After eating nearly 500 slices, Brooklyn man says Queens has best pizza

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Freelance reporter Liam Quigley has tasted and tracked over 460 slices of New York City pizza. Photos via quigley

By Jacob Kaye

Liam Quigley has a lot of opinions about pizza. Some of them are astute – the proliferation of the dollar slice has contributed to a decline in overall pizza quality. Some of them are simple – “people love pizza.” Some are wise – “Queens has a lot of good pizza.”

But Quigley, a freelance reporter whose work has appeared in the Daily News, Hell Gate and the Eagle, has earned the right to serve as an authority on New York’s favorite food.

Over the course of eight years, Quigley has tasted and tracked over 460 slices from pizza joints in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx and even New Jersey.

This week, Quigley, who grew up in Manhattan but now lives in Brooklyn, released a comprehensive analysis of his years-long project, NYC Slice. The project began with an Instagram account, where Quigley would snap a picture of a slice and caption it with three simple things – the price of the slice, the establishment that made it and their address. He didn’t rate the slices because he “wanted to avoid controversy and bribes,” according to his website.

On Tuesday, he shared his findings. A map shows the location of each pizza place he’s dined in, a graph shows the steadily increasing average price of a slice throughout the duration of the project and a table allows readers to search for each of the pizza spots along Quigley’s quest.

The reporter also crafted a list of some of his favorite pizza slices. Of the 13 restaurants listed, nearly half are in Queens. Among them are Ozone Pizzeria on Liberty Avenue, New Park Pizza on Cross Bay Boulevard and Margherita Pizza on Jamaica Avenue, possibly his favorite slice in the World’s Borough.

“Queens definitely feels like the most middle class borough in a lot of ways, and I think in Queens, you're more likely to find this slice that you remember from growing up,” Quigley said.

“They're not cutting corners. They've been doing it the same way for a long time.”

Quigley said he’s seen a significant change in the prices and quality of the New York City staple over the past decade. The average price of a plain slice increased from $2.52 to $3.00 over the duration of the project. While prices increased, quality began to decline, he said.

It can be seen in the sauce.

“Your average slice has had way less sauce in recent years,” Quigley said. “Growing up, I remember sometimes it was too much [sauce], like it would be sloppy.”

“Now, some slices, I feel like I pick up the cheese and I'm already pulling up the crust of the pizza,” he added.

Some of the slices he “threw in the garbage as soon as I walked out of the store.”

“There are gross looking, disgusting slices,” Quigley said. “But the rule was, if I was near a new place and I hadn't added it to the map, I had to go buy a plain slice even if I knew it was going to be gross.”

Quigley found nearly every pizza joint organically, spotting shops as he went about his everyday life. Quigley made the majority of his pizza stops in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but added that he has regrets about his level of pizza consumption in Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island.

Though he won’t stop eating slices, his meticulous tracking of every piece of pizza he eats has likely come to an end – which he says will likely be good for his appetite and wallet, which is now over $1,200 lighter.

“I can't spend any more money on bad pizza,” he said. “I can't walk into another place and drop $3 on a slice that I know is gross. I can't keep doing that.”

Even after all the ‘za and his dedication to the project, Quigley said he’s unsure if he considers the New York City slice the best meal of all time.

“Is pizza my favorite food?” he wondered. “Don’t you think tacos are better?”