There’s always room for improvement — especially when it comes to pizza.
Connecticut’s campaign to convince Americans that it is the country’s pizza capital has seemingly gone flat. A new poll has crowned New York the top pizza state, dealing another blow to Connecticut’s taxpayer-funded promotional push.
Connecticut landed a disappointing 16th in the nationwide ranking, leaving state representatives frustrated. The survey, compiled by Maine Lobster Now using Google Reviews, placed the Nutmeg State behind places not typically associated with pizza, including Texas, Oregon and Missouri.
“Eat our words? Not a chance. We’ll be eating another slice of Connecticut pizza,” Morgan Nyerick, director of Connecticut Statewide Marketing & Tourism, told The Post in response to the survey.
“We have tremendous respect for Maine Lobster Now when it comes to lobster, but we’ll keep the pizza title right here in Connecticut. After all, we did put ‘Welcome to Connecticut, Home of the Pizza Capital of the US’ on our highway signs. So, we’re pretty committed at this point,” she added.
“New York can celebrate its ranking, and we’ll happily keep celebrating our pizza. And if anyone at Maine Lobster Now wants to come down and enjoy a slice, we’d be delighted to show them around.”
Unfortunately for Connecticut, the numbers tell a different story.
New York claimed the top spot, with 43.05% of its statewide Google reviews rated positively.
New Jersey followed in second place with 39%, while Rhode Island ranked third at 36.26%, according to figures curated by Maine Lobster Now.
Missouri also made the top 10, while Wisconsin and Utah finished ahead of Connecticut.
Connecticut, home to New Haven’s famed apizza, posted a customer satisfaction rate of just 29.20%. That result comes despite the state launching a pizza rivalry in 2024, when it claimed its slices were better than New York’s.
The Connecticut Office of State Marketing and Tourism even placed a series of billboards in Manhattan and Brooklyn featuring provocative slogans, including “Connecticut Pizza Wins. NYC Takes The L” and “The Nation’s Best Pizza. Not You, New York.”
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Connecticut was not the only pizza powerhouse to struggle. Illinois, home of Chicago deep dish, finished 19th, with only 27.23% of its reviews receiving positive marks.
Still, New York pizza makers say there was never much doubt about which state deserved the top ranking.
“It’s 100% true and 100% accurate. I don’t think any other state is even close to messing with us when it comes to pizza. We’re the top dogs,” said Michael Vendome, owner of Fermento in the West Village.
New York is home to the “most innovative pizza guys,” Vendome said, pointing to the wide range of styles, shapes and flavors available across the state.
At Fermento, for instance, the dough undergoes a 72-hour fermentation process. Just down the block, customers can find a more traditional New York slice.
“There’s no other state that you could go to where you could find all these styles done well — done great — compared to what we are doing in New York,” Vendome said.
“And I think we have the best people making it personally, the most passionate and the best. There’s a reason why most of the best pizzas come from New York.”
The state’s extraordinary variety of pizza styles, combined with its sheer number of pizzerias, has fostered a level of competition that encourages New York chefs to keep improving, theorized Michael Ayoub, chef and owner of Fornino in Brooklyn.
“We are the best in the country. I could have told you that — They didn’t have to do all this type of investigation if they had called me up first. I would have saved somebody a lot of trouble,” said Ayoub, who is celebrating 24 years of his business Tuesday.
When it comes to Connecticut trying to get in on the cheese, Ayoub cheekily said: “My mother always said: if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
“But I’ll just say this: Tsk, tsk, tsk.”