Nick DiGiovanni - I Ate The World's Best Pizza

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

New York. Italy. I traveled the world to find the best slice of pizza. Watch to the end to see which slice won!

This is the best rated pizza in the entire world, and we're going to be comparing it to the world's most expensive pizza that has more gold than my chain. The top rated pizza in New York City that uses a 100-year-old oven and everything in between. And as crazy as it might sound, we're going to start at Costco. I've never actually had their pizza, but based on countless articles I've found online, this is the internet's favorite budget slice. Do I think Costco pizza is going to beat the slices we're going to have in New York or Italy later in this video? Probably not. But we won't know until we try. Members only? Shouldn't be a problem. Not the best photo, though.

Fun fact, they sell so much pizza here at Costco that technically they're one of the largest pizza chains in the country. I need to find out why people love it so much. So you think it could be the best in the world? Costco is the best. We watched this pizza be made back there by this robot machine that spreads the sauce perfectly. The robot is so smart that as it gets closer to the center, there's less sauce so that your pizza can hold up and doesn't flop over. They've just got everything down to a tea where it's all the same consistent, perfect pizza. Thank you.

Oh, an extra drink. Oh, an extra drink. Oh, wow. That's amazing. Thank you. So I will say this pizza looks fantastic, and our guy Greg seems to think it could be up there with the best pizza in the world. The smell of this pizza alone is unbelievable.

This is the pizza that brings me back to my childhood. I feel like it's the very best version of a pizza that you get at a birthday party. I love it. The only negatives for me is that there's no crunch in this crust and the bottom doesn't have that classic pizza char I'm looking for. This pizza right here exceeded my expectations, but the real question is,

can it hold up against the best pizzas in the world? This is Alphorno. It's in Providence, Rhode Island, just a few minutes away from the hospital where I was born. And this is where grilled pizza was invented. Grilled pizza has a more complex flavor than any slice you've probably ever tasted, and it's so good that at one point, it won Alphorno, the award for best casual restaurant in the world. How are you? Good, how are you? Good to see you.

The last time I was in this kitchen was when I was 17. 17 years old. Yeah. Are you 21 now? I'm 27. So fun fact, this was my first ever job. David was the chef. Was that helpful? Give me an honest rating.

Oh, yes, you were. I remember. I struck the floor a lot. You were helpful, yes. Do you think this deserves to be up there with the best pieces in the world? Because I actually do. I do. Oh, absolutely. Because of all the care and time that we take

in making them. It seems easy, but it's not that easy, I promise you. The whole process takes like, I don't know, three minutes. And David, Nick will be able to make one too? Absolutely. Is he allowed to make one back in the day? No, he was not. Any reason why?

He needs some training. That right there is what makes. of grilled pizza, grilled pizza, those clean, fresh marks that go across it. So what's the secret? I mean, what makes this pizza so good? Fresh ingredients, very simple, cooking it on a live fire like that, right straight on. David, I don't know if you remember this, but one time I went to use the bathroom when I was working here and I turned off the lights in the whole restaurant.

Oh, I do remember that. Yeah, everybody knows that with it. And that was pretty bad. Do you scream at you? Yeah, yeah, I think I got yelled at. What the f*** are you doing? I love all the little spots that you do when you put them on there. So unique in this.

that like you said, every pizza looks different. It kind of breaks the rules of pizza, like, you know, the sauce is not first, the cheese is first. The cooking method is different. Everything is different about it. We gotta rotate it constantly because some spots are hotter than all there.

Finish it with scalyons. And you don't really see scallions on a pizza anywhere else. No, and the pizza's ready. Another beautiful pizza. Here we go. So this is the first time I've been ever allowed to touch pizza in this kitchen. And this dough is so easy to work with.

It's so nice right now. It's incredible. Get these corners, get over here. you see yeah and then when you go in there you're gonna kind of open your hands a little bit okay stretch it out even a little bit more here we go and I'm gonna drop perfect I'm gonna be honest mine looks pretty shit no it looks beautiful I just I'm not happy with how I dropped it on there David I oh you're not that's okay like I said every single pizza looks different can I try one more time absolutely that looks good

all right that looks cool it's perfect better this absolutely looks beautiful beautiful that's a little better no that looks great that's better now now pull it back and I'll flip it first a little bit of olive oil here we go yeah like painting it exactly and then we do the cheese yeah that looks good and just dump it in the middle and then spray it out spread it out now we're gonna do the tomato sounds the idea is that every single bite has a little bit of tomato and cheese now we do herbs perfect just a little olive oil yep and then we're gonna push it back looks gorgeous you did good we need somebody to work pizzas would you come you should have me touch a pizza when I asked

it's too late now right check the bottle make sure it's not burning looks good and then finish With the Skyans, garnish the pizza with Scaliance. I don't know if mine's just good a jerk, but I feel good about it. I feel good about it. Show everyone how you eat the pizza here. You use pork a night? Yep.

