Savor Scout › Food guides › Neapolitan pizza
How to find good Neapolitan pizza
Neapolitan pizza is baked for about ninety seconds in an oven near 900°F, which gives it a puffy, leopard-spotted crust and a soft, almost soupy centre. It is meant to be eaten with a knife and fork, immediately.
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What separates a good one from a bad one
- A very hot oven — Wood-fired or a specialist gas oven at 800–900°F. Anything cooler makes a different pizza.
- Leopard-spotted cornicione — The puffy rim should have dark char spots and an airy, chewy interior.
- A soft, wet centre — That is correct for this style. It is not undercooked.
- Few, good ingredients — San Marzano-style tomatoes, fresh mozzarella or fior di latte, basil, olive oil.
- Dough fermented a long time — Slow-fermented dough tastes of something and digests easily.
What to order
- Margherita — The test of any Neapolitan pizzeria.
- Marinara — Tomato, garlic, oregano — no cheese — to judge the dough and sauce.
- Diavola — With spicy salami.
- A white pizza — With ricotta or mushrooms.
- One pizza per person — That is the standard size.
Where to find Neapolitan pizza
Neapolitan pizza is mostly found at pizzerias, so that is where to look. Open listings put 95,250 of them across the US, and these are the cities and campuses with the most.
Cities with the most
New York, NY 1,180 Chicago, IL 646 Philadelphia, PA 626 Las Vegas, NV 480 Los Angeles, CA 475 Houston, TX 324 Columbus, OH 323 Indianapolis, IN 305
Campuses with the most within a mile
NYU 273 The Graduate Center 259 Touro University 253 New School University 249 FIT 240 Baruch 239
A few to start with
- Little Italy Pizza - Park Place — New York, NY
11 Park Pl, New York - Union Squared — Chicago, IL
125 S Clark St, Chicago - Yummy Pizza — Philadelphia, PA
1500 John F Kennedy Blvd Ste 8, Philadelphia - 322 Pizza Bar — Las Vegas, NV
322 Fremont St, Las Vegas - Universe Pizza — Los Angeles, CA
123 S Main St, Los Angeles - Bombay Pizza Co — Houston, TX
914 Main St, 914 Main St, Houston
Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.
How Savor Scout looks for it
The search reads for wood-fired, Neapolitan, leopard spotting and long-fermented dough, and favours specialist pizzerias over Italian restaurants that add a pizza oven.
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Looking in a particular city?
Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Houston, TX
- Philadelphia, PA
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Antonio, TX
- San Diego, CA
- Dallas, TX
- San Jose, CA
- Austin, TX
- Indianapolis, IN
- Jacksonville, FL
- San Francisco, CA
- Columbus, OH
- Charlotte, NC
- Fort Worth, TX
- Detroit, MI
- El Paso, TX
- Memphis, TN
- Seattle, WA
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Boston, MA
- Nashville, TN
- Baltimore, MD
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Louisville, KY
- Portland, OR
- Las Vegas, NV
- Milwaukee, WI
- Albuquerque, NM
- Tucson, AZ
- Fresno, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Kansas City, MO
- Mesa, AZ
- Virginia Beach, VA
- Atlanta, GA
- Colorado Springs, CO
- Omaha, NE
- Raleigh, NC
- Miami, FL
- Oakland, CA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tulsa, OK
- Cleveland, OH
- Wichita, KS
- Arlington, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Tampa, FL
- Honolulu, HI
- Aurora, CO
- Anaheim, CA
- Santa Ana, CA
- St. Louis, MO
- Riverside, CA
- Corpus Christi, TX
Related food guides
pizza, Italian food, New York pizza