By Charlie Pogacar
When Ed Carew’s phone buzzed with a text—“Congrats on the Michelin listing!”—his first reaction was disbelief.
“I honestly didn’t even think [the Michelin Guide evaluated] pizza restaurants,” said Carew, chef and co-owner of See No Evil Pizza, tucked in a subway stop underneath New York City’s Broadway theater district. But the listing was real, and it boosted business in a big way.
But it also raised a bigger, thornier question: If Michelin is looking at pizzerias, why hasn’t a single one earned a star?
For more than a century, the Michelin Guide has been the world’s most influential restaurant list. In recent years it has expanded across the U.S., and today about 60 pizzerias across the world are “listed”—with a handful earning the Guide’s Bib Gourmand recognition for “exceptionally good food at moderate prices.” Yet the pizza community is still waiting for its first Michelin star.
Related: See No Evil Pizza: A Michelin-Approved Pizza Mecca Underneath Times Square
The Michelin Guide, for its part, insists stars aren’t about white tablecloths, hushed rooms or tasting-menu choreography. The Guide evaluates “only the cuisine itself,” an official representative told PMQ Pizza, using five criteria: (1) quality of products; (2) harmony of flavors; (3) mastery of cooking techniques; (4) the chef’s personality expressed on the plate; and (5) consistency across multiple anonymous visits.
On paper, that sounds like a fair fight for pizza—especially given that casual formats have earned stars before, from a taqueria in Mexico City to noodle counters in Tokyo.
So if stars are really dictated by the culinary experience, why has a pizzeria never made the cut?
Innovation vs. Iteration
Vitangelo Recchia, owner of Bella Napoli Pizzeria & Restaurant in Port Charlotte, Florida, has some theories on this topic. A Michelin-trained chef who won “Best American Pizza Maker” at the 2023 and 2024 World Pizza Championships, Recchia knows a thing or two about the Guide’s lofty standards.
In Recchia’s eyes, there aren’t enough pizza makers breaking new ground. He believes the world of pizza tends to be too generic and iterative to earn the respect of Michelin inspectors.
“In the restaurant industry, there are recipe card readers, and then there are innovators,” Recchia told PMQ. “The innovators are the ones that can create anything with what they’re doing, and they just test it, test it, test it. But then there are recipe card readers where you hand them a 50-year-old recipe, and they’re okay with it because they’re making money.”
If there are an estimated 80,000 pizzerias in the U.S., Recchia believes nearly half of them are using the same products and ingredients. So if inspectors are truly looking for “the chef’s personality expressed on the plate,” Recchia asks an uncomfortable question: “What’s going to set you apart? How many more pizza styles can you actually create?”
In other words, if the dough, cheese and tomatoes are so often the same, how can one expect the output to be truly exceptional?
“It’s a Crime”
Carew, who worked at famed fine-dining institutions like Eleven Madison Park before the Michelin Guide evaluated U.S.-based restaurants, is the first to laud the Michelin Guide and its ability to turn restaurants into cash cows. It’s something he’s experienced first hand. “It really helped our business [at See No Evil Pizza] because people coming to [Times Square] check the Michelin Guide” to decide where they might eat, Carew said. “I would kill for a Bib Gourmand,” he added, perhaps believing that’s the ceiling for a restaurant like See No Evil Pizza.
But he thinks there are pizza makers who have done more than enough to earn a star. When pressed on which pizza makers fit that bill, he doesn’t hesitate. “Anthony Mangieri,” he said, citing the owner and operator of Una Pizza Napoletana in New York City—a pizzeria that, like See No Evil Pizza, is listed in the Guide (but has no star). “We would not have the knowledge and the fervor for Neapolitan pizza in this country if it weren’t for Chef Anthony. I think it’s a crime that somebody like him doesn’t have a star.”
Carew cited other examples, too: Razza in Jersey City and Pizzeria Sei in Los Angeles. He believes the pizza makers behind those restaurants—Dan Richer and William Joo, respectively—are obsessives who show “maniacal,” Michelin-star-level of detail in their culinary execution.
Peasant Food
Let’s ask this question as bluntly as possible: Do Michelin inspectors have a bias against pizza? Perhaps, for reasons Recchia lays out, the food isn’t taken seriously by inspectors who are used to being blown away by food formats being redefined.
“I don’t see how a pizzaiolo can be compared to a Michelin-star chef,” Recchia said. “When I’m in front of Michelin-star chefs, it’s awing—you’re engulfed by it. You’re eating their cuisine, enjoying their atmosphere. I don’t necessarily see that with the pizza industry.”
Pizza’s origins are humble by nature. Pizza, the Italian street peasant food: Maybe the canvass—consciously or subconsciously—has a low ceiling in the eyes of Michelin inspectors. Carew also wonders aloud whether or not pizza suffers from an anti-Italian bias of sorts. “They’ve never been known for being generous with Italian food,” he said of the Michelin Guide’s history.
While that is merely Carew’s hunch, it appears to be based in fact. In the U.S., there are currently 16 three-star restaurants in the Michelin Guide—zero of them are described as Italian restaurants. There are an additional 35 two-star restaurants in the U.S. Just one of them—Acquerello in San Francisco—is described as serving Italian cuisine. Contrast that with other types of food, and you’ll find two different Scandinavian restaurants that have earned two stars. It feels safe to assume there are a few more Italian restaurants in the U.S. than Scandinavian restaurants.
Starry Future?
In some ways, the Bib Gourmand recognition seems an apt fit for pizzerias, as it highlights “exceptionally good food at moderate prices.” As of 2025, 27 pizzerias share the distinction as Bib Gourmand restaurants. PMQ asked the Michelin Guide point blank: Is the Bib Gourmand a way to honor eateries, like pizzerias, without awarding them stars?
“The MICHELIN Guide is unique because it evaluates only the cuisine itself (food on the plate),” the Guide wrote back via email. “But it can also mention service quality and decor, and describe the experience you can get at a certain restaurant.”
As the pizza industry’s quest for a Michelin star continues, there have been changes at the Guide that may play in its favor. The Guide first expanded into the U.S. in 2005, when it began evaluating restaurants in New York City. Since then, the Guide has methodically expanded across the U.S. (as well as other countries and continents) and, as of 2025, the Guide evaluates the American cities of New York, Chicago, Washington D.C. and San Francisco. The Guide has also recently added California, Florida, Colorado, Texas and the American South, including cities in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and the Carolinas. Atlanta, Boston and Philadelphia are also recently added American cities.
In other words, a whole new batch of restaurants will be up for consideration. Perhaps one of them will finally break through.
“I’d like to see Michelin honor an outstanding pizza place with a star that deserves it,” Carew said. “To me, the obvious choice is Anthony [Mangieri]. He never wavers. He never compromises. Isn’t that part of it?”
