The World’s Top 10 Most Talked About U.S. Pizza Styles

This is a very special week for us in the U.S.: it's National Pizza Week. The holiday was born 9 years ago to celebrate the favorite dish from overseas. In fact, us Americans are obsessed with pizza even more than Italians are: 17% of all restaurants in the United States are pizzerias, every year over 10 kg of pizza are consumed per capita and over 4 billion pizzas are sold , of which one billion are frozen. Exorbitant numbers that have consecrated the Neapolitan dish that arrived in the New World in 1895 with the first pizzeria opened in New York, Lombardi's.

In the over one hundred years of pizza in America, all sorts of things have happened and local pizza chefs have created very personal, sometimes horrifying, styles.

The 10 Styles of Pizza in America

Americans have gotten so carried away with this ancient product that most citizens are actually convinced that pizza was born in America. A bit like when in "The Surprise Candidate" Zach Galifianakis quotes "the greatest American who ever lived: Jesus Christ". Unfortunately, that's how we are, we can't do anything about it, but we have to give ourselves credit for a truly interesting gastronomic scene. Just as Italian-American cuisine today has its own dignity, a recognizable tradition and tasty dishes sold all over the world, American pizza also now has its own style, an autonomous tradition.

The first "guide" to American pizza styles was published by The Takeout magazine , the day after a tweet published by the city of Chicago stating that the Windy City is the true "world capital of pizza", which infuriated half of Italy. In the classification of our colleagues, there is talk of 4-8 distinct styles based mostly on the presence of a "pizza-like" dough. Clearly, these are copied Italian styles and not a true native trend. Among these stylistic misunderstandings, however, we have found several styles that even the Italians could define as "original" that we are going to discover.

1. The Altoons-Style

Altoona is a city in Pennsylvania, the state of Philadelphia to be clear: a dough very similar to that of the Palermo sfincione, seasoned with a tomato sauce, a few grains of sugar, a slice of salami, a pepper, all covered with a thick slice of cheddar or velveeta (a typically American cheese, almost unknown in Europe). The characteristic of this style is in the cut: usually in America pizzas are served in wedges, this one is cut into slices, just like the sfincione.

This dish was born at the Altoona Hotel in 1966 and for the following years it was a must of American cuisine, so much so that critics of the Mid-East have often praised it for its uniqueness. After a long period of obscurity, in the last decade (following the destruction of the hotel) many restaurants have revived this style to preserve the historicity of the product.

2. California-Style

This pizza has noble origins: it may make us turn up our noses but its creator is Wolfgang Puck, one of the most influential chefs of the twentieth century. Born in Austria, he moved to America, became the face of American haute cuisine and today works exclusively for Disney. At the height of his success, all of Hollywood gathered in his restaurants and that's how California-style was born: one day Puck found himself without any more ingredients and with several important customers to serve, so he took some leftover dough, put it in the oven with sour cream , smoked salmon, capers, dill and caviar and solved the situation. The pizza was very popular with diners and Spago, Puck's historic restaurant, began to offer this pizza to everyone. He also created another variant, for those who prefer meat, with red onion, smoked gouda, coriander and barbecue chicken, another typically American tradition. Today, California-Style is beloved throughout the Southwest State and in many other large urban centers such as New York, Philadelphia, and Portland.

3. Colorado-Styles

Denver's signature pizza, a hyper-traditional and hyper-traditionalist style: it's so distinctive that it's never left its home state. It's a bigger pizza overall: thicker crust, plenty of cheese, an astonishing amount of toppings. The special feature of this style is the dough disc: it's all braided, so as to give greater stability to the multitude of ingredients, and the dough is made with honey.

4. Detroit-Style

This one also has common origins with the Sicilian sfincione, it has many things in common with the Chicago style that we will see later, starting from the high crust and the tomato and cheese in reverse order. The main characteristic is the use of brick cheese, a very delicate cheese originating from Wisconsin, the land of American cheeses. This sprinkling of cheese is generously spread up to the edges and beyond, coming into contact with the pan during cooking, creating a delicious crust.

The toppings are very varied and you can often find peppers, a real must in the art of star-spangled pizza (not to be confused with pepperoni), eggplants and different types of tomatoes.

5. Fast Food Pizza

The classic fast food slice pizza is a purely American style, the only one that has crossed borders, even arriving in Italy with the Domino's chain and other native surrogates that have tried to imitate the product. Compared to those encountered so far, it is perhaps the one closest to Italian culture because it is a bit crunchy like the Roman one, has a more neutral flavor and is based on tomato sauce and dairy products. It is also the best-selling pizza in America, the one indicated as "favorite" in most surveys. Between us, it is also the reason why Americans think that Neapolitan pizza is a panacea for the diet: obviously, the classic Margherita is an excellent example of a Mediterranean diet dish, the fast food pizza is instead a mass of fats.

