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- 1Lombardi's
"America's first pizzeria," is how Lombardi's has been recognized by the Pizza Hall of Fame, tracing back to 1905 in what's now Nolita, credited traditionally to Italian immigrant Gennaro Lombardi. It's a title that's genuinely contested — a 2019 investigation found that Lombardi arrived in America only in late 1904, listed as a laborer rather than an owner, and more recent research points to Filippo Milone as the pizzeria's actual founder, with Lombardi possibly an employee who later took over the business. Whatever the exact founding credit, the original location closed in 1984, and the Lombardi name went dormant until 1994, when Gennaro Lombardi III and John Brescio reopened it at 32 Spring Street, close to the original site, reviving the coal-fired oven technique and classic New York-style pie that had built the name's reputation in the first place. The restaurant has leaned into its own contested history rather than smoothing it over, running anniversary promotions in 2005 and 2015 that sold pizzas at the original 1905 price of five cents — a nod to the founding date the whole business is named around, even as historians keep complicating exactly whose founding it actually was. That tangled origin story is arguably part of what makes Lombardi's worth visiting rather than a distraction from it: whether or not Gennaro Lombardi personally invented American pizza, this Nolita coal-oven pie is where the city's now-dominant food identity is conventionally said to have started, disputed footnotes and all.
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0 - 2Di Fara Pizza
Di Fara Pizza opened in 1965 in Midwood, Brooklyn, founded by Domenico "Dom" DeMarco, who had emigrated from the Province of Caserta, Italy, in 1959. DeMarco found the Avenue J storefront almost by accident — visiting on a recommendation, he found the corner bustling with foot traffic on a Saturday night and signed the lease on the spot. The name itself is a small tribute to that beginning: "Di" for DeMarco, "Fara" for his original partner Farina, a name DeMarco kept even after buying out that partnership in 1978. For decades, DeMarco made every single pizza himself, standing at the same spot behind the counter, hand-cutting basil with scissors directly onto each pie and finishing it with a specific, unhurried ritual that became as much a part of the restaurant's identity as the pizza itself — a level of personal, hands-on involvement that became genuinely rare as the restaurant's fame grew and wait times stretched into hours. That fame built slowly over decades rather than through any single viral moment, driven almost entirely by word of mouth among people willing to travel to a fairly out-of-the-way Midwood storefront and wait a genuinely long time for a pie made one at a time by one specific person. DeMarco passed away in 2022, and the restaurant has continued under his family since, carrying forward a recipe and process that spent nearly sixty years being made almost exclusively by its founder's own hands. For a New York pizza list, Di Fara is the essential "one man, one recipe, six decades" entry — proof that a genuinely great New York slice doesn't need a second location to matter.
Dive/counter — the only one on this list
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0 - 3Joe's Pizza
Joe's Pizza opened in 1975 in Greenwich Village, founded by Pino "Joe" Pozzuoli, an Italian immigrant from Naples, built around exactly the kind of no-frills, classic New York slice format that's become harder to find well-executed as the city's pizza scene has diversified into wood-fired Neapolitan spots and Sicilian squares. The restaurant briefly closed in 2005 before reopening, a genuine scare for a shop that had, by that point, already spent three decades building a reputation as one of the most reliable classic slices in Manhattan. New York Times critic Pete Wells later described Joe's as one of the reference points other "neoclassical slice-shop owners" specifically cite when they talk about emulating old-school New York pizza — a direct acknowledgment from a serious food critic that Joe's isn't just old, it's the standard newer places are trying to live up to. That reputation has held up specifically because Joe's hasn't chased trends — no elaborate topping combinations, no wood-fired Neapolitan pivot, just a well-executed, foldable New York slice sold fast out of a small Carmine Street storefront, the same basic format the shop opened with in 1975. For a New York pizza list, Joe's Pizza is the essential "the standard other places measure themselves against" entry — a fifty-year-old Greenwich Village slice shop that professional critics point to specifically when they want to describe what a serious classic New York slice is supposed to taste like.
