The Best Pizza From Each of the 50 States

They say pizza’s like sex—that even bad pizza is still, well, pizza. “And pizza’s never bad” the thinking goes, right? Maybe. 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. 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. 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.

But, you never know, right? That place you doubted might serve a slice of heaven. That three-hour wait could match the hype. 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. Truth is, there’s so much good pizza these days, finding the best is more difficult than ever. That’s why we’re here to assist you in your journey.

Some pizza questing principles bear explaining first, though. Keeping in mind the most obvious, “a line is a good sign,” call these the 10 commandments of seeking out great pizza. Okay, 15. (Let’s pretend Pizza Moses didn’t drop that third tablet.) The following core principles held true while researching America's best pies:

1. Believe in tradition but also in defying tradition for a transformative pizza.

2. A plain cheese pizza always establishes a baseline.

3. The way sausage, pepperoni, and mushroom pies are made all say a lot.

4. Signature pies, crazy toppings, bizarre topping combinations, and various styles at a pizzeria should always be sampled, but guarantee nothing.

5. Fancy pizza isn’t necessarily great pizza.

6. Pizzerias don’t always know their best pies.

7. You can’t completely judge a pie by delivery, but you can judge how well a pizza is delivered.

8. 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.

9. There’s nothing okay about a $1 slice.

10. When it comes to slice joints, always be skeptical of a reheat but not dogmatic about refusing one.

11. The more toppings there are, the less likely it is, on average, to be a great pie.

12. 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.

13. There are great pizza styles beyond those in New York, New Haven, and Chicago worth trying across this great country.

14. The Neapolitan wave may have gone too far, too long.

15. New Yorkers may be too cocky about pizza.

Rules and regulations served on the ivory paper plates of pizz-academia have their time and place. But ultimately they are here to serve you: to support your nationwide journey following the the 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.

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.

Address and phone: 209 41st St, Birmingham (205-599-9900)

Website: postofficepies.com

Chef John Hall, a veteran of esteemed Manhattan restaurants like Per Se and Momofuku Ssäm Bar, honed his craft running a pizza delivery business out of his Brooklyn apartment. Prohibitive restaurant rents were a compelling reason to make an Alabama homecoming after a friend called with the idea to open a pizzeria with him in an old Avondale post office. Hall’s crisp, thin, char-edged pies are made in a handmade wood-fired brick oven with homemade ingredients, including a house mozz, a feat most famous New York pizzerias wouldn’t dare try. The director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, John T. Edge swears by the white pie with roasted garlic ricotta, Pecorino Romano, aged mozzarella, basil, and Parmesan.

Address and phone: 3300 Old Seward Hwy, Anchorage (907-258-2537)

Website: moosestooth.net

Locals rave about Finn’s on the Homer Spit, but Anchorage’s Moose’s Tooth Pizza and Pub is the state’s official pizza. More than 20 years after rock climbers Warren Hancock, Matt Jones, and Ron Hancock founded Moose’s Tooth (it’s named for a climbing peak), folks can’t get enough stone-baked puffy crusts. Funny considering they had little restaurant experience, and Jones mastered beer-making in a bathtub. Be prepared to a fight for a table and wait for an hour to order the signature Avalanche topped with pepperoni, blackened chicken, bacon, red onions, parsley, Cheddar, mozzarella, provolone, and barbecue sauce.

Address and phone: 623 E Adams St, Phoenix (602-258-8300)

Website: pizzeriabianco.com

Every year, critics make a pilgrimage to America’s pizza mecca and declare what Arizonans have long known: Bronx-born Chris Bianco makes some of the country’s best Neapolitan pizza. Cooked in a wood-fired oven with a dough made using local hard red spring wheat, these are char-bubbled, thin-crust pizzas with more crisp-to-chew than the style typically exhibits. Years of exposure to flour have exacerbated Bianco’s asthma, so he’s stepped away from daily pizza making, but the quality hasn’t suffered. The famed wait has improved since a second location opened, but even if you have to wait an hour or two for that Rosa with red onion, Parmigiano Reggiano, rosemary, and Arizona pistachios, it will be worth it.

Address and phone: 407 Park Ave, Hot Springs National Park (501-609-9002)

Website: delucaspizzeria.com

When you think Arkansas, you think cheese dip, fried pickles, and possum pie. While that’s still how the rest of America may think, Brooklyn transplant Anthony Valinoti is changing the state’s self-image when it comes to pizza. Valinoti, who named the restaurant for his grandfather, prepares a limited amount of dough each day (Thursday through Sunday), and each pie is made by hand himself. His pizza is in the New York style: light, thin, and foldable, though not as wide, and comes with a pronounced cornicione that is sometimes nearly as thick as a tennis racket handle. DeLuca’s most popular pie by far is one topped with two-month cured pancetta made by Butcher & Public in Little Rock.

Address and phone: 1570 Stockton St, San Francisco (415-835-9888)

Website: tonyspizzanapoletana.com

Since opening Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in 2009, Tony Gemignani has proven himself to be a pizza powerhouse. He’s opened more than 10 restaurants in California and Nevada, mastered every style of pizza, and has even been referred to as the Michael Jordan of pizza-throwing. At his original Little Italy location in San Francisco, you want to start with the signature Neapolitan, the one that won the World Pizza Cup in 2007: hand-mixed dough finished with Caputo red flour, proofed in wood boxes, topped with San Marzano tomatoes D.O.P., sea salt, mozzarella fior di latte, fresh basil, and extra virgin olive oil then fired in a 900-degree wood-burning oven.

