The Battle Lines Are Drawn
Picture this: you’re standing at a crossroads, holding a slice of paper-thin New York pizza in one hand and a towering deep-dish Chicago masterpiece in the other. When asked to name their top five pizza cities, Americans most frequently selected New York (66%), Chicago (57%), Los Angeles (22%), Philadelphia (17%), and Detroit (16%). More Americans love New York-style pizza (51%) than any other, followed by Chicago-style (40%) and Sicilian and Neapolitan, tied at 36% each. The numbers don’t lie – this isn’t just about food preferences; it’s about cultural identity. The United States pizza restaurant market was projected to reach $50.1 billion in revenue in 2024 from more than 74,000 pizzeria businesses, according to IBISWorld’s “Pizza Restaurants in the US – Market Research Report”. Each city claims supremacy, but which one truly deserves the crown? The battle isn’t just about cheese and sauce – it’s about two fundamentally different philosophies of what pizza should be. New Yorkers fold their slices like newspapers, while Chicagoans attack theirs with forks and knives like they’re carving a Thanksgiving turkey. The rivalry runs so deep that it’s practically biblical.
The Sacred Origins of New York Pizza
The first pizzeria in the United States, Lombardi’s, is said to have been founded by Gennaro Lombardi in New York City’s Little Italy in 1905, although this has been challenged by author Peter Regas. An immigrant pizzaiolo (‘pizza maker’) from Naples, he opened a grocery store in 1897; eight years later, it was licensed to sell pizza by New York State. An employee, Antonio Totonno Pero, began making pizza, which sold for five cents per pie. Think about that for a second – five cents for an entire pizza! When he began selling tomato pies by the piece to workers who came in looking for something to take to work for lunch, America’s first pizzeria was born. The genius wasn’t just in the food itself, but in understanding the rhythm of city life. These large wide slices are often eaten as fast food while folded in half along the crust both for convenience—allowing the slice to be eaten one-handed—and to control the flow of oil running off the pizza. From day one, New York pizza was designed for people who couldn’t slow down. At the beginning of the 20th century, pizza in New York was cooked in massive coal-fired masonry ovens originally built to bake bread. Lombardi’s, which claims 1905 as its founding date, making it allegedly “the first pizzeria in America,” used this type of oven at its first location at 531/2 Spring Street, and still uses one in its present-day spot down the street.
The Secret Weapon: New York Water
Here’s where things get almost mystical. Minerals present in New York City’s tap water supply are also credited with giving the dough in metro area pizzas its characteristic texture and flavor. Some out-of-state pizza bakers even transport the water cross-country for the sake of authenticity. You read that right – pizza makers literally ship New York water across the country because they believe it’s that crucial to the perfect slice. Pizza-heads all over the world swear that there is something in the NY water that makes the pizza good, is it true? There has been no definite research with verified results on this, but you can’t deny that water is about 60% of a pizza dough recipe. It sounds like folklore, but when pizza makers are willing to pay shipping costs on thousands of gallons of water, you know they’re serious. New York–style pizza gets its distinguishing crust from the high-gluten bread flour with which it is made. The combination of that high-gluten flour and the mineral-rich water creates something that’s almost impossible to replicate elsewhere. It’s like trying to make champagne outside of Champagne – technically possible, but somehow never quite the same.
Chicago’s Revolutionary Answer
Chicago-style deep-dish pizza was invented at Pizzeria Uno in Chicago, founded by Ike Sewell and Richard Riccardo in 1943. Riccardo’s original recipe for a pizza cooked in a pie pan or cake tin was published in 1945 and included a dough made with scalded milk, butter, and sugar. But here’s where the story gets interesting – the inspiration for Chicago’s deep dish pie actually came from a Texan. Ike Sewell grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and became an All-American player for the Texas Longhorns football team. Sewell couldn’t convince the others that the Mexican food business would succeed, so the partners came to a compromise: they’d open a pizza place instead. But, they wouldn’t serve the thin and crispy pies other pizzerias were firing off. Their offering would be heartier, more substantial, and uniquely American. Chicago deep-dish pizza was the happy consequence of unhappy economic and cultural shifts during World War II. The ingredients necessary for pizza dough — wheat flour, corn oil, salt, and yeast — were not among the rationed foods, and the filling could be made from leftover meats and vegetables. They didn’t just create a new style of pizza; they created a whole new category of food.
The Architecture of Deep Dish
The main difference between deep-dish pizza and traditional Italian pizza — other than its size and topping order — is that you cook it in a cast iron pan. You first line the pan with a thick dough, then add meat and plenty of mozzarella before covering it with chunky tomato sauce. However, the tomato sauce layer plays a vital role — it protects the cheese! Thick, deep-dish pizza requires a longer cooking time, which would burn the cheese if it was on top. With the sauce above it, the cheese melts perfectly. It’s basically pizza engineering at its finest. The pizza was also upside-down. A thick layer of mozzarella cheese was topped with meat or vegetables, covered with tomato sauce, and topped with crust. The concoction required a knife, a fork, and a napkin — and it was cooked to order. The first deep dish pizza, according to Regas, was about an inch tall — half the height of the modern product — and whoever was in Riccardo’s kitchen used standard pizza dough, made with flour, yeast, salt and water.
