A. A 23 year-old Japanese - Makato Onishi
It's official.

Oh the shame, the shame ...

For Italian readers:
http://www.repubblica.it/2003/i/sezi...zza/pizza.html

Steve

I don't think the Italians generally make great Pizza - the number of times I've had TINNED mushrooms on mine.....

... oh, perhaps they do - just a block from the Pantheon, in tourist center per se - lovely tomato with basil, and of course, with a Banfi (1997). A bit of a splurge for a pizza, but it was my last day, and I wasn't going home in my usuaul state, financially drained. I fixed that with the second bottle!

I suppose that depends on your personal definition of "great" pizza. If you like it swimming in tomato sauce, meat and grease, then Pizza Hut will do ya. I think the Romans make fabulous pizza, just different. Shredded zucchini with mozzarella, no sauce, fabulous! And of course, the perennial pizza margherita with just a splash of tomato sauce, cheese and fresh herbs, and that crust that's not too thin and crispy, not too think and chewy...just right! Man, I'm getting hungry!!

Besides, I'll bet his mother is Italian.

I agree with you JanT, it does depend on what your tastes are or what you are used to.

Actually, darlings, I have had pizza in Tokyo with tuna and it was delicious. Not as salty as anchovies. I have had pizza in Rome, Florence, Sorrento, and Naples, but Philadelphia, by far, has all those cities beat. There is nothing like eating a pizza made by a strapping Italian-American teenage boy (18, darlings, don't get upset) with jet-black hair, dark brooding eyes, and a too-tight t-shirt showing off his well-developed pectoral muscles. Pronto.

Absolutely, it depends on what your tastes are. There is no "one best way" to make a pizza, cook an egg, etc.

If I like my pizza smothered with chocolate, or my egg fried to a blackened crisp, then that's the "best" pizza, or egg, for me, regardless of what any gourmets or other "food experts" have to say.

I'll have seconds, please.

"da michele" in naples...

locals throng outside and shout orders from the street for the three or four variations available.

unquestionably the best pizza in the pizza capitol of the world.

and i might add..

if you're used to italo/american pizza (much less the "domino's type), be aware that italian pizza crust is paper thin by comparison. also, there is way less tomatoe sauce.

For real neapolitan pizza aficionados, check out this site, music and pizza making video are included!
http://www.averanapoli.it/inglese.htm

While it may be the most common, certainly not all Italian pizza crust is paper thin. We had delicious thick crust pizza in a small little place in Amalfi, right off the main piazza in front of the cathedral.

OK, you asked......

Pietro, in his outside wood-fired oven on the balcony of Lo Guarracino in Positano, without a doubt!

http://www.loguarracino.net/lesaleeng.htm

viagg

It sure is a matter of taste. My Dad loves Pizza Hut, especially the one with the cheese in the crust. I have to leave the house when he orders it otherwise my gag reflex goes haywire from the smell of grease.

I'll take my favorite Italy pizza joints any day to anything I've found in America. NYC has the worst pizza, although Patsy's tries very hard.

We've got a place with brick ovens that makes pizza from scratch here in the suburbs of DC - Riccuti's, it is quite lovely, especially the one with artichoke, chicken, dried tomatoes and gorganzola. Other than that, one of Chicago's original deep dish places like Gino's or Uno's or Due's (if any of those are still around, and at least one must be) who serve a pizza that is more of a casserole with crust. Now THAT would go extrarodinarily well with PCH's Banfi. sigh. We preferred more traditional Italian fare when in Italy...we know we can get special pizza at home. The only time we had pizza, for lunch at a horrible tourist trap near the Forum in Rome, it was DREADFUL!

The July, 2003 issue of Travel & Leisure magazine had an article by a writer who went to Naples to find out who made the best pizza. The author visited Ciro a Santa Brigida, da Michele, Di Matteo and Sorbillo. At the end of his trip he dined with a group of Neapolitans and told them of his story. One gentleman pulled him aside and whispered in his ear: "When I want a truly great pizza I hop on a plane to New York." It's all a matter of taste.

The best pizzas for me are not in Italy or New York or...no ,no ,no , -try them in SICILY ! OOOOOoooohhh!!

A few years ago in Rome at a place called EST!EST!EST! (I went there for the wine ) I ordered a seafood pizza.
It had a few different toppings on it (shellfish & fish) and was quite good.
But what took me by surprise was the mussel topping...6 mussels still in their shells ! Regards, Walter

You took the words right out of my mouth "ME". Sicilian pizza is different and very good