The 10 Best Pizzerias in America That Aren't in New York

New York dominates the pizza conversation, and it deserves to. But fixating on the five boroughs means missing extraordinary pizza happening in every corner of this country. From Detroit-style pans to wood-fired Neapolitan, the best pizza in America is a national story now, and these ten spots prove it.

Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix has been called the best pizza in America by everyone from the James Beard Foundation to casual food bloggers, and it earns the title. Chris Bianco uses hand-stretched dough, house-made mozzarella, and a wood-burning oven to produce pies that are simultaneously simple and transcendent. The Rosa, with red onion, pistachios, and Parmigiano, is a masterpiece.

Sally's Apizza in New Haven, Connecticut, has been firing coal-oven pies since 1938. The charred, thin crust with its blistered edges set the template for what New Haven calls apizza. Frank Pepe's, also in New Haven, runs a close second, and their white clam pie is a legitimate pilgrimage-worthy dish. These two spots make New Haven arguably the second-most important pizza city in America.

Two more are worth the argument. Modern Apizza is the third of New Haven's big three alongside Pepe's and Sally's, fired in an oil-burning brick oven rather than coal, and it reliably has the shortest queue. And St Louis style at Imo's is the most divisive pizza in the country: cracker crust, cut into squares, topped with Provel, a processed blend of cheddar, Swiss and provolone that melts perfectly and tastes like nothing else on earth.

Buddy's Pizza in Detroit invented the Detroit-style square pan pizza in 1946. The thick, airy crust baked in a blue steel pan with cheese pushed to the edges, creating a caramelized crust of cheese and dough, has spawned a nationwide movement. Via 313 in Austin makes Detroit-style that rivals the original. Emmy Squared brought it to Nashville and New York.

Detroit-style works because of two things you cannot fake. The pan is blue steel, seasoned like a cast-iron skillet, and it conducts hard enough to fry the base in the cheese fat. The cheese is Wisconsin brick, which carries more fat than mozzarella and browns rather than stringing. Push it to the edges, let it fuse to the pan wall, and you get the caramelised rim the whole style is built on.

On the West Coast, Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles, a collaboration between Nancy Silverton, Mario Batali, and Joe Bastianich, delivers squash blossom and burrata pizza that made LA take pizza seriously. In San Francisco, Tony's Pizza Napoletana on Stockton Street runs seven different ovens producing seven different pizza styles, because owner Tony Gemignani is that committed to the craft.

Chicago's real pizza is not deep dish. Tavern-style, cracker-thin and cut into squares, is what the city actually eats, and Vito and Nick's on the South Side has been the benchmark since the 1940s. Deep dish is a knife-and-fork casserole that visitors queue for at Lou Malnati's and locals order maybe twice a year. Both are worth trying. Only one of them is dinner.

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