Do lists of “100 Best Pizzas In The Country” really help anyone besides those 100 restaurants and the businesses who publish the lists?

​Several friends have recently sent me the new Yelp list of “Top 100 Pizza Spots according to Yelp Elites 2024.” (This is NOT a complaint. Keep sending me lists and articles. I love them.)
 
After a cursory perusal of that list, I once again find myself thinking that a list like this is almost meaningless for most people. 
 
“Hey! Here are 100 joints across the 3.5-million square miles of the United States, most of which you’ll never get to try! Massive FOMO for you, my friend!”
 
There’s no regional context to this list. It's nationwide. There’s no context relating to style of pizza. And there’s no clear authority related to the people who are making the judgments.

For the record, this particular list is compiled from the opinions of a super-secret clique of elite Yelpers known as the “Yelp Elites.”
 
I know, I know: try to contain your enthusiasm for that credential. You’re about to base your pizza-eating decision based on the judgements of strangers with no particular credential beyond the blind enthusiasm required to become an unpaid reviewer for one of the nation’s most notorious review sites.
 
Not that I have an opinion. I rarely look at Yelp or any other review sites. And when I do, I take them in stride. Here’s a perfect example of why:
 
There’s a “foodies” group on Facebook for my region along the Gulf of Mexico. People are always asking the group things like “What’s the best New York-style pizza?!”
 
And you get the normal shout-outs of places that are mediocre. In some cases, I know they happen to be subpar because I’ve eaten there.
 
Recently, that question came up again. And someone who claims 20 years as a New Yorker (in Greenwich Village no less, where there is some excellent pizza) shouted out the name of a local joint that is 100% NOT New York-style pizza.
 
In fact, it’s not even very good pizza. But she knew she was right because she was a New Yorker.
 
Another example: I was getting ready to write my long-overdue review of Pizzeria Beddia, which my wife and I visited back in September.
 
As I was hunting down some intel about Beddia, I came across a review on a social site shared from somewhere else with the comment, “This guy really hates Pizzeria Beddia.”
 
The review was 5% about the pizza and 95% about hating the way they do business. Granted, it comes from the days when they were still a tiny, no-service joint with just two employees making only 40 pizzas a day.
 
That was the time when Beddia was first called “Best Pizzeria In The Country” by various Magazines That Matter. And the thread on this particular social site was loaded with all kinds of hate for the pizzeria.
 
One guy proclaimed, “Beddia’s a fad! It’s not going to last more than 2 years!”

So I checked the date of his comment: 10 years ago. And today, some authoritative influencer types are still calling Beddia the best pizzeria in the country. 
 
Check your crystal ball, Carnac. It might have a crack in it. And the crack is filled with pizza sauce.
 
In the conversation that ensued, there were all kinds of various suggestions of better pizzas than Beddia. And you know what? They ARE better--if that’s what you prefer.
 
What kind of pizza do you like?
 
I’ve been up to my neck in this pizza thing for over two decades. I’ve both made and bought Neapolitan, neo-Neapolitan, New York, artisan, Detroit, tavern, and New England Greek. (Never heard of that last one? It’s actually a thing.)
 
From New York to Naples, from Portland, Oregon to Page, Arizona, from Solana Beach, California to Cedar City, Utah, I’ve eaten some great pizzas.
 
And there’s no guarantee you’re going to like them. Any of them! But objectively speaking, each of those great pizzas will pass the test as exemplars of their respective styles.
 
How many truly bad pizzas have I ever had?
 
Exactly one. It was in some joint I can’t remember the name of.

It was in Boston, across the street from Boston Garden. I seem to remember it being beneath the train tracks in the grim shadows of smog-filtered sunlight. A friend and I walked in and each ordered a slice.
 
The resulting slice of pizza was so soaked in grease, the pizza couldn’t even hold together. When you held up the slice by one hand, it flopped straight down and began disintegrating from the tip upward. Little bits of fat-soaked crust and cheese dropped onto the paper.
 
Yes, we ate it anyway. Two words: college students. It was awful, but it was fuel.
 
Pretty much every other pizza I’ve eaten served its purpose. Yes, I’ve eaten Hunt Brothers pizza from a rural gas station. It was fine. (Better than Domino’s, I think.)
 
I’ve had pizza from the high-school cafeteria, complete with a side of French fries. Edible and unmemorable for anything other than the massive amount of carbo-loading. Though, if we’re to believe various reports, it’s exactly the same kind of pizza they serve all over Old Forge, PA—self-proclaimed “Pizza capital of the world!”
 
As the old Yiddish expression goes, there’s a lid for every pot. But if you believe the folks at Modernist Pizza, some of those highly questionable and popular pizzas speak to a kind of culinary Stockholm syndrome. People have been held prisoner to them for so long they now identify them as pizza supreme.
 
