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New York pizza, by style and by borough.
Willa Moore is talking about two in the morning on Carmine Street, Will Hartman is talking about fermentation in Williamsburg, and neither of them is answering the same question. Start with a slice eaten standing up, then the square, which is a different lineage with a scandal attached. Then get on a train for the whole pies, meet the coal ovens that trade on nostalgia, and finish at Denino's on Staten Island and New Park in Howard Beach.
There is no best pizza in New York, and the four people most qualified to name one are answering four separate questions. Willa Moore is talking about two in the morning on Carmine Street and the tip of a Joe's slice that never droops. Will Hartman is talking about long fermentation and Italian imports at L'industrie. Dominique Roy is talking about a counter his old Eleven Madison Park colleagues opened on Mott Street. Alexis Priester is telling you her borough settled this years ago and nobody asked. So run it in that order: a slice eaten standing up, then the square, which is a different lineage with a scandal attached to its most famous shop, then a train ride for the whole pies at Lucali, Di Fara and Una Pizza Napoletana. The coal ovens come after that, because the critics who cover them now say the room is beating the pizza. Finish on Staten Island or in Howard Beach, and expect to spend a day on it.
Start with a slice you eat standing up, because that is the argument this city actually has.
Willa Moore is talking about two in the morning on Carmine Street: "Joe's doesn't need to make the best pizza in the five boroughs to be great, because they make the best pizza if you're standing right in front of it." Will Hartman is talking about fermentation, and he gives the title to the L'industrie shop in Williamsburg. Nadia Chaudhury eats at the same counter and takes the plain over the burrata. Dominique Roy, who cooks at Eleven Madison Park, names Ceres, and he declares the conflict himself: its owners used to work with him there. Those are four live answers to four different questions. A slice apiece buys you a vote, so start here and buy several.
- Joe's Pizza$
Joe Pozzuoli came from Naples and opened this in 1975 at the corner of Bleecker and Carmine, then moved three doors down to number 7 when the lease went, so do not go hunting the corner. Fifty years of one man selling the same slice, and Willa Moore's case for it is structural: the tip never droops, which at two in the morning is the only property that matters. Reach the counter and a paper plate appears within seconds.
- L’industrie Pizzeria West VillageWest Village
Will Hartman's case for the shop is a long fermentation and ingredients imported from Italy, and this is the Manhattan room where you can sit down with the result. The Infatuation goes to the spicy salami and the burrata, Eater goes to the plain. Buy two and settle it yourself.
- Cello's Pizzeria$
The chef used to twirl pies at the L'industrie pass in Williamsburg, and the dough carries the lineage: light in the hand, chewy, charred underneath. Order the tomato pie for the acid and the burrata.
- CeresLittle Italy
The slice that got so busy it stopped selling slices, so you sign up in person for a pickup time and take a whole pie. The crust is cracker-thin under Tuscan olive oil and Parmigiano off reggiana red cows. Roy calls it the best New York slice-style pie in the city.
Prince Street Pizza made the square everyone copied, and The Infatuation has taken it off the lists.
Prince Street Pizza is where the modern square came from, sauce under the cheese and thick pepperoni curling into cups at the edges, and The Infatuation removed it from every one of its lists after Hannah Albertine reported racist conduct by its owners: "As a direct response to this reporting, however, we've edited our original review, and removed Prince Street Pizza from our Best-Of lists and other guides." Mama's TOO on the Upper West Side makes the same square off a gas oven and adds a triangle worth crossing town for, which is where I would spend the afternoon.
- Mama's TOOUpper West Side
The squares come off a gas oven, which is what this counter is arguing with the coal-fired rooms about. Bryan Kim has ranked the case two ways and printed both: the cacio e pepe on four cheeses and cracked pepper in the review, the pepperoni square and the basil triangle in the guide. Slices turn over through the day, so you take what is in the case or you buy a whole pie.
- Prince Street PizzaNolita
The origin of the pepperoni square, and the reason a guide should say out loud why a famous shop stopped appearing in guides. Read Albertine's report before you decide, because I have no current rating of the cooking to offer you and I am not writing one from the reputation.
The whole pies are worth a train, and two of the three take no reservations.
Lucali, Di Fara and Una Pizza Napoletana sell you a pie and nothing else, and each one is a different argument about restraint. Ruth Rogers runs The River Café in London and crosses to Carroll Gardens for Lucali: "When visiting New York, you must experience the legendary pizza. For me, Lucali is the best." Di Fara Pizza in Midwood is the one Dom DeMarco built by hand and his family runs now. Una Pizza Napoletana is one man and one wood oven on the Lower East Side. Take the Q for Di Fara and walk in for the other two, and give the evening to it, because none of these queues is short.
- LucaliCarroll Gardens · $$
Mark Iacono makes pizza and calzones and nothing else, in the building that was his block's candy store. Rogers' case is the simplicity, and her warning is the wait, which she says is worth it. There are no reservations to fall back on.
- Di Fara Pizza
Several cheeses, good olive oil and torn basil, built the way DeMarco built it since 1965, and the team still inspects every pie before it leaves. Order two slices in the same trip so you queue once. Go on a weekday and take the Q, which stops a block away.
- Una Pizza NapoletanaLower East Side · $$
Anthony Mangieri tends the wood oven alone and has never sold a pizza he did not cook, which is the whole case for the room. It holds a Bib Gourmand. Order the Cosacca: tomato, pecorino, dry oregano and sea salt. Reservations go fast and walk-ins should come early.