Address and phone: 1730 Pearl St, Boulder (303-442-3003)

Website: localeboulder.com

Restaurateurs Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson of Locale’s sister restaurant Frasca serve Neapolitan-inspired pizzas fast-fired in a 900° Naples-imported wood-fired Stefano Ferrara oven. The result is a chewy bite in Boulder that’s fairly indistinguishable from those in Naples. Thanks to partner and Chipotle CEO Steve Ells, that’s an impressive feat being replicated at locations in Ohio, Missouri, and Kansas. We’re all for pizza pilgrimage, but it’s not crazy to think you might be able to taste their famed Mais pie with mozzarella, crème fraîche, ham, corn, and garlic in your neck of the woods soon too.

Address and phone: 157 Wooster St, New Haven (203-865-5762)

Website: pepespizzeria.com

You brave the line, weave between waiters, and sit in booths at The Spot (where the original Pepe’s was founded in 1925 by a former factory worker and macaroni manufacturer) or the larger adjacent pizzeria for one thing: a coal-fired clam pie. The irregularly shaped New Haven specialty is just a few credit cards thick; it has a crackery edge that sings up and down along the rim like ruffled sheet music, crackling and crisping with each oregano- and Parmesan-flecked, olive oil-drizzled, fresh-shucked clam juice, garlicky bite. Truly apizza symphony, and without “muzz”!

Address and phone: 831 N Market St, Wilmington (302-655-1427)

Website: dimeospizza.com

Grotto's swirl pies and Pizza By Elizabeths’ gourmet pizzas get much of the dough, cheese, and sauce attention in Delaware, but Pino and Antimo DiMeo—the father-and-son team behind Dimeo’s in Wilmington—deserve equal mention. There are two sections on the menu, Le Pizze Americane (thin, New York City-style pies) and Le Pizze Napoletane, which are made with 00 flour milled in Naples and topped with San Marzano tomatoes. But it’s the “grande” version on the latter menu that’s of particular interest. It’s a 16- to 18-inch pie, making it a cross between Neapolitan-style consistency and New York-style size. The undercarriage is predictably pliant, more chewy than crispy, and the crust more crunchy than the puffy cornicione typical to Naples. In the study of pizza evolution from Naples to America, it’s an unexpected discovery worth seeking out.

Address and phone: 1541 14th Street NW (202-232-0920)

Website: ettodc.com

If you’re looking for D.C.’s reigning best pie, look no further than Etto, a partnership between Peter Pastan and Amy Morgan of 2 Amys and Tad Curtz and David Rasner of Garden District. Chef CaglaOnal-Urel’s pies are made with spelt and fresh-milled wheat, and cooked at a higher temperature than at 2 Amys. They’re a little darker, slightly sweeter, and have a little more pull. That amounts to a crust with a little more personality than you’ll find elsewhere in D.C., one matched by the atypical topping combination on the unusual roasted cauliflower pie: tomato puree, capers, pine nuts, anchovy, and breadcrumbs.

Address and phone: 522 E Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach (561-865-5923)

Website: scuolavecchiapizzeria.com

Sharon Aloisio fell in love with Neapolitan pizza in Naples a decade before Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about eating at the city’s famed pizzeria Da Michele in Eat, Pray, Love. Then she went one better, opening her own place on Florida’s southeast coast in Delray Beach. The institutional knowledge at Scuola Vecchia is courtesy of Roberto Caporuscio, president of the American chapter of the Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani, a kingmaker among master pizzaiolo responsible for some of the country’s best Neapolitan pizzerias. And given the adherence to Neapolitan standards here, the classic Margherita, with its fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, Pecorino Romano, extra virgin olive oil, and basil, is the way to go.

Address and phone: 3117 Main St, Duluth (678-587-5420)

Website: o4wpizza.com

We love Neapolitan style as much as the next pizza nerd, but occasionally, the neo-Neapolitan wave that’s washed across the country ironically leaves us looking for something more akin to the Americanized version. So it’s cool that Anthony Spina’s grandma pies have taken Atlanta by storm over the past two years. O4W’s 16” square version of the rectangular, pan-cooked style of pizza native to Long Island, New York, has a crunchy bottom, bright homemade marinara, and light cheesy finish that’s brought Spina more fame than he possibly could’ve imagined when he left Jersey to open up shop in Georgia. Hey, life’s a pea-, er pizza.

Address and phone: 1147 Bethel Street, Honolulu (808-537-4992)

Website: jjdolans.com

An Irish pub with New York pizza from two guys in Hawaii's Chinatown. It may sound like the beginning of a joke, but there’s nothing funny about the thin, New York-style pies at J.J. Dolan’s in Honolulu. The name is a composite of J.J. Niebuhr and Danny Dolan, two friends who worked at competing Irish pubs and decided to open their own place in 2008. At J.J.’s, the pizzas (reported to include a touch of olive oil and, wait for it, Guinness) are divided into two sections. Of their five classics, the spinach and garlic pie with ricotta may be the best-seller, with the sausage-, pepperoni-, salami-, and olive- topped Giacomo topping the signature selections.

