The pizza capital of America remains firmly planted in New York City—but Los Angeles is nipping at the Big Apple’s heels.
Anthony Mangieri’s Una Pizza Napoletana was crowned the best pizzeria in America for the fourth year in a row by the 50 Top Pizza organization in a ceremony in Manhattan Tuesday night. And William Joo’s intimate L.A. restaurant Pizzeria Sei shot up the rankings this year to tuck in at No. 2. But, in truth, Gotham doesn’t have much to worry about from the City of Angels challenging its overall crown as nine New York pizza spots slotted into the top 50 this year. The remainder of the top five was rounded out by Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco; Jay’s in Kenmore, N.Y.; and Ribalta in N.Y.C.
It’s not a huge surprise Una Pizzeria took the title once again. In the way he runs his shop on New York’s Lower East Side, Mangieri is like the Japanese shokunin, a master artisan dedicated to the daily immersion in their craft. The New Jersey native has devoted the better part of his life to pizza after being struck by inspiration on a trip to Naples in his youth. His original shop opened in Jersey before moving to New York in 2004 and growing a cult following. He reopened Una Pizza in N.Y.C. in 2018 after leaving the city for San Francisco to sling pies the preceding decade. He makes all his pizzas himself, using naturally leavened dough and cooks in a wood-fired oven he had custom-made and imported from Naples. For decades, Mangieri has been a standard bearer of pizza in America.
The Hailey from Pizzeria Sei
Jeremy Repanich
On the other coast, Joo has taken his fine-dining training and combined it with Tokyo-style pizza making to craft creative pies like his mala lamb sausage pizza. His L.A. triumph comes on the heels of the place where he once worked, Providence, finally getting its third Michelin star 20 years…