Who caught it? Look at that. You're gonna cut me a slice? Oh. What I've always loved most about this is that it looks so thin, but it's got a really nice chew to it. It's chewy, crispy. It's got like a little bit of that acidic bite

to it from one of the cheeses. All right, well, if you ever need help, making the pizzas, you know where to find me. This right here is Frank Peppies. This is the big. Pornoy's favorite place to get a slice. Dave has reviewed thousands of pizzas through his barstool pizza reviews.

And this restaurant here is based in New Haven, Connecticut, which many say is the Pizza Hub of America. If you look up best pizza in America, this place is top three on every list. What's going on guys? Hey, what's happening? How you doing? I figured you guys would be happy

I'm seeing some Connecticut style pizza before New York City, which, absolutely. We love to showcase off our coal-fired oven. Frank Pepe is the birthplace of coal-fired pizza in New Haven, Connecticut. So right here is a custom 100,000 pound coal fire brick oven. This is the powerhouse of the pizza that they make here.

So this right here is 2,000 degrees inside. A new fire starts every day. Burns your eyes. It's amazing, isn't it? Every 30 minutes to an hour, we'll flip the fire just to get the old ash down, add some new holes. Remember, just like any fire, you need oxygen to breathe. So if you flip this fan on, that pushes air through here and gives really nice airflow into their oven,

which is what cooks the perfect pie. Should we make a pizza? We have a bread flour, not a pizza flour. So it's a little looser. Okay. So you want to get under it, a little flour, and then you just want to grab it on the egg. You're not throwing it up in the air, you're not making a circle and throwing it. Yeah.

It'll make a hole in it. No throwing dough in here. Nope. How many pizzas do you make a day here? On a busy day, you can do over a thousand. Wow. People love pizza. So level scoop, put it in the middle.

You're going to write like a pencil. Oh, that's great. My name into it. It's all just circles into it. Slice mozzarella cheese? Yep. This actually is a big key for us. Okay.

It melts different. Then we have our pecorino Romano, our olive oil, and then this is the hardest part. Okay. Just throwing it. Big key is just rubbing. You don't want to get scared. You get to your point, shake. Finesse, I like it.

Okay. This is nice, light, airy dough. Look at that. We make our dough fresh every day. And it kind of spreads itself, like you said. Little bit of Farina on here. Pasta right on. Honestly, I'll say, I could have made it a little more circular.

It's okay. It all tastes here. One scoop. right in the center. Once I put it in the center, I liked your, you're kind of like drawing with a pencil. Food is always art, isn't it? It is.

It's nice to have that cheese a little bit dry before you make that pizza, though, that way you're not gonna have this wet, leaking pizza. A little bit of pecorino, just a little bit of olive oil to finish it off, and then we're good. All right, this is the toughest part. I don't want to hit anyone with this thing. So everybody duck, all right?

All right, I'm gonna go all the way in. Ooh. All right, about 10 minutes later, my pizza should be done. It definitely looks. Looks good. Let's see. Beautiful.

Wow, that is a good looking pizza. We did the hardest part. We actually made the pizza. So now the only question is, how does it taste? Right off the bat, I have to say this is a damn good looking pizza. I can tell that crust is nice and crispy. And it's definitely nice and hot. If I'm being honest, I just don't see how you can get a better pizza than this, but

New York and Connecticut have always been in a fight on who has the better pie. So let's go see. Can Connecticut's best be New York's best? We made it to New York City and after searching through over 2,000 pizza restaurants, I've decided to visit this one. It's literally called Best Pizza. Best Pizza serves of classic New York style slices. Everything is baked in a custom oven that's bigger

than a lot of New York City apartments. This is an 100 year old oven about. It's like 130 years old. And how big is this oven? So I'll show you right now. People always flip out when I bring them to this part because this is literally the whole oven. The oven goes all the way back.

Yeah, the size of a one car garage. It's very similar. Like if you go to Frank Peppies in New Haven and if you go to like a lot of those pizzerias that have been around for 100 years, Frank Pepe has the same exact oven as us. We just went to Frank Peppies. Sounds like all the best pizzas come out of the same ovens.

