Pizza in America has never been better. The wood-fire Neapolitan pizzerias that took off in the early 2000s, and have been spreading ever since, taught Americans to ask more of a dish they already loved.
The ensuing craft pizza renaissance is a rare culinary convergence: born of metropolitan chef culture but not confined to big cities. There are great pizzerias virtually everywhere in the United States, from small New England towns to the Mississippi Delta to rural Iowa to Los Angeles to Alaska. And they’re being opened by chefs from an unusually wide array of backgrounds.
The result is a dish that has become a cooking style of its own, channeling a seemingly limitless number of cultures and ideas.
The following list is a road map to a uniquely American phenomenon — and evidence, perhaps, that the country is home to the world’s best pizza. BRETT ANDERSON
Hamtramck, Mich. (Pop. 27,834)