USA oldest pizzeria

There are almost 75,000 pizzerias in the US, and the granddaddy of them all is Lombardi’s, an unassuming place opened more than a century ago at 32 Spring Street, in New York’s Little Italy. Its coal-fired oven, installed in the early 1900s, produces a chewy, blistered crust markedly different from the moister wood-fired Neapolitan version.

For Lombardi’s signature Margarita pizza ($18.50-$22.50) that base gets a simple, classic topping of tomato sauce and creamy rounds of mozzarella. Garnished with fresh basil, the pie is a refreshing throwback to the days before pizza came strewn with ingredients you couldn’t pronounce.

“Some pizzerias add five or six toppings, but this one delivers so much flavour with no nonsense,”