Big shout out to Frank Peppies. You called this place best pizza for a reason, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, that's what some say. We'll let you be the judge. Let's make some pies. Yo, I'm coming into the kitchen real quick, guys, right behind you. This is crazy. So the main goal is to kind of not touch your crust

when you're making it. Oh, okay. Yeah, the crust kind of makes itself. When I'm making the pizza, a lot of pizzerias, you see pizza guys smacking the shit out of the pizza, you know? I want to keep the air inside, because that's what keeps the slice nice and like. So you're pretty delicate with it when you're

delicate, that's the exact word. I teach all my pizza guys. Get it up into your hands and then this is when it starts spreading out. I haven't seen a technique like this before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you just kind of flip it. Yeah. Gravity is your friend with pizza making. You know, you see people throw it in the air.

Yeah. And it is a trick and people love watching it, but actually helps the pizza spread out. We've seen a lot of pizzas in this video. This is the biggest, biggest pizza we see. Biggest one so far? Yeah, I mean, you know, you know, it's a huge pizza.

If you're, if you're talking about how big the actual, you know, pizza dough is. But to get it to this size, without having any little holes or thin parts in it. It takes time. You gotta make a lot of pieces, and that's what I tell young pizza maker. First thing is a tomato.

When the pizza cooks, the crust pops up and it pushes all the ingredients in the middle. So what you want to do is kind of get everything to the outside rim. This is our oregano. We use the oregano on the stem. This is what makes a New York pizza, in my opinion. Irrigo.

You're dried oregano. If you go to Italy, you go around and eat a New York slice, if you keep that in your mind, you'd be like, oh shit, I taste the oregano. It's a powerful herb, especially when it's drug. herb, especially when it's dried. Yep, so we don't go too heavy. Pretty light on the cheese from what it looks like, too.

Big time. I'm not big and just having a big cheesy slice. And you're also putting more of that cheese on the outside, just like you talked about to make sure it's not being weighed down, yeah? Exactly. Since it's fresh mozzarella, it spreads a lot, so you don't need to use as much as normal pizza re-a-use. And then we're gonna go right in.

Coming right behind, going there goes. You got the launch down to a science, huh? Yeah, it's a lot of years, you know? The oven's so hot as soon as the, pizza gets in there, it pops right up. You can see all those bubbles forming. Oh man. Yeah, it looks nice.

This is a technique. Sometimes we'll take it and dome it and at the top of that fire, just kiss the top of the pie. Doming it. Yeah, because the top, the top of the dome. That's where you get those little black spots on top. Yup, and that's where all the heat is. So the higher you go, the hotter the temperature.

For me, I don't want the pie to look perfect. I want it to look rustic, you know? We try to mix the old with the new and I think that's what makes our spot special. Come on, boys, eat up. Grab a slice. This is what it's about, right? Passing the food around and eating. Oh, that's it. That's what we're looking for in New York. Cheers, cheers.

Cheers. That's the sound of pizza. That's it, baby. I would just call it the perfect well-rounded slice. You're not doing anything fancy, but you're doing everything right. Thank you, man. That is the best pizza, huh?

Come visit Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Come see this handsome guy. Our next stop is industry kitchen, home to the world's most expensive pizza. And I figure if you've got the world most expensive ingredients, it's gotta be pretty damn good. Are you ready to see how we make our 24 4K pizza as ready as I'll ever be sure we do it yeah absolutely come over all right

let's go a lot of stuff happening back here this is Luis Luis is going to start the dough it's a black dough it's made with a cuddlfish ink so that makes it super super black there's a little earthy tones to it and the flavor profile I feel like you might be the only place in the world with a black dough pizza first we start with a roasted garlic cream that's our base instead of a tomato base definitely not a traditional pizza. It's not. The second layer is mozzarella cheese. So this is a Stilton cheese from England. The best of the best we can get is the blue cheese. How often are you making one of these?

About 15 to 20 a year. This oven is like a gas oven but also we have apple wood. So you've got gas and wood in this oven. So the gas is for the temperature to make the bottom very crispy. Then that is for the smoke and flavor of the pizza. Faragra, this one is the liver of a goose. It's coming from the Hudson Valley. It's so decadent. It almost like a fancy butter. It's a fancy animal butter, yeah. So the pizza's finished its first bake. Yes.

How many slices do we have here? Eight slices. $250 per slacks. Oh, shit. Time for the gold. So each slice gets a nice big square, huh? Absolutely, yeah. We are not shy with our gold.