Address and phone: 6508 W Fairview Ave, Boise (208-345-0000)

Website: flyingpie.com

Flying Pie Pizzeria has won Boise Weekly's Best Local Pizza award for eight consecutive years. That's not surprising considering the reputation it has built for good pizza served in a fun quirky atmosphere since its "Whirled Famous" pies started getting made in 1978. The 10-inch, 12-inch, and 14-inch pizzas are thick-crusted round pies made with "original," whole wheat in nearly 20 preexisting combinations. Try the Zambini, a pizza with mozzarella, provolone, pesto, sliced tomatoes, jalapeños, onions, Italian sausage, and fresh garlic on sourdough. If you’re visiting in August, you’ll also have to decide whether you want to brave their signature habanero pie made using fresh peppers from the Yucatán Peninsula in Southern Mexico. Pies are served at six peppers intervals starting from a single up to triple strength. They estimate the triple to be the equivalent of eating 15 pounds of jalapeños!

Address and phone: 8433 South Pulaski Rd, Chicago (773-735-2050)

Website: vitoandnicks.com

Yes, it's the home to some amazing deep-dish (Pequod's and Gino's East), but we're raising a slice to Chicago’s thin-crust (and self-described “old style”) turned out by Vito & Nick’s since Vito’s wife Mary Barraco started making it in 1946. Cheese, sauce, sausage, mushroom, green peppers, and onions spread out to (and often past) the rim of the house special, which is cut in a crisscross pattern that creates “slices” that range from rectangles to half-moons, providing a variety of textural experiences from crispless pieces with soft edges to others with crunchy edges.

Address and phone: 114 E 49th St, Indianapolis (317-925-0765)

Website: napolesepizzeria.com

Martha Hoover launched the first Napolese pizzeria in 2011, around the corner from her wildly popular Café Patachou. While there are now a few more locations, this isn’t just a brick-oven “pizza concept” from the Indiana über-restaurateur’s Patachou restaurant group—it has become one of the city’s pizza icons. These are hand-formed Neapolitan-style pies topped with housemade tomato sauce and local ingredients. In the case of the Napolese’s famed BLT pie, that means Smoking Goose Meatery’s jowl bacon mingled with leeks and Taleggio.

Address and phone: 301 Audubon St, Adair (641-742-3533)

Website: N/A

Look no further than a three-minute turn off I-80, about an hour west of Des Moines, for Iowa’s best pie: Jim Zimmerline’s taco pizza. Founded as a takeout joint in 2012, Zipp’s (now full-service) is relatively new to the state’s pizza scene. Unlike the Quad-Cities style in eastern Iowa, Zipp's doesn't use fresh Wisconsin mozz, or mozzarella at all for that matter. Zimmerline prefers provolone he slices himself. Zipp’s thin-crust taco pie, honored in Iowa's House of Representatives in 2016, is topped with provolone, Cheddar, red sauce, salsa, lettuce, tomato, crumbled chips, and beef pre-cooked in a cast-iron skillet. This is a slice you drag off the pan onto your plate and do the lift-plate-to-mouth move. Even then, and without the optional sour cream and taco sauce that you add yourself, it’s going to be a mess.

Address and phone: 814 Massachusetts St, Lawrence (785-856-2825)

Website: limestonepkb.com

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. 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. Limestone’s pies are topped with homemade ingredients and those from local farmers, so their menu changes seasonally. You can’t go wrong with their Margherita, but the ephemeral nature of their menu means you should order whatever the special is when you visit. Just make sure to get some of their homemade chili-garlic sauce to drizzle on top.

Address and phone: 700 E Market St, Louisville (502-749-7100)

Website: garageonmarket.com

Good pizzerias make their own dough, their own mozzarella, sometimes their own sausage—but pepperoni too? Not run-of-the-mill stuff to be expected, even from the best. But that’s what goes on at downtown Louisville’s Garage Bar, in what once was an auto service garage. Theirs is a traditional, wood-oven fired approach to a thinner, chewy Neapolitan pizza, one accompanied by a “ham bar” and small plates like turkey wings, boiled peanuts, and pimento cheese to remind you you’re in the South. The restaurant’s original chef, Michael Paley, moved on in 2014, but chef Richard Sible, who has been there almost since the beginning in 2011, turns out near bicycle-rim perfect cornicione in leopard-spot overdrive. Do like the local experts and ask for a side of milled tomato sauce for dipping.

Address and phone: 617 Piety St, New Orleans (504-676-8482)

Website: pizzadelicious.com

You can take the New Yorker out of New York, but you can’t take the pizza out of the New Yorker. This New Orleans pizza success story is the result of two New Yawk native Tulane grads, Michael Friedman and Greg Augarten, complaining about hard it was to find good pizza in the Big Easy and taking matters into their own hands. After a trial-and-erroring their way through internet recipe testing, they started selling pies in a back-alley pop-up in 2010. It was an experience that resembled a drug deal more than a pizza pursuit, but they were onto something: an 18-inch-wide reinterpretation of New York City’s thin-crust pies. A Kickstarter campaign helped them settle into their permanent space in 2012, and the best-of accolades haven’t stopped since.

