2 PA Pizza Places Among Best In The U.S.: Food & Wine

PENNSYLVANIA — In the search for the best pizza in the nation, one Pennsylvania restaurant serves up the winning pie and another is among the cream of the crop, according to the well-regarded cooking magazine Food & Wine.

The list is composed of the creations of top chefs and bakers who, according to Food & Wine, “are among the new breed of pizzaiolos who are just as fanatical about the temperature of their ovens as they are about the provenance of their ingredients.”

Pizzeria Vetri in Philadelphia ranked 1st on the list of 28 restaurants. Marc Vetri’s restaurant serves Neapolitan pizzas that “come with thick, chewy crusts and toppings like prosciutto crudo and roasted fennel.” Food & Wine also mentioned the signature rotolo, which are dough filled with “pink, fatty slices of housemade mortadella” and topped with a Sicilian pistachio pesto.

The other Pennsylvania restaurant on the list is Tacconelli’s Pizza, also in Philadelphia, which came in at No. 21. The magazine says the Philly pizza institution hasn’t changed its recipe since Italian immigrant Giovanni Tacconelli started serving pies in 1946.

Rounding out the top five pizzerias are A16 Rockridge in Oakland, California; Milo & Olive in Santa Monica, California; Pig Ate My Pizza at Nouvelle Brewing in Robbinsdale, Minnesota; and Del Popolo in San Francisco.

The 28 pizzerias in the report are located in nine states. New York City has the most, with 12 pizzerias, followed by California with eight and Pennsylvania with two. Arizona, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington each had one pizzeria that made the cut.

Patch’s Beth Dalbey contributed to this report.