Do You Agree with This List of Top 101 Pizzas?
I just received this article from Bake Magazine, based on a post from The Daily Meal newsletter, listing their top 101 pizzas in the USA. As I read through it I was pleased to see how many of these pizzas I have personally tasted (about half — wow, I forgot how much pizza I’ve had over the years and how many places I’ve visited) and also thought of a few places I think should have made the list and, also, which ones I think may be over-rated or good but not top 101 worthy.
Of course, we all have a favorite place, probably unknown outside our community, that we think the world needs to knows about but probably never will. In “American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza,” I wrote of two kinds of perfect pizzas, the paradigmatically perfect and the contextually perfect pizza. The first is a pizza that is so well executed and delicious that it is intuitively to obvious to anyone how great it is even if they’ve had no history with the place, while the second is perfect because of a personal connection we have with the place, such as childhood memories or relationships forged there associated with the flavors, aromas, and taste memories associated with that pizza. And, of course, sometimes a place is perfect in both categories — how lucky we are to know such a place (and most of us do). This top 101 list is obviously aimed at the first category, not based on memories or associations but with execution and pure flavor, and I would love to hear from you of any places you think should have made the list based on that criteria. Here’s the link so check it out and then let’s start a thread here with your thoughts: http://www.bakemag.com/Trends/News/News%20Home/2015/8/101%20Best%20Pizzas.aspx
Looking forward to hearing if you concur with these findings, think a great place was overlooked, or any other comments regarding top 101 lists and the like. Pizza elicits strong emotions so let’s keep it civil and constructive; no bashing other people’s opinions or yelling. Pizza is, above all, fun, so let’s keep this comment thread fun too.
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There’s no such thing as the top 100 pizzas. It’s all subjective, nebulous and arbitrary…and silly. The top 1 pizza is the one that’s in front of you, hot, partnered with a good wine or beer and better company.
I dunno. I wasn’t even going to read the list at first. I just can’t get into this whole premise. Two major problems…1 It’s not the same team of people evaluating the pizzas, it’s 109 people all with different likes and dislikes, and 2. It’s not even the same general type of pizza at each restaurant. If this article were to mean something, you would have the same team testing the same type of pizza e.g. Neapolitan. Nobody is going to the expense of sending a team of people to more than 100 locations for a fluff article. There’s all sorts of other factors, was the pizza delivered to the table hot and bubbly or cold with a burnt crust? Is the pizza consistently good, night to night or was that one night just a fluke? The only point to this list is, if you see a local shop on the list you’re more likely to try it out…or if you know you will be traveling to a city that’s on the list.
If you spend your life looking backwards, wear a helmet.