This is actually 24-carat gold. Absolutely, yeah. So instead of putting this on a wedding ring or on a chain or in a watch, this is on a pizza. It is on a pizza. All right, so we have the gold. Now we are going with our other ingredient. So that foie garage is baked.

in that oven for a little bit, and now you're placing that onto the pizza as well. Yeah, now we have the caviar, the beautiful et cetera caviar from Iran. And again, you're putting one nice big spoonful on every single slice. That's correct. We're trying to achieve the full favorite profile of umami

in this pizza. Then we have some beautiful edible flowers. And this part I love because the colors start to really pop. Well, we have the benefit of the black dough as a nice canvas of art, right? And we have some more textures of cold. So there wasn't enough gold on there? No, there was not enough gold and we're going to moda the pizza with truffle? Oh my god Nick, this is your 24k golden pizza

One more little surprise here. I actually brought one of my best friends from high school who has no idea what he's about to eat He's also kind of a picky eater. You ready to eat some pizza? I'm ready. Let's do it Let's go. Wow, thank you so much. What do you think? Crazy. I don't think there's enough gold. Believe it or not this is the most expensive pizza you can buy in New York? Anywhere Really? Guess how much he's slice cost? 100 bucks 250 have you eaten gold before no all right let's go wow that's insane I taste a lot of the stilton blue cheese it's like a super yeah powerful powerful cheese I got a big

fat bite of foie gras when I've been in so it's all buttery did you like the foie gras I loved it which was foggraw like super expensive yeah I love the fact that there's a bunch of different cheeses and I love the look of the dough even though it tastes just like regular old pizza dough. All around, give it a pizza rating. You like pizza rating out of 10. I mean, in terms of how unique it is, 10 out of 10, kind of unbeatable.

I think the best slice I've ever had, to be honest. Is it? It's not every day you have some gold pizza with this is your top pizza that you've ever had. I think so. Wow. I'm gonna tell everyone I had some gold pizza today. All right, let's see the damage.

You got this one? Yeah, I'll take it. This is the first bill you've ever picked up for us. Have a good day. For our final pizza, I flew to Italy in search of the number one rated Pizzeria in the entire world and I decided to have a little bit of fun along your way. Did you really think I wasn't gonna pull up to the best pizza restaurant in the world in style?

There are over 250,000 pizza restaurants in the entire world and behind me is number one. This is I Massanelli, a pizzeria just outside of Naples Italy that was just ranked number one in the world by a panel of 900 judges on the most prestigious pizza rankings list. Nice to meet you. Head chef Francesco Martucci has invited us into his kitchen to learn how he makes the best pizza in the entire world. So my brother here Pete speaks great Italian so he's going to be helping us translate today. Let's do we do fast first. Okay, so you're pretty? Pronto.

So I'm curious, how did you get so good at making pizza? I've got to be a baby, I was a baby, I had a a hand to a house, at house, we had not even in the corrent and in gas. I've started to lavary pia and then, then, step by step, step. We've got to have a piece,

to pizza, at the bank, and then it's become a my life. We, piano, the impasto is always to make with the two man. Now is when he really gets to develop that gluten. We're impasse we, until we have a consistency

without grumi. So, when we start, that the impasse to start it, no, we'll make it in a recipient, where we'll do do, do you let's,

I'm with a classic marguerita, comodoro Samarsano, and I like to make to make it, and I like to cuttura, because he'd a little of yume, So we're not we put it under the mozzarella and it not bruca in the form.

A lot of oil extravergine and a little after the cuttura. I'm a little bit more of the anti-ingredienti and I'm to cook the tomato. The addition of that oil completely transforms the pizza. I like the forno with a

pocafella. The flame would only to cook the parts external and not the the core of the pizza. That was it? Yeah. That was that fast?

That pizza just cooked faster than we could film it. And it's done. That was it. Velocere because there's a pizza only in forno. He's using the scissors to cut the pizza. This is a very classic Italian style. Why did they cut with scissors?

Because I like to use the forbice, and then I'll have to find out of our work. That is the lightest crust I've ever felt in my life. And man, Okay, okay. Cheers. Cheers. It tastes like Italy.

Grazie. The crust is so soft and light. They got the perfect crisp and char on the outside. Like the meat, the crust. The margarita, It's a fondant like a chocolate, it's the first time I've heard a pizza compared to a chocolate. That's a good pizza.

So who gets the last slice? To get a key to mangan... I want to fight for? No, no, no. Luckily, we didn't have to fight. As the chef made us one more pie, his specialty deep-fried pizza, Futuro di Marinera. Oh my God.

That is a crazy crick. You hear that? Oh my God. This is the best pizza crust that I think I've ever had. Thank you. We do it in America, then. You know it's funny guys, I just realized this. I was taking a shower and 6.42 p.m. on Thursday evening.

It's been like a week since I filmed this video. And I just remembered I didn't even pick my favorite slice of pizza. And that was like half the reason I filmed the whole video. So, sorry about that.