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0 - 4Prince Street Pizza
Prince Street Pizza opened in 2012 in Nolita, built around Sicilian family recipes passed down through the Morano family, operating on a specific culinary philosophy the restaurant has described simply: if you can put it on pasta, you can put it on pizza. That approach shows up most clearly in the shop's signature square slice, a thick, focaccia-like Sicilian-style pie that's a genuinely different eating experience from a classic thin New York triangle. The Spicy Spring — a square slice topped with spicy soppressata that curls and crisps at the edges as it bakes — has become the specific order most people mean when they talk about Prince Street Pizza, a dish specific enough to have its own reputation somewhat separate from the restaurant as a whole, driving lines down the block on a regular basis. That square-slice format sits in genuine contrast to the classic thin New York triangle that dominates most of the rest of this list — thicker, more bread-forward, built to carry a heavier topping load without going soggy, closer in spirit to a Sicilian nonna's home cooking than a coal-oven Neapolitan tradition. For a New York pizza list, Prince Street Pizza is the essential "the square slice, done right" entry — a Sicilian family recipe turned into one of the most specifically-ordered single dishes in the city's entire pizza scene.
Deep-dish — the only one on this list
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0 - 5Roberta's
Roberta's opened in January 2008 in what was then a genuinely industrial, unglamorous stretch of East Williamsburg bordering Bushwick, well before that part of Brooklyn had become the dense restaurant destination it is today. The restaurant helped define what that transformation would even look like — a wood-fired pizzeria that doubled as a genuine cultural hub, running its own radio station out of the back of the building and growing produce for the kitchen in a rooftop garden. That combination of serious wood-fired pizza technique and a scrappy, DIY cultural identity became a genuine template that a wave of ambitious restaurants across Brooklyn and beyond would go on to borrow from — Roberta's wasn't just an early, good pizza restaurant in Bushwick, it was one of the places that helped establish what "ambitious restaurant in an unglamorous industrial neighborhood" was even supposed to look like in New York. The pizza itself sits closer to a New American interpretation of wood-fired than a strict Neapolitan tradition, built around seasonal, sometimes unexpected toppings pulled partly from that rooftop garden rather than a fixed, traditional menu — a kitchen willing to treat pizza as a genuine canvas rather than a format with rules to follow strictly. For a New York pizza list, Roberta's is the essential "the restaurant that helped build the neighborhood around it" entry — proof that a great pizzeria can also function as a genuine cultural anchor, radio station and rooftop garden included.
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0 - 6Juliana's
Juliana's opened in December 2012 in DUMBO, Brooklyn, founded by Patsy Grimaldi, who came out of retirement at age 80 to open it — a genuinely unusual restaurant-industry comeback, in the exact building he'd previously run as the original Grimaldi's Pizzeria before selling that brand name and its franchise rights in 1998. Grimaldi named the new restaurant Juliana's after his mother, Maria "Juliana" Lancieri Grimaldi, a personal tribute built into the business's identity from day one. The opening itself was delayed by legal disputes with the Grimaldi's brand he'd sold years earlier, pushing what was originally planned as a March 2012 debut back to that December — a reminder that even a beloved, retired pizzaiolo returning to his own old kitchen wasn't a simple, uncomplicated homecoming. That legal tangle aside, Juliana's gave Grimaldi a chance to return to the same coal-fired oven and DUMBO storefront where he'd already built one legendary pizza reputation, effectively competing directly with the brand carrying his own former name a few doors down — a genuinely strange dynamic that's become part of the neighborhood's pizza lore, with regulars debating which of the two is actually closer to the "real" Grimaldi's pizza. For a New York pizza list, Juliana's is the essential "the founder's actual comeback" entry — an 80-year-old pizzaiolo returning to his own original kitchen to make the case, in person, that he never needed the name he'd sold to make the pizza that made it famous.
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