The Price of Perfection
Money talks, and in the pizza world, it’s practically screaming. On the flip side, New York City has America’s most expensive average large cheese pizza ($26.00) and pepperoni pizza ($29.75), a major factor in its No. 8 ranking. Twenty-six dollars for a cheese pizza? That’s not just expensive – that’s “I need to check my bank account before ordering” expensive. The cheapest average large cheese pizza in the U.S. can be found in Madison, Wisconsin ($13.77), while the cheapest average large pepperoni pizza is sold in El Paso, Texas ($15.40). Meanwhile, Chicago’s deep-dish falls somewhere in the middle price-wise, but you’re getting substantially more food for your money. A weekly pizza night with one large cheese and one large pepperoni pizza costs the smallest portion of the local median household income in Washington, D.C.: 1.63%. A weekly pizza night is the priciest in Las Vegas, at 3.56% of the local income. The economics of pizza reveal something profound about American eating habits and regional priorities.
The Cultural Divide
New York style rules the coastal and southern states, while Chicago style holds fast in the middle of the country. 27 states and Washington, D.C. prefer thin crust, compared to the 21 which prefer deep dish. Regular thin crust is most popular in America; it is preferred by 61% of the population, 14% prefer deep-dish, and 11% prefer extra thin-crust. The map of American pizza preferences looks like a political battleground, with coastal elites defending their thin-crust territory while heartland Americans rally around their deep-dish fortresses. Approximately 59% of Americans say pizza is their favorite food. The vast majority (87%) say they prefer to get it from small, independent pizza places over large chains. Over a third of Americans (35%) say the presence of a popular, iconic pizza restaurant would make them more likely to consider moving to a specific neighborhood, and the same percentage (35%) would even consider moving to a city with better pizza. People are literally making major life decisions based on pizza access. That’s not just preference – that’s devotion bordering on obsession.
The Science of Consumption
Approximately 3 billion pizzas are consumed by Americans each year. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, approximately 13% of Americans consume pizza daily, which equates to roughly 1 in 8 Americans. Think about that statistic for a moment – one in eight Americans eats pizza every single day. Around $6 billion worth of frozen pizza is purchased annually in the United States. As of the latest data, meat toppings dominate the market with a commanding 56% share. Indicating a strong preference for protein-rich options among consumers. The numbers paint a picture of a nation absolutely obsessed with pizza in all its forms. The global Pizza Market size is USD 151254.2 million in 2024. The increasing consumer preference for convenient and ready-to-eat meals is expected to boost sales to USD 212829.8487 million by 2031, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.0% from 2024 to 2031. This isn’t just about American appetite – it’s about a global phenomenon that two American cities essentially created and continue to define.
The Slice Revolution
Patsy’s in East Harlem was the first early pizzeria to sell pizza by the slice. The slice joint is still open today next to the sit-down Patsy’s where whole pies are available. In one specific way, New York’s pizza culture didn’t start until Patsy’s opened. Patsy was an innovator, and invented the idea of selling pizza by the slice. In one fateful moment, the New York slice was born. In 1933, Pasquale “Patsy” Lancieri opened a pizzeria with his wife Carmella in East-Harlem. At the time, the neighborhood was predominantly Italian American. The slice fundamentally changed how Americans think about pizza. Pizza lore says that in the early 40’s NY pizzerias started selling half or quarter pizzas to customers who had “cash flow issues”. Even though there is no definite proof, most pizza historians have agreed that probably the first place to do this was Nunzio’s in Staten Island. So, it seems that a big part of enjoying a NY style pizza is to grab a slice while on the go. The architecture of the slice evolves over the next few decades and becomes purposeful and accommodating to that specific use. The thin crust oversized slice is easy to eat and digest (thin crust and light amounts of sauce and cheese play their part), it can fold in half allowing it to be eaten one-handed, and the fold makes controlling the flow of oil running of the slice in any direction easy.
The Modern Battlefield
The pace of pizzerias opening up in New York in the 1960s and 1970s led to what was considered the Golden Age of the Slice. Of all the establishments that have come and gone during this time frame, Brooklyn’s collection of pizza eateries has become and remained the dominant force when it comes to delivering the best New York-style pizzas there is to offer. This began in the year 2010 as a cheffy-style slice shop that has served as a throwback to the classic slice places of old. This includes using the wood-burning oven method that originally made New York-style pizzas so popular in the beginning. Shops like Best Pizza represent what’s currently being deemed as the Second Golden Age of the Slice. Meanwhile, Chicago continues to evolve its deep-dish game. By the mid-1970s, two Chicago chains, Nancy’s Pizza, founded by Rocco Palese, and Giordano’s Pizzeria, operated by brothers Efren and Joseph Boglio, began experimenting with deep-dish pizza and created the stuffed pizza. Palese based his creation on his mother’s recipe for scarcedda, an Italian Easter pie from his hometown of Potenza in Basilicata at the far southern end of the Italian Peninsula, more commonly known in Italy as pizza rustica Lucana. Stuffed pizzas are typically deeper, have another layer of dough covering the toppings, and have more cheese than standard deep-dish pizza, while other restaurants’ deep-dish pizzas tend to have more sauce.
So which city really wins this epic pizza showdown? Maybe that’s the wrong question entirely. New York gave us the art of eating on the go, while Chicago taught us that sometimes you need to slow down and savor something substantial. Both cities created something uniquely American from Italian roots, and both continue to influence how the world thinks about pizza. But here’s the thing – with nearly 60% of Americans claiming pizza as their favorite food, maybe we’re all winners in this delicious debate. What do you think defines the perfect slice?
