NYC Pizza and Beer Crawl

Before leaving New York City for Dubai, there was just one thing I had to do and that was to visit as many NYC pizzerias as I could…in one day.

So today, I gathered a troop of pizza lovers on a culinary journey to 6 of NYC’s best pizza joints: John’s, Grimaldi’s, Carmine’s, Lombardi’s, Patsy’s of Harlem, and Luzzo’s. And we also visited a smathering of bars because what else goes best with pizza but beer?

Having grown up in NYC, I can’t believe that I hadn’t been to a single one of these pizza places. But today, even though it took us 12 hours, we made it to all 6 and tasted them all!

Here was our itinerary with a pizza quiz that I created for all the Pizza and Beer Crawl participants (click below for a larger image):

Pizza and Bar Crawl – Page 1

Pizza and Bar Crawl – Page 2

Test Your Pizza Trivia

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John’s

11:00 am – The first beer stop as we gathered pizza-eating troops

11:30 am – Gearing up for a 12-hour marathon of pizza and beer

Plain pie @ John’s

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Grimaldi’s

12:00 pm – An hour-long wait for Grimaldi’s but it was worth it!

1:30 pm – Grimaldi’s pizza: half basil / half pepperoni

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Carmine’s

4:00 pm – We inhaled the pizzas so fast at Carmine’s that there weren’t any photos!

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Lombardi’s

6:00 pm – Grabbing drinks @ Gatsby’s while waiting for our table @ Lombardi’s

6:30 pm – Lombardi’s

6:50 pm – pizza pies @ Lombardi’s

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Patsy’s of Harlem

8:00 pm – One sausage and one mushroom pie @ Patsy’s

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Luzzo’s

10:00 pm – @ Luzzo’s with a a wild mushroom pie and a prosciutto and arugula pie

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I can now say from first-hand experience that all the places we visited had great pizza and I’m not sure if it was the beer but the pizzas kept getting better throughout the day.

I found Patsy’s to be my favorite “classic-style” pizza as its slices reminded me most of the pizza of my youth.

But the place that I would like to go back to right away would be Luzzo’s…or maybe Carmine’s. Mmm…pizza.

What’s your favorite NYC pizza joint?