These 8 Pizzerias Are Reimagining the Craft

An eager crowd gathered to celebrate Hapa Pizza’s opening in 2023. While great pizza abounds in the Pacific Northwest, the Beaverton, Oregon, restaurant took a novel approach. Its airy, char-spotted crust resembled a classic Neapolitan but was adorned with toppings like tender brisket and pho broth cooked into a heady reduction. Thanks to a constellation of creative chefs combining cuisines and regional influences, pizza culture across the US is evolving.

You’ll find warmly spiced Bengali beef pizza in Plano, Texas, and pies served with al pastor and a sidecar of pineapple in Cleveland, Mississippi. Our cultural obsession with dough reached a fever pitch during the pandemic and “brought new pizza makers from non-Italian or non-white backgrounds into the game,” according to Adam Kuban, a writer who has been making pizza and documenting its evolution for over two decades. Many of the pizzerias on this list are led by chefs who taught themselves to make dough at home during the pandemic, experimenting with flour blends, hydration levels, and baking temperatures until they liked their results. They mix styles and moonlight as structural engineers to ensure their crusts hold up the heft of elote, khao soi, or fried chicken.

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Today’s Best Pizza Gets Irreverent and Personal

Culture-combining craft pizzerias used to be outliers. Now, thanks to new tools, free-spirited experimentation, and a swell of diner excitement, they’re reshaping pizza culture in the US.

The latitude for this sort of quirk and creativity has only proven a recent possibility for many chefs. With craft pizza now widely available across America, diners are trained to know the good stuff when they see it. As people in major cities and small towns show an appetite for new pizza styles, and social media makes it easier to reach a target audience, chefs have a clear blueprint for success. “When I think back 15 years, I can’t imagine Boogy & Peel being able to exist,” Rachael Jennings says. At her DC pizzeria, which opened in 2022, she makes cheeky pies inspired by deli sandwiches and iconic fast-food items. “People are feeling more comfortable, a little bit more bold with what we’re willing to put on a pizza.”

This list is organized alphabetically.

Ananas Pizzeria

1106 8th Ave, Seattle
Photos by Kyle Johnson