The best pizza in America, from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles

America’s love of pizza runs deep. In some places it also runs thin, crispy, charred, folded and, occasionally, topped with a poached egg.

The United States is home to more than 80,000 small-chain and independent pizza restaurants, according to Yelp and industry statistics. Pies and slices have many habitats: gas stations, mall food courts, decades-old slice shops and white-tablecloth trattorias. It’s almost always affordable and portable. As the pandemic showed, it’s our go-to comfort food.

The history of pizza in the United States mirrors the path of many immigrant foods. Italians brought a version of the Naples-born creation to America in the late 1800s and began opening shops in the early 1900s, pizza historians say. Their approach molded to their hometowns and the tastes of locals. Thin and crispy pies were used as salty snacks to soak up beer in taverns; industrial pans became the vessel for bubbly cheese-and-sauce-topped dough; and charred Neapolitan-style crusts served as the canvas for farm-to-table cuisine. And so America’s favorite regional pizza styles were born.

We set out to find the country’s best pizzas, from slice shops in New York City to fancy California-inspired pizzas, gathering favorites from experts, historians and pros around the country. For a more populist view, Washington Post data columnist Andrew Van Dam analyzed 7.5 million Yelp reviews of pizzerias to see which regional-style restaurants attract the most and highest ratings.

But who has the best? Well, that’s for you to argue.

[Quad City, Old Forge, jumbo slice and more quirky American pizzas]