What a bunch of meatheads!
New York pizza-lovers got a black eye from users of the travel megasite TripAdvisor, who rated the city’s slices a paltry fourth in the country behind outposts like San Diego and Las Vegas.
Perhaps most offensive was the third-place choice of Boston, where reviewers gushed about pies with oddball toppings like shrimp scampi.
“Get out of here, that’s crazy! Boston is No. 3?” said Jackson Heights resident Andrew Silverstein, 31, while enjoying lunch at famed Patsy Grimaldi’s new Brooklyn joint, Juliana’s. “I’ve had pizza in Boston, and it was a horrible experience.”
Users of the normally reliable travel Web site — suspiciously run out of the Boston suburb of Newton — wrote glowingly of the pizzas that are churned out in the Mexican border town of San Diego.
“The pizza was just as good as being home in New York,” one person said.
That twisted logic made no sense to real New Yorkers.
“When you go to pizza places in other cities, they have pictures of New York City and signs that say ‘New York style.’ You don’t see signs that say ‘San Diego style’ and ‘Boston style,’ ” said Silverstein. “It’s insane!”
The site offered hollow praise of New York pizza, hailing famed Gotham pizzerias Lombardi’s, Di Fara’s and Patsy’s.
“With outstanding pizzerias seemingly at every corner, diners will enjoy the city’s trademark thin crunchy crust, gooey cheese and savory toppings,” according to the site.
The pizza top 10 was rounded out by Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Phoenix.
Also surprisingly, Chicago — home of world-famous deep-dish pies — was left off the list.
“New York has the best pizza. I like the thin crust. We have the better water, and pizza started in New York,” said Brooklyn Heights resident and former San Diegan Nilda Rivera, 65.
Rivera, dining at Grimaldi’s, shook her head in disdain looking over the nonsensical pizza rankings.
“Las Vegas doesn’t have good food, and San Diego? No,” she said.
Dan Hou, a 31-year-old Long Island City resident, said he appreciates the pizza culture of New York that makes Gotham pies the best.
“I’ve lived in other cities, [and] in other cities, pizza is just something you grab real quick for a meal,” he said over lunch at Juliana’s. “New York is the only place where you take out-of-town guests to eat pizza. It’s a destination.”
Fellow Juliana’s patron Chip Kellam, 36,agreed, and said visitors don’t travel to San Diego and Boston for their pies.
“Boston has seafood, San Diego has Mexican, New York has pizza,” said Kellam, a Williamsburg resident.
“Best pizza I’ve ever had is in New York. I could eat pizza [here in town] everyday.”