Address and phone: 25 Preble St, Portland (207-245-3088)

Website: slabpizza.com

“Slab” is a curious word to describe the pillowy slices Stephen Lanzalotta sells in the pizzeria of that same name. You can find them in the old Portland Public Market building, a new location for Lanzalotta after falling out with the owners of Micucci Grocery Store market, where his pizza first started gaining national acclaim. Wetter, more doughy, and about a half bigger than your typical Sicilian slice, each inch-thick slab is an airy cloud of super-moist and fluffy trapped-bubble focaccia topped with oozing, just-melted cheese continents that are separated by tiny rivers of sauce. There are slabs topped with artichokes, Moroccan olives, prosciutto cotto, and pepperoni. Along with the latter, the spicy meat wedge gets pepperoncini, red pepper sauce, oregano, and a house blue cheese sauce for dipping.

Address and phone: 33 W North Ave, Baltimore (410-545-0444)

Website: joesquared.com

No really, it’s a square pizza: not a pan pizza, not a grandma pizza, not a Detroit-style pizza, but a thin-crust pizza that’s square and cooked in a coal-fired 800° oven for about a minute. Why the shape? Owner Joe Edwardsen has explained his geometric shift by noting he likes pizza with edges and that pizza boxes are square. It's hard to argue, especially when your mouth is full with a bite of the light, nearly matzo-thin crust covered with toppings from one of the three sections on the signature Flag Pizza: crushed tomato with mozzarella, provolone, Romano, Parmigiano and asiago; roasted garlic cream with mozzarella, Cheddar and ricotta; and pesto with fresh mozzarella.

Address and phone: 500 Technology Sq, Cambridge (617-758-4444)

Website: areafour.com

The neighborhood it was named for when it opened in 2011 has since officially changed its name to “The Port,” but there’s no question about the pies turned out at Cambridge’s Area Four—they’re still best in class. The Kendall Square original makes Neapolitan pies that begin with a starter that’s going on 15-years old and is fermented for more than 30 hours. These are wide, super-charred puffy rims that are light and airy. Between the coffee program offered in the morning and the expert pies turned out the rest of the day, Michael Krupp and Jeff Pond’s restaurant has become integral to the neighborhood. And its pizza—with Wellfleet cherrystone clams sauce, bacon, Pecorino, hot pepper, and parsley—has become one of the state’s iconic pies.

Address and phone: 17125 Conant St, Detroit (313-892-9001)

Website: buddyspizza.com

This Detroit icon has had different stewardship since Gus Guerra opened it as Buddy’s Rendezvous in 1946, and is currently shepherded by owner Robert Jacobs. One constant? Its saucy, thick cheese-topped deep-dish squares edged by a chewy crust that’s created by a twice-baked process in oil- or butter-brushed pans. For the uninitiated, imagine a Sicilian slice whose components have been multiplied by themselves to achieve an amplified version of their essence. Detroit-style pizza is having a moment in the national food media spotlight, and there’s no truer pilgrimage than where the style originated in pans supposedly once used to hold auto parts. Go for the Detroiter, topped with pepperoni, tomato basil sauce, shaved Parmesan and Buddy’s spice blend.

Address and phone: 704 Cleveland Ave S, St. Paul (651-696-1066)

Website: punchpizza.com

Sure, Neapolitan-style pizza has taken the country by storm over the past decade, but you can look to the Midwest for being ahead of the curve thanks to John Soranno founding Punch in Minneapolis’ Highland Park in 1996. Given its regulated nature, it’s sometimes hard to detail what differentiates America’s Neapolitan-style paragons, but Punch’s black-blistered crusts, fresh mozzarella, and crushed tomatoes set an example. As in Naples, the Margherita Extra with fresh mozzarella di bufala and crushed Campagna tomatoes call out to the American pizza lover’s cheese-centric worldview.

Address and phone: 925 E Fortification St, Jackson (601-352-2001)

Website: pizzashackpizza.com

With respect to the New York-style being served at Sal & Mookie’s, and the absolutely gorgeous pizzas that have made Saint Leo in Oxford a pit-stop on the national Neapolitan trail, it’s Jackson’s Pizza Shack that we’re singling out as Mississippi’s best. Owners Ryan Patrick and Michael Parker advertise their pizza not as Chicago-style, not as New York-style, but Mississippi-style “at its finest.” That means a thick-crusted pizza with a sweet sauce and toppings that go all the way out to a not-overly greasy edge that features crispy bits of cooked cheese. Speaking of which, toppings tend toward the outrageous, including things like Thai peanut sauce, smoked turkey, and gyro meat. Pizza Shack’s famed Carnivore comes layered so high with pepperoni, Canadian bacon, sausage, beef, and bacon that it's been known to weigh five pounds and reach two inches in height.

Address and phone: 12925 U.S. 71 South, Grandview (816-965-0743)

Website: providencepizza.com

When you’re craving something you can’t find anywhere near you, sometimes you just have to make it yourself. That’s the philosophy brothers Luke and Aaron Salvatore followed when they found themselves in Missouri, missing the Rhode Island pizza of their youth. In 2014, they opened Providence Pizza in a restored Long John Silver’s restaurant. Once they got started, the Salvatores went all out, bringing in different kinds of ovens to make two other styles as well (Neapolitan, and New York City pizza made from a sourdough starter). But you’re here for the Sicilian style slice that inspired the restaurant, and the Federal Hill combo at that: pepperoni, Italian sausage, sliced meatballs, salami, mozzarella, and housemade red sauce. Pizza nerds, don’t go looking for Rhode Island pizza strips. These thick, 22-inch long, pan-cooked pizzas all feature cheese (one, the Hope Street, is even unsauced!).

