Here Is The Best Pizza Place In North Carolina, Says New List

NORTH CAROLINA — Another year, another ranking confirming what we already know: The best pizza in the United States is served in Connecticut, New York City and Chicago, but quality slices can be found in many other cities as well.

The Daily Meal released its list of the “101 Best Pizzas in America” at the end of September, and restaurants from 30 states made the ranking. The food blog considered nearly 1,000 pizzas and looked for such qualities as a nuanced sauce, well-distributed cheese, a flavorful crust and an overall balance of ingredients.

The “101 Best Pizzas in America” list is culled from a preferred pool of perfect pies. The Daily Meal then reached out to a diverse list of pizza chefs, bloggers, critics and writers, and asked them to take a survey on the pizza shops where they actually had eaten.

At the end of the process, North Carolina had one pizza joint make the rankings. The food and dining website ranked Mission Pizza Napoletana in Winston-Salem as the top spot in our state and No. 94 overall in the country.

“North Carolina’s first Neapolitan pizzeria, Mission Pizza Napoletana, is indeed on a mission: to spread the gospel of Naples,” The Daily Meal said. “Owner and Winston-Salem native Peyton Smith has pulled out all the stops on his quest: He’s imported a wood-fired Stefano Ferrara oven from Italy, he makes his dough daily from Italian flour and ages it for up to 72 hours, he’s created his own canned tomato blend for his sauce, and he tends to the pies as they char and bubble — never for more than 90 seconds — in an 850-degree oven. This place is the real deal.”

Mission Pizza Napoletana is located at 707 N. Trade Street in Winston-Salem.

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in New Haven, Connecticut was named the best pizza joint in the nation for the third year in a row.

Connecticut might have had the No. 1 pizza, but New York led the way overall with 28 pizza places on the Daily Meal list. New York was followed by Illinois with nine, California with seven, and Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey all with six.

Here are the top 10 overall pizzas in America:

10. John’s of Bleecker Street (New York, New York)
9. Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria (Chicago, Illinois)
8. Patsy’s (New York, New York)
7. Sally’s Apizza (New Haven, Connecticut)
6. Totonno’s (Brooklyn, NY)
5. Buddy’s Pizza (Detroit, Michigan)
4. Pequod’s (Chicago, Illinois)
3. Razza Pizza Artigianale (Jersey City, New Jersey)
2. Lucali (Brooklyn, New York)
1. Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (New Haven, Connecticut)