Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy Reviews Strip District Pizzeria

PITTSBURGH, PA — Perhaps the nation's most renowned amateur pizza reviewer, Dave Portnoy came to Pittsburgh recently to sample some pies. His first stop was A Slice of New York in Murrysville; his second was Bella Notte on in the Strip District.

Portnoy, the founder of the Barstool Sports media company, can provide a boon to a pizzeria. His One Bite Pizza Reviews channel on YouTube has 1.34 million subscribers; the video of his trip to Bella Notte, uploaded on Thursday, had more than 145,000 views as of Friday afternoon.

It shows Portnoy, wearing a "Yinzer Nation" T-shirt, standing outside the Penn Avenue pizzeria and opening the pizza box. He took a bite of the pie and proclaimed it "very doughy...this is cold weather pizza."

Before stepping outside, he had asked the person at the cash register what score he thought the pizza would get. The man wouldn't say, but did write it down to reveal after Portnoy had sampled the pie.

"It's fresh and good," Portnoy said while still outside."I'm too nice. I'm going to inflate the score."

While he thought the quality was a 6.8 on a 1-to-10 scale, Portnoy gave the pizza a 7.2 score - virtually identical to the 7.1 score the person at the register had predicted.

For those keeping score at home, here are the ratings thus far in Portnoy's Pittsburgh pizza tour:

• A Slice of New York: 8.2

• Bella Notte: 7.2