8 CA Pizza Places Among Best In The U.S.: Food & Wine

CALIFORNIA — When it comes to pizza, the question is perennial: What pizzeria makes the best pie? Well-regarded cooking magazine Food & Wine scoured the country to answer that question and found eight pizzerias in the Golden State made the cut.

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.”

Coming in second on the list of 28 pizzerias, A16 Rockridge in Oakland was lauded for its massive Stefano Ferrara wood-burning oven. The oven cooks pizzas in just 90 seconds and lets the individual ingredients shine, such as the lightly-fried pizza dough and smoky tomato sauce.

Other top-tier pizzerias on the list are:

• Milo & Olive in Santa Monica, which came in at number three on the list;
• Del Popolo in San Francisco, which came in at number five;
• 800 Degrees in Los Angeles was number seven;
• Casey's Pizza in San Francisco rounded out the top 10 in 10th place;
• Pizzeria Mozza in LA was number 15;
• Flour + Water in San Francisco was 16th;
• Pizzeria Delfina also in San Francisco came in at number 19.

Food & Wine gives the top nod to Pizzeria Verti in Philadelphia. 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.