Many New Yorkers will gladly tell anyone who’ll listen – and even those who won’t – about how they have the best pizza. And now they’ve got some mouth-watering new back-up for their long-standing culinary claims.
This week, the Italy-based 50 Top Pizza Awards came out with its 2024 worldwide list, and a Lower East Side restaurant came out on top.
Una Pizza Napoletana, opened by pizza maestro Anthony Mangieri in March 2022, not only beat out US competitors but also global ones. That includes pizzerias in Naples, Italy, the holy land for pizza aficionados and foodies in general.
“It’s inspiring to be recognized for this 30 years into my career, especially in Naples where pizza originated,” Mangieri said in an email to CNN Travel on Thursday.
Adding to their bragging rights, New Yorkers saw three other pizzerias make the 2024 list, which included 101 restaurants in total (despite the “50” in the name of the awards). The rankings for the other New York pizzerias were Ribalta at No. 19, Don Antonio at No. 30 and L’industrie Pizzeria at No. 80.
Italy still managed to dominate the overall list with 41 eateries while the United States got a total of 15 places recognized. And Naples managed to best New York with five entries on the list, including a tie for the No. 2 spot with Diego Vigtaliano Pizzeria.
Showing how truly global the awards are, nations not exactly known for their pizza scenes –South Korea, Bolivia and India, to name three – were represented on the list.
Why Una Pizza Napoletana?
The 50 Top Pizza Awards explained how Una nabbed the highest honor on its website.
“In a country always accustomed to putting everything on pizza, Anthony proposes only the purest tradition in toppings, with extraordinary quality ingredients. Marinara, Margherita, Cosacca, and a pizza that changes every day, based on market ingredients,” the Awards site said.
Mangieri, who grew up in New Jersey, developed “a pizza obsession at a young age,” a media representative for the restaurant said in an email to CNN Travel. His mother ended up driving him to all the well-known spots in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut in his quest for the “perfect pizza.”
Mangieri “focuses on naturally leavened, wood-fired pizzas with ingredients like the best San Marzano tomatoes, Amalfi wild oregano, buffalo mozzarella DOP, and Sicilian sea salt,” the representative said. “He chose to have only one location to allow for an obsessive focus on every detail.”
Dough emphasis
Mangieri focuses on the basics to achieve his results.
“What makes a really good pizza is first the dough. It’s not a specific recipe, but it’s about hydration and understanding how to work the dough and being able to adapt to all the variables involved,” he told CNN Travel.
“At Una, what makes us different is our dough is naturally leavened and highly hydrated, never refrigerated, made with a mixture of many different of Italian flours, and I make the dough every day we’re open.”
Una Pizza Napoletana should appeal to the “slow food” crowd. It bakes only three pizzas at the time in its wood-fired ovens. The current location at 175 Orchard Street, just off Houston Street, is actually the sixth iteration of the restaurant and has been open since March 2022.
For people more about frozen sweets than hot pizza, the 50 Top Pizza Awards also praised the homemade ice cream and seasonal sorbets at Una.
As far as the acclaim goes, Mangieri said, “The recognition is appreciated, but in the end it’s not why I started and not why I continue to make every ball of dough we serve at Una after all these years. It fuels us to go into the restaurant every day and give more love and focus, and not to take anything for granted.”
And what does this pizza master enjoy eating himself? “Pasta, and I eat it for almost every meal. Or my fiancée’s Mexican cooking.”
If you’re hoping to drop by for a pie at Una, you’ll have to wait until October 4. Mangieri and his team have closed the place while they travel in Italy.
The leaderboard
For 2024, here are the top pizzerias around the world, according to the 50 Top Pizza Awards:
1. Una Pizza Napoletana (New York, USA)
2. (tie) Diego Vitagliano Pizzeria (Naples, Italy)
2. (tie) I Masanielli – Francesco Martucci (Caserta, Italy)
3. The Pizza Bar on 38th (Tokyo, Japan)
4. Confine (Milan, Italy)
5. Napoli on the Road (London, England)
6. Tony’s Pizza Napoletana (San Francisco, USA)
7. I Tigli (San Bonifacio, Italy)
8. Sartoria Panatieri (Barcelona, Spain)
9. 50 Kalò (Naples, Italy)
10. Seu Pizza Illuminati (Rome, Italy)
