This is New York City’s Most Famous Pizza Tour

Denver has good pizza. I'll just say that upfront before someone from New York finds this article and loses their mind — which was completely wrong, but we do have good pizza here. Big Bill's, Famous Original J's, a few others that hold up. But New York pizza is its own thing, and if you're visiting the city and want to actually understand why, Scott's Pizza Tours is worth your time.

I took the tour on a Sunday with Scott himself as the guide, which apparently doesn't always happen — he runs multiple tours and has a full staff of guides. Getting Scott meant getting the full version: part walking tour, part history lesson, part eating contest spread across four pizzerias in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The man has been on television. He's been quoted in more pizza articles than I can count. He's not performing expertise — he just has it, and it comes out naturally as you walk between stops.

What I didn't expect was how much context would change the way the pizza tasted. Knowing a place opened in 1924 and has been run by the same family for a hundred years makes you pay attention differently. Scott does that for every stop — gives you the thread that connects the crust in front of you to something larger. It's not a lecture. It's more like having a friend who happens to know everything explain things while you eat.

The tour covers four stops total, moving through Brooklyn and into Manhattan. Here's what stood out.

Stop 1 — Brooklyn Pizzeria (First Stop)

The first stop set the tone immediately. This was the kind of place locals actually eat at — not dressed up for tourists, not on any "best of" list that gets passed around travel blogs. The slice was large, slightly floppy in the way that New York slices are supposed to be, with sauce that had some real acidity to it. Scott spent time here talking about what makes New York water different and why it matters for dough — a claim I'd always heard but never had explained with any specificity. Whether or not water is the whole story, the crust here was noticeably good.

Stop 2 — Totonno's

Totonno's opened in 1924 in Coney Island and is one of the oldest continuously operating pizzerias in the United States. Anthony "Totonno" Pero came over from Naples and built a pizza that's still being made close to the original method — coal-fired, minimal toppings, focused. The family eventually opened other locations, but the original is the one worth making the trip for. This was the stop where I started to understand why New York pizza people talk the way they do. The char on the crust had flavor that a gas oven can't replicate, and the whole pizza felt like it was built around the dough rather than the toppings. Get here early if you go independently — they close when they run out.

Stop 3 — Brooklyn Pizzeria (Third Stop)

By the third stop, I was starting to wonder if my capacity for honest pizza evaluation was declining — there's a limit to how many slices you can eat before everything starts tasting the same. But this place snapped me back. The sauce was different here, sweeter and applied more generously, and the cheese had a pull to it that the earlier stops didn't. Scott used this stop to talk about regional variation within New York itself, which I hadn't thought about before. Brooklyn and Manhattan have real differences in style, not just geography.

Stop 4 — Manhattan Pizzeria (Final Stop)

The last stop was in Manhattan, and by this point the group had strong opinions. There was a genuine argument happening about which pizza had been best, which is the right energy for a tour like this. This slice was thinner and crispier than what we'd had in Brooklyn, closer to what I'd think of as a classic New York street slice — the kind you fold in half and eat standing up. The consensus in our group was split, which Scott seemed to enjoy. He's been running this tour long enough that he knows people are going to disagree, and he doesn't push a verdict on you.

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A few things worth knowing before you book. The tour runs about three hours and covers real ground on foot, so wear shoes you can actually walk in. Four pizzerias sounds like a lot, but the portions at each stop are designed to be manageable — you're not eating full pies. Scott's Pizza Tours runs multiple formats, including a bus tour option if walking isn't your preference, and the Sunday walking tour is one of the most popular, so booking ahead is worth doing. Check scottspizzatours.com for current schedules and pricing.

The group format is part of what makes it work. We had maybe fifteen or twenty people on our tour, mix of locals and visitors, and the conversation between stops was genuinely good. If you're going with a group — especially people who care about food and want something more structured than just wandering — this is a strong choice.

For Denver people planning a New York trip: this is one of the few food tours I've done anywhere that I'd actually recommend without caveats. It's not a gimmick. Scott knows the material, the stops are real places with real history, and you leave with a better mental map of why New York pizza developed the way it did. Coming back to Denver after this, I looked at our local New York-style spots with a bit more appreciation. Famous Original J's holds up — big floppy slices, the right balance of chew, the kind of place a transplant would actually approve of. But there's context you only get from being in the room where it started.

If you're heading to New York and you eat pizza, put this on the list.