I just realized, I have to make a retraction. There are some other truly bad pizzas in my life. They came from California Pizza Kitchen.
 
An uninspiring crust covered in stunt toppings. At the risk of sounding like a food snob, I believe barbecued chicken pizza is an inexcusable aberration. Truly, one word: Blech! (Yes, I know. People love it. That’s their problem.)
 
That said, I did also have a CPK pizza that was a revelation: the BLT pizza. It was the first pizza I’d ever had with a “salad” on top.
 
It was actually not bad—and I suspect I felt that way because I love a good BLT, and this pizza was convincing in crossing the line into the realm of the sandwich.

I no longer had expectations for it as pizza.
 
That said, I will never again go into a CPK without good reason. And there are plenty of people who love CPK. If you’re one of them, good for you. I worry for your soul when you're standing at the Pearly Gates Pizzeria in front of St. Peter Of Pepperoni, but that’s beside the point. CPK has 184 restaurants around the world, from Australia to the UAE. Whatever I think about them doesn't matter.

SIDEBAR: I also think the late, great Ed Ladou was a genius. He's the guy who developed CPK's first menu, and who also ran the groundbreaking pizza program for Wolfgang Puck at Spago. Though the unsung hero here is Alice Waters, who first made "California-style pizza" at her Berkley restaurant, Chez Panisse.
 
Anyway, CPK is about something that Free The Pizza is not. Oh, well. I’m just an opinionated knucklehead who can sling a decent pizza and form complex sentences using terms like “cheese pull” and “mouthfeel.” (And if you don't think that leads to harassment and abuse in social media, well, I have a box of oven springs to sell you.)
 
Among other things, Free The Pizza is about the home pizzamaker raising the bar. CPK is just about making money via delivery of a consistent product.
 
Anyway, all this to say, the onslaught of the pizza lists makes me discouraged. The latest iteration from Yelp, with 100 pizzerias listed, is lacking plenty of pizzerias that are excellent. (Off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen that aren’t on that list that qualify.)
 
There are also another half dozen on the list that I’ve eaten at and, in my humble opinion, do not deserve to be there.
 
And worst of all, a couple of my favorites have finally made the list, and that bums me out. I don’t want people knowing about my favorite, secret little pizza joints. Oh, well. It’ll end up being like Yogi Bera used to say: Nobody goes there anymore. It’s gotten too crowded.

If there is any bright spot in here, it might be that the list is NOT dedicated to one style of pizza. I was just in Vegas at The International Pizza Expo, and I sat in on a session delivered by the world-famous Scott Wiener of Scott's Pizza Tours and the charity, Slice Out Hunger. His session was called, "State Of The Slice: A Look At Slice Shop Trends." 

Scott said something to the effect of how it will be a victory when people finally say just, "pizza," and stop delineating pizzas by a particular style. Good pizza is good pizza, regardless of its thickness, shape and baking method.

And case in point: one of the single best pizzas slices of my life was a sample I tasted at that expo. It was made by a chef at the Fiero Group, a purveyor of authentic Italian ovens. I took a bite, and the intensely crispy bottom, the firm and airy crumb, and the fantastic cheese and pork on top all combined in a pizza-bite flavor explosion like none I've ever experienced. 

And I didn't even know what style of pizza it was supposed to be. It was a medium-thick crust, and it was heaven.

Turns out, it was al taglio style, the Roman pan-pizza format. You look into the case, decide which pizza you want to buy and how much, and they cut your slice and reheat it. 

I would rarely seek out al taglio, but if somebody near me was making this pizza, I would be on it like a rabid hyena suffering a pizza jones. The fact that it was called something like Roman style or al taglio is irrelevant.
 
And if you happened to see my rant about pizza lists and Portland, you understand that my misgivings about lists means that it's possible to bypass greatness for the "safe" choice determined by strangers. I discovered the best New Haven-style apizza I've ever had--yes, in Portland--by choosing proximity over listedness. 

Anyway, that's my list rant.

In spite of what sounds like whining and complaining (and this is a first-world-problem scenario, after all), I will continue thanking anyone who sends me such a list, and I will continue reading those lists. That's because I suffer from intense curiosity.

And that’s how we all ended up right here, making pizza in the first place.
 
So, what’s your opinion on “best pizza” lists? Tell me here.
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If you’re still thinking about starting your pizzamaking journey, one good place to do so is inside Free The Pizza. Really, it’s A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have. It’s a manual that takes you from zero to pizza with a few laughs along the way. Also, if you buy a hard copy, I'll send you an autographed book plate. If you buy the Kindle edition, know that there are printable cheat sheets on this website so you can take them into the kitchen and spill red sauce all over them. ​