The first time I went to Una Pizza Napoletana was at its old location on E 12th Street in Manhattan. I pushed my friends to give it a try because I was drawn in by the menu — four pages long, with only ½ a page reserved for its four pizzas and the rest devoted to a manifesto on pizza from its owner, Anthony Mangieri. As soon as our meals arrived, my group fell quiet. We sat in silence, eating pizzas that mentally took us elsewhere. Each pie was perfectly balanced in acidity from the tomatoes, creaminess from the buffalo mozzarella, and fat from the drizzle of olive oil, with the perfect amount of salt sprinkled on top. The dough was airy and flavorful, the perfect example of a Neapolitan crust. When we left, we compared it to a religious experience. We came back many times after that. It’s fitting that this has been declared the best pizza in the world two years in a row by the Italy-based 50 Top Pizza.
Gone is the manifesto, replaced with two more pizzas and a few appetizers, but still worthy of top-dog, Una Pizza Napoletana shares the Number 1 spot with a pizzeria in Caserta, Italy, Masanielli. The past few years have been neck-and-neck between the two. In 2024, Una Pizza took the Number 1 spot outright, and in 2023, Masanielli shared the top spot with Naples-based 10 Diego Vitagliano Pizzeria, while in 2022, Masanielli and Una Pizza shared the best pick.
Who is the Top 50 Pizza Group?
It’s notable that the Italy-based Top 50 Pizza group ranked a New Yorker joint as Number 1. While it claims to rank the pizzerias agnostic of style, looking at the previous winners, there seems to be a bias toward Italian pizzas, largely Neapolitan style. It’s understandable; Italy created modern pizza with Naples as its epicenter. The group of critics disperses worldwide and reviews each pizzeria anonymously, paying for their own meals.
Another standout on the list of 2025 Top 50 Pizzerias in the world was the recognition for pizza in Japan, with Tokyo’s The Pizza Bar on 38th coming in 2nd. Japan has recently become a pizza powerhouse that rivals Italy; a Japanese-style pizzeria based in Los Angeles, Pizzeria Sei, took 9th place.
Like all foods, however, pizza is highly subjective. In our own list of the 101 best pizzas in America, Una Pizza Napoletana comes in at 13, while our winner, the venerable Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, isn’t even on Top 50 Pizza’s list. If all this talk has you wanting to find a great pizza for dinner, you don’t have to travel far. Every state has great pizza; you just have to give it a try.
Dining and Cooking