It's time for San Diego to claim its title as a "pizza town" | Michele Parente

From traditional thin-crust Neapolitan to square pies and top-of-the-line toppings, pizza perfection can be found throughout the county, whether from a mom and pop, red-sauce Italian eatery or a trendy, upscale restaurant. And the region’s recent influx of chefs and restaurateurs from Italy — who import with them massive wood-fired pizza ovens, primo Italian 00 flour, prosciutto, San Marzano tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and more — has only enriched the quality. Like Los Angeles, which is arguably the true best pizza city in the U.S., San Diego isn’t a town with hard-fast culinary traditions and carved-in-stone rules on what pizza is supposed to look like, taste like or even if it should be eaten with a fork and a knife or simply folded in your hands. That allows for the kind of freedom and creativity that might elude pizzaiolos in New York and Chicago, not to mention Naples. And like L.A., San Diego has an embarrassment of optimal fresh ingredients that can be used as toppings.