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Editor’s note: This article is part 8 of the Pizza Power Report 2025. You can scroll down to the bottom to navigate to other sections of the report.
By Rick Hynum
There’s an old aphorism about opinions that, for the purpose of this family-friendly article, needs to be cleaned up a bit. Let’s go with this version: Opinions are like bellybuttons—everybody’s got one.
That includes restaurant critics, of course. But they provide a level of depth and insight that’s generally lacking on crowd-sourced review platforms like Yelp, where many users only post a review to vent their frustrations. Better yet, professional critics for high-traffic media sites like The New York Times and Food & Wine have credibility based on years, if not decades, of experience. And getting ranked on their best-pizzeria lists can transform your business overnight (literally).
Just ask Marisol and Rory Doyle, owners of Leña in Cleveland, Mississippi. After their neo-Neapolitan-style pizzeria—featured on PMQ Pizza’s cover in November 2023—made the Times’ list of the best pizza spots in the U.S. earlier this year, they were welcomed back to work by long lines of customers that stretched down the sidewalk. Guests started pouring in from all over the state and far beyond. And they’re still coming because, once they have a bite of Marisol’s wood-fired Don Beto pie—featuring red sauce, chorizo, ham, bacon and mozzarella—or the Sweet Potato Bacon (white sauce, mozz, cheddar, bacon, roasted sweet potatoes, bacon jam, balsamic glaze and chives)—the word of mouth keeps spreading.
For this year’s Pizza Power Report, we developed a list of the most critically acclaimed independent pizzerias in the U.S. Using a simple algorithm, we based the ranking on 2024 “best-pizzeria” lists from 50 Top Pizza, The New York Times, TheInfatuation.com and Gayot.com, along with 2023 “best-pizzeria” lists from The Washington Post, Food & Wine and TimeOut.com, as well as the current Michelin Guide.
Did your pizzeria make the list? If not, to paraphrase Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski, “Yeah, well, that’s just, like, their opinion, man.” Besides, there’s always next year.
NAVIGATING THE PIZZA POWER REPORT 2025
How Independents Keep Learning to Win vs. the Big Chains
Major Chains Lean into Value in So-Called ‘Pizza Wars’
Good Help Can Be Easier to Find With Some Creative Strategies
How Smart Technologies Can Ease Pizzerias’ Labor Problems
Venturing into the Frozen Frontier to Build a National Pizza Brand
C-Stores Are Taking ‘Gas Station Pizza’ to a New Level
America’s Most Popular Independent Pizzerias (Per Crowd-Sourced Reviews)
America’s 25 Most Critically Acclaimed Independent Pizzerias
The Top 30 Pizza Chains in the U.S.
The Top 10 Trending Pizza Styles for 2025
Most Popular and Fastest-Growing Pizza Toppings for 2025
