A monthslong project by The Washington Post to find the best pizza restaurants in each state, based on 7.5 million customer reviews submitted to the website Yelp, has found four winners from the Chattanooga area.
› Community Pie, first in Tennessee for its Detroit-style pizza and third for its New York style.
› Paco's Pizza & Pasta in Manchester, Tennessee, second for its New York pizza.
› Lookout Mountain Pizza Co., in Rising Fawn, second in Georgia for its Neapolitan pizza.
› Wooden City, third in Tennessee for Neapolitan pizza.
"The idea for a data-driven pizza story has been in my head for almost five years," said Amanda Finnegan, editor of the newspaper's By the Way travel section. "Then earlier this year, Gabe (Hiatt) and I started to shape it around the idea of regional pizza styles." (Hiatt is deputy editor of By the Way.)
"We knew pizza is universally beloved, but also very controversial," she said. "Everyone thinks the pizza they grew up with is the best. We knew it would be a talker."
Finnegan said they next pulled in Department of Data columnist Andrew Van Dam and graphics reporter Dylan Moriarty, "who made our dreams come true by tracking and charting the data. And a big shout-out to Yelp for giving us access to millions of data points."
The idea was to compare expert recommendations against Yelp reviews.
"The Yelp results may not necessarily be the best according to experts, but they show where people are drawn," Finnegan said.
Acknowledging that 7.5 million is "a ridiculous amount" of reviews to sort through, Van Dam said he and his colleagues set the search queries based on tests he did with a more manageable sample. Then Yelp searched through the 7.5 million reviews and returned data on about 80 search terms for tens of thousands of independent and small-chain pizzerias.
"So I really only had to deal with 80 words times tens of thousands of restaurants," Van Dam said, "but even that more limited scope nearly killed me."
Several regional pizza styles were included, but the Chattanooga-area restaurants appeared in three main categories:
› New York style, which is large and hand-tossed, with a crust that is thick and crispy at the edge and thin and foldable in the center.
› Detroit style, a hearty pizza known for its iconic square shape, crunchy corner slices and layered structure.
› Neapolitan, which is known for its simplicity, with typically no more than fresh basil, mozzarella, olive oil, tomatoes and a simple wheat dough as its ingredients.
Here's a brief look at who made the list. Complete results can be found at washingtonpost.com.
(READ MORE: Reasons to love Chattanooga's downtown and food scene)
Photo Gallery
4 Chattanooga-area restaurants serve some of Yelp’s best-reviewed pizzas in Tennessee, Georgia
COMMUNITY PIE
Community Pie was already a Yelp favorite, turning up first in a general search of the website for "Best Pizza Places in Chattanooga." As of Tuesday morning, it showed a score of 4.4 out of five possible stars largely based on the sheer number of reviews: 668. The Washington Post results put it in first place in the state for Detroit style, third for New York style.
"It's always nice to get recognition," said Zach Jones, operating partner at the original location, which has been open at 850 Market St. in downtown Chattanooga since January of 2013. A second location opened at Hamilton Place in July. They are among nine restaurants the Chattanooga-based Monen Family Restaurant Group operates in Chattanooga, Nashville and Sullivan's Island, South Carolina.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga restaurateur says adapting is key to staying in business, growing)
Jones said his personal favorite is a Detroit-style Drunk Pig, a layered dish of ricotta, Italian sausage, fresh mozzarella, parmesan, crushed pepper and vodka sauce.
"The heat of the pan crisps it up" around the edges," he said.
"Detroit pizza isn't offered everywhere (around Chattanooga)," he said. "But I promise, once you taste it, you'll order it a lot."
Community Pie also offers pasta, Italian sandwiches, salads and appetizers, as well as gelato from Milk & Honey, another Monen restaurant.
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN PIZZA CO.
Chris Stone, a pilot for American Airlines, established Lookout Mountain Pizza Co. at 203 Scenic Highway in Rising Fawn, Georgia, in 2017. The house specialty, Neapolitan pizza, scored second place in Georgia in the Post's survey of Yelp reviews.
"I've always liked to cook, but I'd never been able to make pizza before," he said.
During the six years he was based in New York City after 9/11, he took a one-day class on how to make Roman-style pizza, a thin pan pie.
"I took what I gathered from that one-day class and stumbled upon Neapolitan style," he said. "I'd take over the kitchen trying to figure a new recipe out. I was always making pizza at home."
When the home oven proved insufficient, he and his wife, Cindy, began investigating how to build a wood-fired oven, which they eventually did at their home.
Stone said he eventually bought a mobile oven he used to make pizzas around the community before a commercial building in Rising Fawn became available. The wood-fired oven is now the focal point of the room.
Along with their daughter and son-in-law, the Stones started the business with six pizzas on the menu. They've since added help and expanded the menu. All of the pizzas have female Italian names.
The two best-sellers are the Sophia, which has Italian sausage among its toppings, and Maria, which includes pepperoni and mushrooms. They come to the table on pink butcher paper.
"I spotted that in Texas eating barbecue," Stone said. "I thought that would be a great way to serve pizza."
WOODEN CITY
Wooden City, 203 Broad St., ranked third in Tennessee for its Neapolitan pizza in the Yelp state survey.
General Manager Dane Cramer said he and the staff feel honored to be recognized, "especially since ... we are still within our first year of being open."
Wooden City, a casual fine-dining establishment, is among a handful of restaurants that have opened in the past year around Chattanooga's downtown waterfront as part of a restaurant riverfront revival. The first locations were in Tacoma and Spokane, Washington.
Cramer said feedback through reviews and word of mouth "has been amazing and I owe it to our incredible staff" for the high ranking.
"Especially since we aren't even considered solely a pizza restaurant, the fact that the pizza mentions in our reviews broke through in such a way to get recognized that high is pretty cool."
Wooden City offers 12-inch wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizzas in six options, as well as burgers, small plates and entrees including seared scallops, beet ravioli and chicken schnitzel.
He said his favorite pizza is the pepperoni with house-marinated peppers and honey. "The sweetness from the honey balances the rich crispy pepperoni cups and goes with our dough in such a cool way."
PACO'S PIZZA & PASTA
Paco's, 910 Lincoln St. in Manchester, Tennessee, pulled in a second-place finish in the state for its New York pizza. There are 13 varieties on the menu, sold by the pie or by the slice. The house special features pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, onions, mushrooms and black olives.
Efforts to reach the owners for comment were not successful.
Contact Lisa Denton at ldenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6281.