Finding the Best Pizza in Manhattan Using the One Bite App

Two weeks after my Brooklyn pizza tour, my brother and I decided to hit a different borough on a mission to find the best pizza in Manhattan.

Again, my first stop was the One Bite app, where you can search for the highest-rated pizza places reviewed by Portnoy and users of the app. I’ve actually found that the users are harsher than he is with the ratings.

I also searched for local pizza rankings, but we had too many stops as it was just from using the One Bite app.

In Brooklyn, it was pretty easy to drive around, but the trains/subway are the way to go for Manhattan. We drove to Secaucus and took the short train ride into Penn Station, and headed to the first stop.

Like Brooklyn, we unintentionally hit the 2 best places first.

Our first stop was Joe’s Pizza, which is arguably the most famous pizza place in NYC. This was the location near Soho. I had been to the one in Times Square before and there was a long line out the door at all hours of the day, and when I had the pizza in the other location I thought it was pretty good but nothing amazing. This time, it was the best slice of NY style pizza I had ever had.

The crust was perfectly thin and crispy, the sauce was tangy and flavorful, and the crust was delicious. Because it was our first stop and I knew we had a ton of great stops left, I brazenly ate half the slice and threw it out, and I still think about how crazy that was now given the slice was pizza perfection.

I don’t know if I just hit them on a great day because it was so much better than the other Joe’s location, but I gave this a 9.4. (Portnoy 8.2)

Our next stop was also some of the best pizza I’ve ever had, John’s of Bleecker Street. They have a 100+ year old coal oven that they cook the pies in, which makes the crust super crispy and gives it a flavorful char taste.

It took a little while to get the pie, as it was a pie-only shop. It was super thin, had phenomenal sauce, and tasted more like “upscale” pizza than a traditional NY pie. This is also a pie where they drizzle the sauce throughout as opposed to putting it everywhere and then the cheese on top. 9.3, would love to go back. (Portnoy 9.3)

Joe and Pat’s is another super famous spot in NY, originating in Staten Island. I really liked this pizza, but we ordered a small pie, and moving forward we decided to only order larges because the smaller pies just come out different from larger ones. It was super crispy, to the point that the crust was almost cracker-like. The sauce had great flavor. We waited probably over 30 minutes for the pie, and after a longer stop at John’s, it was not ideal. 8.4 (Portnoy 8.4)

Lil Frankies was the only Neapolitan style place on the day. I chose it because the pies are a combination of coal-fired style and Neopolitan, they have a really nice char and slightly fluffy crust, and this was definitely an upscale pie with fresh ingredients (basil, olive oil).

The only thing for me on this one was that the flavor just wasn’t there. The pie looked amazing visually, but both the crust and sauce were fairly bland and didn’t stand out at all. They definitely used high-quality ingredients and I had higher hopes for this one than how it went. 7.6 (Portnoy 8.5)

We went down to try Rubirosa but it was a pie only spot and we wanted a quick slice. It was also next to Prince Street Pizza, but the line was probably 40 people long and we decided against it.

We did hit Little Cupcake Bakeshop, which was right across the street, for a mid-tour slice of chocolate cake. Food and Wine magazine rated their Brooklyn Blackout as the best chocolate cake in the U.S. It was well worth the stop. The cake was huge, unbelievably rich but still fluffy, and sweet but not overly sweet. I don’t have a cake rating scale, but it was one of the best slices of chocolate cake I’ve had.

Chocolate Cake at Little Cupcake bakeshop

John’s of Times Square was a huge place; they had tons of seating, a bar, and a giant dining room with two large stoves for the pizza on each side. This place has no affiliation with John’s of Bleecker Street. This was another pie place. It was a highly above-average pie, it was similar in style to John’s of Bleecker with the drizzled sauce throughout the pie, but it was a little closer to traditional NY than the thinner coal-fired pie.

If this place were anywhere outside of NYC, it would be the best place around. 8.3 (Portnoy 8.4)

Lazzara’s was one of the few times I completely disagreed with Portoy’s rating. He reviewed this place right at the beginning of his pizza review days, and I think he would likely go much lower if he reviewed it today. He gave it a 9.3 and has only given out 15-20 places over a 9 in all of the years he has reviewed pizza.

This place is another pie-only spot, so we waited 20-25 minutes for it. It’s a square slice, but it’s on the thinner and crispier side.

Based on looks alone, I was pretty excited, but I did not like it much at all. The sauce was super sweet, which is not my favorite, and the cheese was stringy and did not taste amazing. The crust was good and that’s the only thing that saved it even a little bit. 6.9 (Portnoy 9.3)

One of the biggest lessons from this tour was the importance of balancing slice places with places that only serve pies. Having almost all of the places be pie places, combined with slightly less convenient travel, made the day drag a little and we didn’t hit as many places as we would have liked to.

It also makes the day much more expensive, especially in NYC, where pies are $30-40, so this would be worth hitting with a small group instead of just two people. I already have another route planned out with highly rated places in Manhattan, with many more slice places mixed in.

Another thing to note: If you are not able to make it to NYC any time soon, you can order some of these places off of Goldbelly. Though it’s expensive, it’s the best way to try the best pizza overnighted to your door. I have sent John’s of Bleecker and Di Fara as gifts to friends. You can also order the Brooklyn Blackout cake on there, which I have done as well.

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Ian Hannon