Address and phone: 1609 S 11th Ave, Bozeman (406-587-2124)

Website: bridgerbrewing.com

Business partners David Breck and David Sigler may have envisioned making a splash on Bozeman’s beer scene when laying out plans to launch their brewery, but with the help of chef Jim Eberhard, they’ve also changed the state’s pizza landscape. Bridger Brewing uses a gas-fired brick oven to turn out a thin crust with a just-browned, delicate cornicione (think puffy grissini as crust) that he makes using Wheat Montana Flour. Seared corn and lime chipotle sour cream are the craziest additions to a sausage-centric list of pies, all of which are homemade. Also made from scratch is the bison pepperoni, which when joined by onions, mushrooms, and olives makes for a Montana State University favorite to be downed with Bridger’s Vigilante and Antilogy Black IPAs.

Address and phone: 1423 O St., Lincoln (402-477-9166)

Website: locu.com/places/yia-yias

Yia Yia’s is its own animal: a cross between the thin crust of a bar pie, but with just a little more New York City-style poof. Toppings at this Lincoln stalwart take you on a tour "Around the World," with ingredient pairings like walnuts and blue cheese, pepperoncini and feta, turkey and pesto, featured on pizzas with names like "The Francais," "The Greek," and "The Plains." Among the mysteries of Yia Yia’s are the chunks of bread that come when you order by the slice, and why pies jump from the 16-inch large to a 20-inch “Extra Extra Large.” One thing is clear: your order. You should either be going with “The Local,” a sauced pie topped with bacon, hamburger, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, and black olives, or one of the pies added in 2012 by owner Nader Sepahpur like "The Polynesian,” made with barbeque sauce, cranberries, jalapeños, black olives, pineapple, bacon, pepperoni, cream cheese (!), and provolone.

Address and phone: 201 N 3rd St, Las Vegas (702-385-0838)

Website: pizzarocklasvegas.com

Some people spend a lifetime perfecting one style of pizza. We stopped counting when it comes to how many Tony Gemignani has mastered serving at his places in California and Nevada. Given that Pizza Rock houses at least four different kinds of pizza ovens, and that he serves at least nine styles—all done as if by someone native to each— it’s difficult to recommend just one pie, so we’ll note the ones made in limited quantities. Just 73 Neapolitan Margheritas and 23 sausage and stout pizzas are made daily, the latter with honey malted Guinness dough, housemade mozz, homemade beer sausage, and Guinness reduction.

Address and phone: 212 Main St, Nashua (603-595-9334)

Website: mtslocal.com

The name of chef Michael Timothy’s restaurant may have changed (it reopened after renovations in 2011 as MT’s Local – Kitchen & Wine Bar), but the delicate pizzas are still just as good as ever. As at Rhode Island’s Al Forno (more well-known for pioneering the genre), MT's pizza menu is simple, with just seven options featuring some classic flavor profiles and a few less common combinations like chicken with bacon and prosciutto with fig jam. The light dough is stretched, proportionately topped, and wood-grilled before being finished in the oven. You end up with strips of very light and crisp pizza with a slightly charred underside and edge, and little cornicione to speak of—just the right amount of flat crunchy tab you need to pick up each piece. Experts swear by the Sweet Italian Sausage option topped by a four-cheese blend, PT Farm sausage, grilled onion, tomato jam, basil, and housemade ricotta.

Address and phone: 639 S Broad St, Elizabeth (908-354-1887)

Website: santillopizza.com

Husband-and-wife team Lorraine and Al Santillo (she stretches and assembles, he bakes) steward one of the country’s most idiosyncratic pizzerias. How else to describe counter service in an alley where to-go pies are made in a century-old brick oven attached to the owner’s childhood home? Like Tony Gemignani, the Santillos offer many styles, but they’ve also created a pizza time machine. You can venture to 1967 for "Pop's Style," or step as far back as 1940 for a genuine tomato pie (no cheese). Al has an artist’s temperament and prefers pies burned, comparing the dark notes to chocolate, but he’s a master of this onetime coal oven that’s been retrofitted with ga, and is self-aware enough to offer lighter versions. Go for the pan-cooked Sicilian at a three-out-of-four on the doneness scale. While you wait, ask him to heat up a slice (one of the best reheats you’ll have), inhale the tomato gravy cooking in the crockpot in the back, and watch the maestro work.

Address and phone: 2860 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe (505-471-0043)

Website: drfieldgoods.com

At his casual, farm-to-table restaurant Dr. Field Goods Kitchen, chef Josh Gerwin uses a wood-fired, New Mexico horno-shaped oven to make a flat, crispy “pizza de gallo”—his version of a New Mexican Margherita. This is one of those pies that offers the contrast of a hot pie topped with cool or room temperature ingredients. In this case, that means fresh New Mexican gremolata gets scattered over the diced tomatoes, onion, garlic, and jalapeños, which briefly get scorched with the dough while it blisters and the smoked mozzarella melts. Not flat enough to be called a bar pie, Dr. Field Goods’ pizza is more like a crackery Neapolitan with toppings that venture out to the slightly raised edge.

