3 LA Pizza Places Named 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 three pizzerias in Los Angeles County that made the cut, including among the nation's top ten.

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, Milo & Olive in Santa Monica was lauded for its "whole–grain pie dough, topped with seasonal — and often unconventional — combinations like butternut squash, caramelized onion, Fontina cream, 25-year-aged balsamic, and thyme."

800 Degrees in Los Angeles came in at number seven. The chefs behind Umami Burger created fast artisanal pizza, which is made to order and cooks in 60 seconds.

Coming in at 15th was LA's Pizzeria Mozza, which combines the California ingredients such as squash blossoms and "super-juicy tomatoes" with Italian tradition's such as big wood-burning ovens and house-made mozzarella.

Other top-tier pizzerias on the list are:

• A16 Rockridge in Oakland, which came n at number two
• Del Popolo in San Francisco, which came in at number five;
• Casey's Pizza in San Francisco rounded out the top 10 in 10th place;
• 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.