The coal ovens are the oldest argument here, and the critics say the room is beating the pizza.
John's of Bleecker Street has sold whole pies and never slices since 1929, Grimaldi's Pizzeria made Dumbo a pizza town and has franchised to more than forty doors, and the writers who cover them are marking both down for the same thing. Bryan Kim credits the century-old coal oven at John's with a char that lingers like a vintage Bordeaux, then files the shop as "a (second-tier) NYC classic" running on "one very old oven and a heap of nostalgia." Willa Moore's line on the Dumbo room is shorter: "History might just taste a little underdone on the bottom." Come for the oven and the room, order carefully, and do not expect the pizza to win the argument on its own.
- John's of Bleecker Street
Whole pies only since 1929, off a coal oven whose seasoning is the reason to sit down. Order The Sasso, a plain pie with black pepper, and nothing that is not pizza. Lunch is the quiet service.
- Grimaldi's Pizzeria
The room that made Dumbo a pizza town, now a franchise with more than forty doors and calorie counts on the menu. Go at a weekday lunch when the tourist line is gone, and know that The Infatuation rates the shop a few storefronts along, opened by Grimaldi's own founder, higher than this one.
Staten Island and Queens answer this question, and Manhattan never asks them.
Alexis Priester grew up on Staten Island and writes her own borough's guide: "When Staten Islanders are asked about their favorite pizza, Denino's is more often than not the first place that comes up." Out in Howard Beach, New Park Pizza has been handing over brick-oven slices since 1956. Both trips take a train and an afternoon, and they are the two on this page a New Yorker would actually argue with you about.
- Denino's Pizzeria & Tavern
Denino's is a tavern on Port Richmond Avenue, and that decides how you use it: a table, an evening, pitchers of beer. Order the clam pie, which Bryan Kim calls the beginners' version, and the M.O.R. of meatball, onion and ricotta. Order fewer pies than people.
- New Park PizzaHoward Beach
The Queens counter, cheese-forward and unbothered about char, with picnic tables outside that fill with Little League teams. Take a plain, then a second one dressed from the seasonings on the counter. Ask for it well-done if you want to taste the sauce.
Jeff's take.
I engineer dough for fun, so I came in expecting to care most about fermentation, and the sentence that stuck with me was Moore's about tip integrity. She is describing a structural property under load, measured at the worst hour of the night, and she wrote a better piece of food writing than most critics manage about crumb. The thing I would change about my own instincts is the borough weighting. My saved list is heavy on Manhattan slices, and the arguments worth crossing water for are in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. On Cello's Pizzeria my note reads "Top NYC pizza place on LES. Wylie fav." The address is St. Marks, so I had the neighborhood wrong and the slice right. Order the tomato pie there and tell me I was wrong twice.
Questions, answered
Which slice do chefs here actually name?
Two three-star chefs name the same one, and neither of them names a famous shop. Dominique Roy of Eleven Madison Park calls Ceres the best New York slice-style pie
and says in the same paragraph that its owners used to work with him.1 Daniel Humm, who owns that restaurant, told Grub Street the same thing from the other side of the kitchen: for me it truly is one of the greatest slices in the world. I can't order off of the menu there - they just make something.
2 Two people who could eat anywhere name a counter on Mott Street where you sign up in person for a pickup time.
as of Sep 2026
What happened at Prince Street Pizza?
Joe Rosenthal surfaced accounts of identity-based mistreatment of customers along with the shop's own racist replies on Yelp and racist posts from co-owner Dominic Morano's Facebook page. Hannah Albertine reported it for The Infatuation, Frank and Dominic Morano stepped down from day-to-day operations and both apologized, and the publication edited its review and pulled the shop from its lists.3 Bryan Kim's current pizza guide runs to twenty-six shops and Prince Street Pizza is not among them.4 Mama's TOO makes the same square.
as of Sep 2026
Is the Dumbo pizza trip worth it?
Go, and go to the other door. Willa Moore rated Grimaldi's Pizzeria 7.3 and reports that the pie never quite gets the char that built the queue.5 Take a weekday lunch either way, because Moore says the weekend line is tourists and the weekday one does not exist. The other door is Juliana's Pizza, Patsy Grimaldi's own return on the site of his first pizzeria, and the Grimaldi's beside it carries his old name and belongs to somebody else.6
as of Sep 2026
Do I have to leave Manhattan for this?
For the argument as the people here have it, yes. Will Hartman gives the city's best slice to the L'industrie shop in Williamsburg, and L’industrie Pizzeria West Village is its Manhattan follow-up with seats.7 Lucali is in Carroll Gardens, Di Fara Pizza is a block off the Q in Midwood, Denino's Pizzeria & Tavern is on Staten Island and New Park Pizza is in Howard Beach on the way to JFK.8 New Park is the one that sits on a route you may already be taking.
as of Sep 2026
What else do Staten Islanders order?
Alexis Priester's guide sends readers to eight pizzerias on the island, and her own stop after Denino's Pizzeria & Tavern is Italian ice at Ralph's across the street.9 The same Denino's review page carries the two other names islanders raise, Joe & Pat's at 8.6 and Lee's Tavern at 8.2.10 Treat them as The Infatuation's picks and not mine.
as of Sep 2026
How this was written
Jeff's argument, filled in from the sourced entries. Every room here has its own sourced entry, and nothing on this page adds a fact that is not on one of them. Last read through Sep 2026.