Address and phone: 1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn (718-258-1367)

Website: N/A

Is there a pizza man in America more famous than Domenico DeMarco? Dom has owned Di Fara since 1964 but has found real fame over the past 20 years, cooking New York and Sicilian-style pizza Wednesday through Sunday for hungry patrons willing to endure the lines. If you’re going to make the trek to this deep Brooklyn institution, you’re not getting a $5 slice. Order the square cheese or classic round with mozzarella, Parmesan, plum tomato sauce, sausage, peppers, mushroom, onion, fresh-snipped basil, and olive oil drizzle; then scatter some of Dom’s oil-marinated hot peppers on top. Dom’s deck oven pies are wet with sauce and cheese in the best scald-the-roof-of-your-mouth way, featuring a touch more sauce and cheese than dough. Seek out better New York City pizza all you like. You may never find anything as good as this.

Address and phone: 1730 Abbey Pl, Charlotte (704-522-8782)

Website: luisasbrickovenpizza.com

Luisa Amadio was ahead of her time (and America’s Neapolitan revolution) when she opened her eponymous Madison Park restaurant in Charlotte back in 1991. The Milan-born restaurateur imported a Vilaro brick oven from her hometown, had it shipped in more than 15 pieces, and started turning out pies so thin you can almost convince yourself you see light peeking through their lightly sauced crusts. Luisa turned the restaurant over to Jeff Russell in 2006, but the oven, heated by gas and wood, still turns out exemplary pies topped with sliced tomatoes, pesto, ricotta, and garlic, listed on the menu under her name.

Address and phone: 312 Kittson Ave, Grand Forks (701-787-7317)

Website: rhombuspizza.com

Matt Winjum and Arron Hendricks had smoothies on the brain, not pizza, when they opened their first business as teenagers. The stand they built themselves turned out to be more of a rhombus than the square they’d been shooting for, but it gave them a name, “Rhombus Guys,” and in 2002, their first restaurant followed. Their Grand Forks pizzeria opened in 2007 and has been winning best-of awards ever since—impressive considering the two knew little about pizza before opening shop. The menu includes more than 30 pizzas divided into four categories: meatless; chicken pies; “Unbelievable,” with toppings like salmon, pickles and tater tots (the 2am closing time may help to explain these); and “Rhombus Originals,” which includes the celebrated T-Rex, a red sauce pie with pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon, beef, bacon, bacon, and mozzarella. It’s a hefty-crusted meat lover’s spirit animal.

Address and phone: 13715 Madison Ave, Lakewood (216-221-0440)

Website: angelosonline.com

Ohio certainly has more modern pies—including those at Bar Cento and Vero Pizza Napoletana in Cleveland—but there's something about Angelo's thick-crust, deep-dish pan pizzas that just seem more legit in an era overtaken by chewy Neapolitan crusts. Owner Tom Kess made the Lakewood pizzeria into what it has become today, taking over a defunct pizzeria in 1981 but keeping its name because he couldn’t afford to buy a new sign. Angelo’s makes what they call a "Cleveland version of Chicago deep dish pizza," a flaky, golden-edged, ¾-inch butter crust that's shorter and less dense than the Chicago original. The baked potato pizza with butter sauce and twice baked potato, and the House Special are both popular pies, but if you’re a carnivore, you’re heading straight for the Meat Lovers: pepperoni, Italian sausage, bacon, ham, and meatballs with old-school pizza sauce.

Address and phone: 230 S Knoblock St, Stillwater (405-372-4777)

Website: hideawaypizza.com

There are now 18 locations in Oklahoma and Arkansas, including the original, which opened in 1955 as Campus Hideaway near the Oklahoma State University campus. All serve the two styles of pizza that made Hideaway a runaway hit over the years: the original thin-crust, great for lighter pies, and a hand-tossed version that holds up better to the heavily topped specialties. Pizzas come in three sizes (10-inch, 13-inch, and 16-inch) with your choice of five sauces: tangy red, barbecue, Alfredo, olive oil and garlic, and a nutless pesto. You may be tempted to tackle the quandary that is the Hideaway Special, a pizza with a different topping on each slice, and by all means, nab the prime rib pizza with horseradish sauce if it’s available (it’s their favorite seasonal pie). For a white pie, opt for the Paradise with bacon, grilled chicken and mushrooms; if going red, you’ll want The Boz with Cheddar, bacon, pepperoni, sausage, and jalapeño.

Address and phone: 4741 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland (503-233-1286)

Website: apizzascholls.com

Chef Brian Spangler started serving pizza to friends out of a barn on a Christmas tree farm in the small town of Scholls in 2000, settling into his current spot in 2005. Since then, he’s been the state’s pizza king (and, you could argue, the best in all the West). These are crunchy 18-inch artisanal pies (called Neo-Neapolitan or Neapolitan-American style, depending on who you talk to) that are baked at very hot temperatures very quickly and with minimal toppings—no more than three ingredients and no more than two meat toppings per pizza. Those are the rules if you opt to BYO (build your own). But in this case, it’s okay to be a follower. Trust Spangler by picking one of his 13 suggested combinations, starting with the iconic Sausage & Mama, a plain pie topped with housemade sausage and spicy Mama Lil’s Kick Butt goat horn peppers.

