDO and PDI help a lot when it comes to providing excellent and consistent ingredients.

You could grow anything in the US and there are indeed great producers for everything. The problem is recognition.

PDO/DOP Parmigiano, prosciutto and olive oil and san marazano tomatoes are in the you cannot do wrong cathegory. They are always excellent.

A pizza maker in the US will have a lot harder time discovering great ingredients made in US. Not because they don't exist, but because anyone can label almost anything.

> I imagine you can grow pretty much anything in the US at a decent quality

I believe this is true, subject to the original source material (seeds?) being imported.

> but with its size, population and diversity of climates

This makes it tricky, as producing enough of the high quality ingredients in appropriate locations, that can survive the transportation distances, creates a whole new range of problems.

Solving this at Italy scale is a different matter to solving this at USA scale.

> Solving this at Italy scale is a different matter to solving this at USA scale.

Italian cuisine is all about letting the ingredients speak for themselves and success really depends on having high quality ingredients. So, yes, selecting for tomatoes that have long shelf life and trucking them long distances would violate Italian food sensibilities.

The Italian point of view would be to make the most of the ingredients that are available where you are. In other words, if you don't have fresh tasty tomatoes in the middle of winter, don't substitute subpar global-supply-chain tomatoes from the supermarket. Instead, use something else, like high-quality sundried tomatoes or don't use tomatoes at all. This is what happens in Italy, and it's why what visiting Americans might consider "iconic" Italian dishes aren't always present or recognizable.

imo what makes neapolitan pizzas so outstanding and difficult to reproduce is the quality and freshness of the tomatoes. there are lots of pizza joints with the same kinds of ovens that they use in naples. but the tomatoes in naples are grown in the volcanic soil of mt vesuvius, and iirc they don't use tomatoes out of a can; only fresh. neapolitan tomatoes are exported abroad (san marzanos) but they're canned and not as tasty.

It's not burned, its charred. And that is New Haven style. It's pretty good.

English is not my native language, but to me charred is a type of burned?

It was partly a joke, it's somewhat of a touchy subject for those that love New Haven style pizza. People that don't care for that style often called it burned, and fans of new haven style pizza are quick to "correct" them.

With a coal fired pizza, the goal is to get a bit of black on the outside, a crispy crust with a fluffy inside.

Some places with a high heat brick oven will char a pizza. I like a pizza "well done" because a few burnt spots on the crust and topping is worth the extra crunchy crispy crust