Who Serves The Best Pizza In San Francisco?

Pizza is arguably America's most varied and beloved dish, one whose devotees are some of the most opinionated, and yet it remains one of the most accessible foods there is. Even the country's most expensive and esteemed pizza temple is within reach of the average person's budget. Every red-blooded American grew up with his or her preferred regional style of this national fascination, knowing it as the definitive best. Today, there's better pizza, more knowledge about it, and interest in it everywhere. That accessibility and loyalty makes for some tremendously spirited debate.

Considering the passion pizza inspires, responsibly declaring America's Best Pizza can be challenging. But The Daily Meal doesn't shy away from the challenge. For our third-annual pizza ranking, we again sought the nation's best pies and slices, considering more places than ever in our quest for the best. We researched and added 275 more pizzas and recruited a group of 30 more experts to weigh in than for our 2013 list. Some 700 pizza spots were considered by 78 panelists, comprising The Daily Meal's in-house pizza experts and city editors, American chefs, restaurant critics, bloggers, writers, and pizza authorities. We compiled the data, and although there could only be one winner, there is plenty of seriously good pizza being made across America, including in San Francisco.

Although this restaurant in the City by the Bay claims to specialize in house-made pastas, their pizza is formidable. Baked in a wood-fired oven, the thin-crust pizza at Flour + Water blends Old World tradition with modern refinement, according to chef and co-owner Thomas McNaughton. Pizza toppings vary depending on what's in season, making each dining experience unique, but Flour + Water's textbook Margherita is amazing — so much so that it snagged the very respectable #7 spot on our list. Heirloom tomatoes, basil, fior di latte, and extra-virgin olive oil... if only the simplicity implied by the restaurant's name could be duplicated in pizzerias across the country.

Flour + Water beat out local competitors Tony's Pizza Napoletana (#10), Una Pizza Napoletana (#11), Pizzeria Delfina (#35), Zero Zero (#73), and Del Popolo (#90) to score the highest of any pizzeria in the city on our compilation which means that, according to our panel of experts, they are the proud home of the best pizza in San Francisco.