Address and phone: 115 E. Girard Ave, Philadelphia, N/A

Website: pizzeriabeddia.wordpress.com

Pizzeria Beddia’s a bit fussy. On one visit, arbitrary rules—like being asked to take one of the two empty tables rather than the other—made it feel a bit Soup Nazi-esque. So be warned: these are the kinds of things that can set even the most patient pizza obsessives off. Additionally, there’s no phone, there are no reservations, it’s cash-only, whole-pie-only, the hours are strange, there's no bathroom (McDonald's is three blocks away), and they only make 40 pizzas a night. But being "particular" about your craft reaps many benefits, which may be one of the reasons Beddia has become as good as it is since being opened by Joe Beddia in the Fishtown neighborhood in 2013. There are typically just three to four pies, including a tomato pie with whole milk mozzarella, Old Gold aged gouda, and olive oil, two seasonal pies, and a pizza arrabbiata. All of these New York-style pies are balanced and delicious. Just be sure to check the website before going, to get there a little early, and put your arbitrary rule flak jacket on.

Address and phone: 121 Spruce St, Providence (401-621-3618)

Website: casertapizza.com

Caserta Pizza has been in Providence’s Little Italy since 1953, serving thick but fluffy pan-cooked pies covered with a dripping-over-the-edge amount of cheese and Rorschach splotches of bright red sauce. Caserta’s Sicilian-style pie comes in two sizes: a six-slice circular pan (small), and a large 12-slice rectangular pizza, with the options to add just cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, and anchovies. This is a surprisingly light ½-inch thick slice with structural integrity and golden-brown undercarriage, impressive considering the amount of cheese and sauce.

Address and phone: 1075 East Montague, North Charleston (843-225-1796)

Website: evopizza.com

EVO (“extra virgin oven”) is the brainchild of Matt McIntosh and Ricky Hacker, two cooks who met while working at Mike Lata's celebrated Charleston restaurant FIG, and whose operation started as a mobile wood-fired oven at the Marion Square farmers market. Since opening in 2007, their Pork Trifecta pie with marinara, house sausage, pepperoni, bacon, mozzarella, and Parmigiano-Reggiano has become one of the South’s pilgrimage pizzas. These wood-fired, baked bread-brown cornicione pizzas come in two sizes, 8 and 12 inches, and have a hearty, distinctive crunch. The pizza menu has expanded over the past few years, and chef Blake McCormick sometimes features specials pies (think bacon, garlic pesto, pumpkin and Fresno chiles).

Address and phone: 420 E 8 St, Sioux Falls (605-338-2328)

Website: monkshouseofalerepute.com

Monks House of Ale Repute was established in 2007 as a craft beer bar, one that now serves more than 150 local, regional, and national craft beers and imports. But it’s garnered quite the reputation within the state for its thin-crust pizzas. In addition to a special, which varies, the menu includes a barbeque chicken pizza; a bacon and chicken pie with pineapple and peanut sauce; a mashed potato pizza with ranch, tomato, bacon, and Cheddar; a Greek pie with feta and artichokes; and perhaps the most celebrated pizza, the "Deconstructed Cuban" with shredded pork, ham, pickles, mustard, onion, Swiss, and mozzarella.

Address and phone: 371 Monroe St, Nashville (615-730-7888)

Website: 312pizzaco.com

Northern Illinois natives Staci and Daniel Bockman followed Staci's sister, Kim, to Nashville in 2010 after deciding they all needed a change of scene. One thing they didn't consider before making the move was the lack of Chicago-style pizza options. Soon, they were perfecting deep-dish recipes at home to sate cravings, and not long after, they decided to open their own place in Germantown. It’s been a hit, with crowds packing 312 Pizza Company to sample the family recipes passed on from the girls’ grandmother. There are eight specialty pizzas available in 12- and 16-inch thin crust pies, or 12-inch deep dish that takes 45 minutes to cook. For a true taste of Chicago, opt for The Capone (sausage, pepperoni, Italian beef, and bacon) or the Daley Supreme (sausage or pepperoni with mushroom, onion, and green pepper).

Address and phone: 3016 Guadalupe St #100, Austin (512-358-6193)

Website: via313.com

Detroit-style pizza has been a surging style over the past few years, and Via 313’s owners—brothers Zane and Brandon Hunt—have been early pioneers at spreading its gospel, opening a custom pizza trailer in Austin in 2011. The two developed their passion for the style eating it as kids at some of Detroit’s most famous pizza meccas: Cloverleaf, Niki's, Loui's, and its birthplace, Buddy's. The guys’ pizzas have that iconic salty, caramelized cheesy-crisped edge along the rim that plays well against the tangy landing strips of crushed red tomato gravy laid across the top. The classic cheese pizza is a strong order, but you might want to embrace your inner 313 and order The Detroiter: smoked pepperoni under the cheese and natural casing pepperoni on top. Save room for dessert: one of Via 313’s eight Detroit-style super thin bar pies.

Address and phone: 1320 E 200 St, Salt Lake City (801-582-5700)

Website: thepie.com

The Pie Pizzeria is a Salt Lake City institution, an old-school pizzeria in a brick-walled basement underneath University Pharmacy that was once used as a church. The Pie Pizzeria started as a pie joint called Bimbos in 1965, but the parents of current owner Matthew Palmer renamed it in 1980, removing the church pews to make it more student-friendly. And student-friendly it is, serving cheese-stuffed breadsticks and pizzas to hungry, studying scholars. Pizzas come in four styles: There’s a thin crust, a sprouted wheat crust, and a "Spicy Apocalyptdough," but the standard poofed, golden doughy crust is the preferred choice of most.

