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I can't even pretend to be educated enough on this to have a citywide answer. However, best pizza in the greater-Park-Slope-metroplex is Luigi's on 5th Avenue and 20th Street.
If you have ever made your own pizza from scratch you will recognize the skill involved with making a good Napolitan pie, it is really easy to make the crust thick but it takes skill and experience to make the crust thin and delicious. This outrageous thin crust makes New York pizza the best pizza west of Naples. Those deep dish Chicago pizzas are really amateur hour time, not sure if ti is a lack of dough skills or lack or expousure to good pizza that lead them to favor those English pot pie looking/tasting things.
As a former pizza maker, I can assure you that is absolutely correct. Getting the crust so thin that it just barely stays together as you put it in the oven is a true art form and really makes the pie. The rest of the matter is all about preparation, and of course makes a huge difference, but the real artwork is all in the crust. Tossing the pie in the air isn't just for show, with a good dough it'll stretch it out more evenly....although most places, ones I've worked included, you really don't have the time to mess with this on most nights, as you have to do it just right to avoid tearing or ending up with some kind of football shaped mess.
I really don't have a favorite NYC pizza....since I was in the business for so many years, I rarely ever wanted to eat it when I was out haha. There are more good places than bad, in my experience. I still stop at New Park Pizza in Howard Beach because I'm still over that way quite a bit, but it's definitely not the best of NYC or anywhere close to it.
BTW, don't mean to sidetrack the tread, but how much are you guys paying for pizza now in the city? I'm curious because the old rule of a slice staying on par with subway fare seems to have gone out the window....but now that they're talking about $3 subway rides I'm curious if the pizzerias might suddenly remember their old unspoken code. It's been $2-$2.25 out here in Nassau forever, but cheese prices have fallen SHARPLY in the last year or so. It's something like half of what it was in 2006... unfortunately, I can't imagine the pizzeria owners would consider changing their prices to reflect that!
I live here and I'd love to know the answer to this question. If it's luxury pizza, then probably either John's on Bleecker like Noem said, or Grimaldi's or Lombardi's. I'd had all three multiple times, but I'd wager if I had to do a blind taste test, then I couldn't tell a difference between the three. As for pizza by the slice, I like Gabby's waaaaaay out on Hillside Ave in Hollis, but I haven't found a place that is consistently superior a little closer in.
I can however, give you some of the worst: Domino's, Pizzeria Uno, anything with the combination of "famous," "original," and "Ray's" in the title, and Papa John's. How these places are actually making inroads in the city is beyond me.
Rizzo's on 30th and Steinway in Astoria, Queens. Legendary stuff.
Remember it well. Does it still have that killer neon sign?
I always liked St Marks Pizza at St Marks and 3rd.
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