Poll : 21 November - 27 November 2007

Analysis

Reader question: 'Are you serious??? With all the excellent restaurants in Las Vegas, people want pizza??? I hope this survey is done tongue in cheek.'

Not at all. Man cannot live on kobe beef and lobster all the time and sometimes (not infrequently) nothing hits the spot like a great slice of pepperoni and cheese (which accounts for 36% of all pizza sales, making it the number one topping of choice in America, where a staggering 93 percent of the population apparently eats pizza at least once a month). According to one study, each man, woman, and child consumes an average of 23 pounds of pie every year, with 350 slices of pizza consumed every second.

With pizza evidently being a subject so close to the nation's heart (not to mention its stomach), perhaps it's no surprise that this turned out to be our most closely-contested poll to date, with a mere one percentage point separating the winner – America at New York-New York, which kinda figures – from Metro, which happens to be one of our favorites, too, with venues in Ellis Island and Boulder Station casinos, plus at 4001 S. Decatur, 1395 E. Tropicana, and 1420 W. Horizon Ridge Pkwy.)

A long-established Las Vegas pizzeria, Metro's owners' grandparents grew up in the New York City neighborhood where America's first pizzeria was opened in 1905 by Gennaro Lombardi, at 53 1/3 Spring St . From then until the 1940s, all American pizzerias served a variation on the thin-crust hand-tossed 'New York-style' pizza, with the very different Chicago-style deep-dish topping-laden pie not hitting the oven until 1943, but we'll save that story for the next pizza poll. (The reader who suggested BJ's Brewery in the 'other' category for this poll should vote again next time – their pizza is definitely Chicago-style.)

As far as our other faves are concerned, we order regularly from Villa Pizza (3% of votes) and have recently discovered Joe's New York Pizza joint opposite the Hard Rock (4%), which is now a regular pit-stop after the Runnin’ Rebels basketball game. They're open until 3 a.m. at that location (the W. Charleston and S. Las Vegas Blvd. venues close at 10 p.m.) and have a 'buy nine slices, get the tenth slice free' deal. We can also vouch for Rocco's on W. Charleston (2% of votes) while Anthony Curtis' son particularly likes Mamma Ilardo's (2%), which has venues at the top of the Stratosphere and in the food court at the MGM Grand. And apparently, according to an ex-New York cop we know (and if anyone should know, we'd guess it would be him) NOVE Italiano at the Palms serves excellent NY-style pizzas as one of their antipasti options, starting at $12.

Here are some of the other places you recommended:

• 'There's a place in the food court at the MGM that I love! Forgot the name, though. Sorry!' [Ed: Don't worry, we left it off the list, too. That would be Mamma Illardo's, as above.]
• 'Sirrico's Pizza, New York-New York.' [Ed: Ah, yes. They serve it by the slice in true NY-style.]
• 'The best pizza I have ever had in Vegas is at Uncle Angelo's Pizza Joint at Jerry's Nugget in North Las Vegas. I tried this restaurant because of the LVA coupons and now I try to make it there on every trip. They use a whole milk mozzarella cheese which makes all the difference: Most of your chains use a low-moisture part-skim cheese and it's just not the same. The prices are also very reasonable for the quality of pizza that you are getting. [Ed: They offer three kinds of sauce – red, pesto, and white, plus a 'build-your-own Stromboli' option, which we'd be interested to try in the light of the LVA Stromboli survey we ran last year.]
• 'Aurelio's, which has 43 individually owned and operated franchise locations in six states, with two in the Las Vegas area (10960 S. Eastern Ave., Henderson and 7660 W. Cheyenne Ave.) [Ed: More than one person picked this joint.]'
• 'Uncle Joe's Pizza downtown, near Ne