What Are the Best Food Travel Destinations for Pizza Lovers? Everything You Need to Know
Pizza is one of the world’s most copied dishes — and one of the most argued over. The slice in your hand has a city of origin, a specific oven, a defining cheese and usually a stubborn local who will tell you everyone else is doing it wrong. For travelers who plan trips around a single craving, these five food travel destinations for pizza lovers each invented a style the rest of the world now imitates.
From a wood-fired oven in Naples to a square-cut pie in St. Louis, here’s where pizza was born, reinvented and turned into a way of life.
For more information: What Are the Best Food Travel Destinations Around the World? Everything You Need to Know
Naples, Italy: Where Pizza Was Invented
Naples is the original. Neapolitan pizza is round, with a soft, thin center and a high, airy crust spotted with char from a wood-fired oven that runs over 800 degrees. Cook time is brutal — often just a minute or two.
The craft is so culturally significant that the process used by Neapolitan “Pizzaiuoli,” or pizza-makers, has carried specific UNESCO recognition since 2017.
One of its most famous versions, the pizza Margherita, was invented in 1889 by Raffaele Esposito at Pizzeria Brandi to honor Margherita, the Queen of Italy. The restaurant is still open today.
Palermo, Italy: the Home of Sicilian-Style Pizza
In Palermo, pizza took a different shape — literally. Sicilian pizza was popularized in the 1800s and is known locally as “sfincione,” which translates to “thick sponge.”
Expect a rectangular, focaccia-like crust topped with tomato sauce and local cheeses like caciocavallo or tuma, often finished with savory toppings like anchovies or onions. The “Sicilian style” served in U.S. pizzerias usually keeps the rectangular thick crust but swaps in more familiar American toppings like mozzarella.
New York: the U.S. Birthplace of the Slice
Italian immigrants brought pizza with them when they arrived in the U.S. through New York in the late 1800s. In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi opened the country’s first pizzeria in downtown Manhattan. Fittingly, it was called Lombardi’s, and it is still serving today.
Lombardi is also credited with shaping what travelers now order as “New York style” — a circular pie with a fairly thin crust.
Chicago: Deep-Dish, Built Upside Down on Purpose
In 1943, Ric Riccardo, Ike Sewell and his wife, Florence, introduced Chicago-style deep-dish pizza at Pizzeria Uno. As ChicagoHistory.org explains, the style is defined by “enormous amounts of cheese and a thick, sweet pastry shell crust,” oven temperatures around 600°F with cornmeal sprinkled in the pan, and cook times of “fifty to sixty minutes for a medium-sized pie.”
Because the pies bake in casserole-depth pans at high heat, the build is inverted: cheese first, then toppings, then tomato sauce on top to keep the cheese from burning. Pizzeria Uno is now a chain with 100 locations, but you can still visit the original Chicago spot.
St. Louis: Cracker Crust, Provel Cheese, Party Cut
St. Louis pizza doesn’t compromise. The crust is extremely thin, cracker-like and yeast-free. The sauce skews sweet. The cheese is Provel — a processed blend of cheddar, Swiss and provolone — and toppings run all the way to the edge. The whole pie is cut into small squares or rectangles, known as a party or tavern cut.
Amedeo Fiore is credited with inventing the cracker-like crust and the square-cut method in 1945. The signature gooey Provel cheese came later, in the 1950s, from Parente’s Pizza. Today, the most popular spot to try it is Imo’s Pizza, which has helped popularize the style since 1964.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