Address and phone: 46 Lareau Rd, Waitsfield (802-496-8856)

Website: americanflatbread.com/restaurants/waitsfield-vt/

A barn, dough made using organic wheat restored with wheat germ, a rudimentary wood-fired earthen oven, and four seatings—does it get more Vermont than this? George Schenk could hardly have known the popularity his pizza would find when he built his first oven out of field stone from his own land in 1985, but the thin-crust, crunchy pies have found a devoted following since. Schenk sold his restaurant group a few years ago, but his spirit lives on at the restaurant and with one of his favorite pies—the Punctuated Equilibrium, topped with Kalamata olives, oven-roasted red peppers, Vermont goat cheese, rosemary, red onions, scallions, cheese, and garlic-infused olive oil.

Address and phone: 5104 Wilson Blvd, Arlington (571-312-7230)

Website: pupatella.com

Neapolitan-born Enzo Algarme came to America to go to college but found he missed the style of pizza he was used to in his hometown. He started Pupatella, his grandmother’s nickname in Italy, as a food truck in 2007. In 2010, he settled into a permanent location in Arlington, equipped with an oven built using bricks composed of volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius. His Neapolitan pies are cooked for just about a minute in the oak-fired oven according to guidelines set out by the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association. At any Neapolitan place, the baseline is going to be a Margherita, but for your topped pies, be sure to get either the Calabrese or the Capricciosa.

Address and phone: 1524 E Olive Way, Seattle (206-403-1742)

Website: dinostomatopie.com

Dino’s Tomato Pie is the second pizza megahit by food power couple Delancey pizza maestro Brandon Pettit and his wife, famed food blogger Molly Wizenberg of Orangette. Pettit’s custom brick ovens blister seven different variations on 18-inch round and Sicilian-style pies. (You can build your own, but as Dino’s admonishes, “more than three toppings will be expensive and won't be any better.”) The Sicilian, which costs $3 more, is the way to go—it’s an inch-tall and airy, with blackened cheese sides and a crunchy undercarriage that contrasts beautifully with a healthy twice-saucing.

Address and phone: 219 West Maple Ave, Fayetteville (304-574-2200)

Website: piesandpints.net

There are now locations in Kentucky, Ohio, and Alabama, but the Pies & Pints flagship first opened in 2003 in Fayetteville, West Virginia, focusing on craft beers and great pies. Kimberly Shingledecker’s stone hearth-pizzas are thin with dark, pronounced crusts that are finished with roasted garlic oil and salt, and topped with a blend of provolone and mozzarella. There are 17 specialty pies, with both out-there and on-trend toppings like black beans, toasted coconut, Sriracha, and pulled pork. Go for the Margherita from the specialty pie section, and if you’re looking for an off-road, truly different pie, turn back to the starters for the Pizza Skins, a truly unique offering of roasted garlic mashed potatoes, Cheddar, bacon, and scallions baked on Pies & Pints pizza dough and served with sour cream.

Address and phone: 1724 North Farwell Ave, Milwaukee (414-289-8776)

Website: zaffirospizza.com

It’s not the only place to carry on Milwaukee’s cracker crust, rectangular-cut pizza tradition, but Zaffiro’s is probably the most famous. It was founded in 1954 by Liborio "Bobby" Zaffiro in the midst of a craze started after the Caradaro Club introduced the city to pizza in 1945. Caradaro was started by two Italian immigrants, one from Naples (where the pizza is round and flat) and the other from Sicily (where the pizza is thick and rectangular). It’s been theorized that their styles crossed to create the flat, rectangular cut that was then popularized by tavern owners like Bobby, who quickly saw the lucrative potential of selling thin-crust pizza to beer-drinking patrons (thus “tavern-cut”). These days, Zaffiro’s tradition continues under the guidance of Bobby’s son Michael. Theirs is a dry, Saltine-thin crust (12 or 14 inches) created by parbaking the dough, flipping and topping it with about three to four times its thickness in sliced mozzarella, then returning it to the oven to cook the toppings. Opt for the “EBF,” whose “everything but the fish” (anchovies) includes sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, onions, green pepper, and black olives.

Address and phone: 20 W Broadway, Jackson (307-201-1472)

Website: pizzeriacaldera.com

When people ask Chris Hansen how he learned how to make pizza, he half-jokingly tells them from the Internet. He spent two years experimenting with pizza making before opening Pizzeria Caldera with his wife Miga Rossetti in 2011. Well, whatever he Googled worked, because Caldera’s stone-hearth, gas-fired Woodstone oven is turning out some superior Neapolitan-American pies. These aren’t VPN-style pizzas, but 12-inch rounds that are crispy on the bottom and that give way to an inner chew. Given that you're this far north, you're probably going to be looking for something to eat that echoes the grandiosity of the landscape. To sate that search, opt for the Carne pie topped with garlic tomato sauce, mozzarella, hot capicolla, JH Buffalo Meat Co. Italian elk sausage, red onion, Asiago, and sage.