The Restaurants Andrew Zimmern Thinks Serve The Best Pizza In America

Chef Andrew Zimmern has been known to eat some unusual foods around the world, with the more mentionable ones including Cambodian deep-fried tarantulas, Alaskan sea cucumbers, fermented shark meat in Iceland, and various insects in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. But when it comes time to eat something more familiar to the American palate — like pizza, for instance — he heads back to one of his old stomping grounds, New York City. As he told the BBC, "Without a doubt, New York City is the pizza capital of the world." And when he's there, he has two favorites: L&B Spumoni Gardens and Una Pizza Napoletana.

Of course, neither restaurant is located in Zimmern's favorite food city; the borough of Queens. Instead, he sets his sights on Brooklyn and Manhattan. In 1939, L&B founder Ludovico Barbati opened up for business in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn after spending more than 20 years selling his Sicilian-style pizza from a horse and wagon. The restaurant, though it has since expanded, still operates out of that same location as well as a second spot in Dumbo. Una Pizza Napoletana — iterations of which popped up in New Jersey, San Francisco, and other parts of Manhattan since 1996 — has now settled in on the island's Lower East Side.

Zimmern isn't alone in his praise of L&B and Una Pizza. The New York Times recently named L&B one of its 25 Best Pizza Places in New York City, reporting, "This, too, is New York pizza, and it is delightful in a nostalgic, kids-menu kind of way." The Infatuation also calls the restaurant's square Sicilian-style slice a singular sensation, noting, "It consists of a layer of molten cheese welded to a focaccia-like crust, with tangy-sweet sauce baked on top."

Una Pizza, meanwhile, was awarded Michelin's Bib Gourmand which recognizes uniquely tasty bites at an accessible price point, all set in an inviting atmosphere. The guide noted of Una chef and owner Anthony Mangieri, "He is serious about his craft ... which yields glorious Neapolitan-style pies with fluffy edges, papery crusts and minimal toppings that hardly go beyond bubbly gumdrops of mozzarella di bufala and sweet tomato sauce." Mangieri knows which pizza mistakes to avoid, so it's no wonder former New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells once said, "Mr. Mangieri makes what is unmistakably the finest sit-down pizza in the five boroughs." Considering Zimmern's knack for finding the best restaurants in any city, his advice on where to get a slice should be heeded. And, given the proximity of each shop to the other (The F train runs between the two), you could conveniently taste the pies from L&B and Una Pizza in one day.