11 Best Pizza Restaurants in the U.S.

Scroll For More Photos

1 / 12

Bufalina Pizza

Simplicity reigns supreme at Austin's Bufalina Pizza, and for Anne Burrell that means the classic margherita pizza, featuring a simply seasoned tomato sauce and studs of gooey homemade mozzarella cheese.

Find the Restaurant

2 / 12

Sotto

The team at Los Angeles' Sotto looked to the motherland of pizza — Italy — to source 16,000 pounds of goods to create the restaurant's pizza oven, and indeed the effort was worth it. "The pizza takes one minute — yes, one minute — to cook," Alex Guarnaschelli says of the Guanciale pie at Sotto. This beauty is topped with creamy ricotta cheese and rich, salty guanciale for over-the-top flavor.

Find the Restaurant

3 / 12

Rooftop Pizzeria

Think of this green chile-laced pie with chicken and Cotija cheese as an enchilada-turned-pizza. Roger Mooking calls this specialty of Santa Fe, N.M.'s Rooftop Pizzeria "a slice with some spice."

Find the Restaurant

4 / 12

Antico Pizza Napoletana

"The San Gennaro pizza is probably the biggest party for my taste buds that I've had, by simple fact that they're using great Italian ingredients," Aarón Sánchez reveals of the pie at Antico Pizza Napoletana in Atlanta. This crave-worthy pie is built with Italian bufala mozzarella, roasted sausage, sweet cipollini onions and bold peppers.

Find the Restaurant

5 / 12

Area Four

Meat lovers will want to make a special trip to Cambridge, Mass., for The Carnivore pizza. Steak Shapiro calls this pie, built with three kinds of meat — sausage, slab bacon and sopressata — "the best-ever pizza piled up with porky deliciousness."

Find the Restaurant

6 / 12

Pequod's Pizza

Leave it to Chicago native Jeff Mauro to find the most crave-worthy deep-dish pie in the Windy City. He opts for the Pan Cheese Pizza at Pequod's Pizza because, as he says, "the thing that separates Pequod's from everybody else is the caramelized, lacy crust of cheese around the perimeter of that pizza."

Find the Restaurant

7 / 12

Franny's

"I'm a margherita [pizza] girl, but at Franny's I'll always make the exception and go for the Clam Pie," Katie Lee revealed of ordering at the Brooklyn hot spot. This decadent pie features juicy fresh clams nestled atop what Katie deems "a rich gloss" of a clam sauce, plus a last-minute squeeze of bright lemon juice before it's served.

Find the Restaurant

8 / 12

Black Sheep Pizza

Topped with oyster mushrooms and smoked mozzarella cheese, the Oyster Mushroom, Smoked Mozzarella, Rosemary & Garlic pie at Minneapolis' Black Sheep Pizza is prepared in a coal-fired oven, which Andrew Zimmern says offers "a very, very hot, intense temperature" in the oven.

Find the Restaurant

9 / 12

Ned Ludd

While burnt honey may not be a classic pizza topping, it's surely a key ingredient in the lardo-and-kale-topped pie at Ned Ludd in Portland, Ore. "Honestly, it's a revelation," Fabio Viviani says of the pizza. "[It's] salty, it's chewy, it's crispy. It's sweet. It's amazing."

Find the Restaurant

10 / 12

Pizzeria Vetri

Not your traditional round or square pie, the Rotolo from Philadelphia's Pizzeria Vetri comes together with three layers of dough. Marc Murphy explains of these mortadella-and-ricotta-rolled beauties: "The soft, chewy, gooey, meaty inside with a little bit of the crispy, crunchy outside swiped through a little bit of that pesto [topping]? That's it right there."

Find the Restaurant

11 / 12

Pizzaiolo

"It's just so luscious," Antonia Lofaso says of the potato-studded pie with a duo of cheeses — fontina and mozzarella — at Oakland, Calif.'s Pizzaiolo. This red onion-laced pizza features crispy pancetta plus a sprinkle of herbs for freshness.

Find the Restaurant