6. New York-Style

It's bad to say, even parochial, but when all is said and done it's true: New York pizza is nothing more than a fake version of the typical Neapolitan pizza. Crispy crust, soft in the center, it is usually eaten folded in slices just like Italian round ones. The traditional toppings are tomato sauce and mozzarella… grated. This style is very old: it dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century, much older than the Caserta canotto, the Roman pinsa and other even more modern styles. Obviously it is dominant in the New York metropolitan area, and in the states of New Jersey and Connecticut, but it is also widespread throughout the United States.

7. The St.Louis-Style

Famous yes, beautiful no. St. Louis style pizza is typical of Missouri and the entire Midwest. The main characteristic of this style is the dough, without yeast, and the use of melted cheese as a topping. The crust is obviously very thin. The fame of this type of pizza is due first of all to various franchises that, starting from the city of the Gateway Arch, have conquered all the neighboring states; secondly, thanks to the absence of yeast, it has a much longer expiration date and therefore makes it ideal for supermarkets in large shopping centers.

This type of dough has several critical issues, however: instead of the larger pie-shaped wedges typical of many pizza styles, the St. Louis pizza is typically cut into squares; the cheese used is "provel" , an industrial brand that combines Swiss, provolone, and cheddar. This particular topping is not used much outside the city area because it is not very common; mozzarella is used instead. The tomato sauce is also unusual because it has a higher percentage of oregano than the sauce usually used in the United States.

8. New England Greek-Style

Its nationality is probably linked to its invention: it would have appeared in a Greek restaurant in Boston about thirty years ago. Unfortunately there is not much news about it but it had great success first in the State and then throughout the Atlantic coast because it is simple to make, very practical, reproducible even at home, and it is good.

This is the only American style cooked in a pan, in a sort of pan similar to those used for homemade pies. The use of the pan forces the pizza chef to use a lot of oil in the dough, with the pan greased even before being baked. Very crunchy, pleasant to the palate, it really resembles homemade pizzas in Italy. It is constantly criticized because of its oiliness that turns up the noses of those who are more careful about their figure, but it is no more harmful than many other examples found in American restaurants.

9. Frozen Pizza

Born in the United States in the 1950s, frozen pizza arrived in the rest of the world ten years later and has since conquered the market. A fascinating story that spans the entire last century, even intertwining with the revolutionary turmoil of the 1970s. It is therefore a truly traditional style, with almost 100 years of history and many things to say.

10. The Chicago-Style

Some love it and some hate it, but Chicago-style pizza is definitely the most talked about pizza in the United States. Also called deep dish pizza, or "deep pizza" because of its cooking style and dough. The pan in which it is cooked gives the product its characteristic high edge that offers space for copious amounts of tomato and cheese. It is basically a stuffed pizza rather than a disk as we know it, but it is too distinctive and representative to be ignored.

It is not known exactly who invented it, but according to the official cultural historian of Chicago, Tim Samuelson, it could date back to the first Pizzeria Uno in 1943. Today, the Unos chain is among the most important in North America and boasts a turnover of 400 million dollars a year, offering this style throughout the country. Legend has it that it is linked to the stuffed pizza from Lucania, the famous scarcedda: it seems that Rocco Polese, a man from Potenza who emigrated to Chicago, based himself on the tradition of Basilicata to create the stuffed pizza. What is special about this product? It is a "strange" pizza to conceive, with many peculiarities:

• It looks more like a pie than a pizza and although it is very fatty, it has a rather thin crust;
• it is cooked in an iron skillet not on a pizza pan;
• the pan is oiled so as to create a sort of "frying effect" on the outside;
• the dough contains corn flour, semolina and food coloring to give the outside a yellowish color;
• the dough is then pressed onto the sides of the pan, forming a real container that holds all the seasoning;
• cooking is a very delicate process because it takes about 45 minutes and this forces Chicago pizza chefs to implement the last major variation compared to their colleagues in the rest of the world;
• Due to the long cooking time, the toppings are assembled in the opposite order to the convention. The crust is covered with sliced ​​mozzarella, followed by layers of meat and/or cured meats, vegetables, such as onions, mushrooms or peppers and finally the raw sauce and parmesan.

In practice, this rustic pie is created by making a hole in the upper part of the "lid" to allow air and steam to escape during cooking: this is essential because the dish risks "exploding" and making a mess in the oven. Some pizza chefs use an additional spoonful of tomato sauce to garnish the pizza before a final cooking.

Chicagoans are extremely loyal to this style also because it is one of the few traditional dishes born in America and remained intact until today. Compared to all the other styles seen up to now, the Chicago-style is native and unique in its kind, it has a clear Italian origin but has totally detached itself, creating a trend all its own. Unlike the star-spangled pizzas, the most used protein is Italian sausage and not spicy salami (the one of the "pepperoni") and it is not difficult to find versions with stewed beef and giardiniera inside in a sort of Piedmontese boiled meat cooked in the oven with a crust as a casing.