Meet New England Beach Pizza, the Dish Deemed ‘America’s Worst Pizza’

One of our favorite things at Allrecipes is celebrating the regional delicacies that our community of home cooks grew up eating. And there are some good ones out there.

Take the Pittsburgh Salad, where you load up your favorite salad with fries and other tasty delicacies. Or how about the Boston Cooler, a beloved ice cream treat that doesn’t even hail from Boston?

But what happens when the cuisine born in your region is deemed “America’s Worst”? In the case of “America’s Worst Pizza,” you get some die-hard fans.

What Is New England Pizza?

Originating in Lawrence, Massachusetts, near the New Hampshire border, the first rendition of this dish came from a Sicilian bakery called Tripoli. While Tripoli began as a purveyor of cannolis and other pastries, it soon added sheet-pan pizzas to its repertoire. The inland establishment expanded to the beach towns of Salisbury, Massachusettes, and Seabrook, New Hampshire, where the pizza garnered a cult-like following and the moniker, “New England Beach Pizza.”

Somewhere along the way, the sheet-pan pizza acquired another, less flattering designation as “not very good” and even “America’s worst pizza.” But is New England Beach Pizza really that bad, and if so, why? According to its haters, it seems to boil down to a mix of presentation and execution. New England Beach Pizzia features a thin crust, a very sweet sauce, and little in the way of toppings other than a small sprinkle of mozzarella and rows of circular slices of provolone.

In a recent Reddit thread, fans of the dish admit that these slices won’t win any awards, but that they remain a nostalgic, endearingly delicious culinary right of passage for any visit to this swath of New England’s shore. Many Tivoli fans—and those of rival pizza shop Cristy’s—jumped into the discussion to explain that eating this dish brings back a lot of happy memories. 

“It’s not great, but it’s the kind of thing that eating it reminds you of a location, so it makes you happy,” one user explained. “You could basically make it at home as a snack in 30 seconds.” 

Essentially, the headline of a 2019 article on Eater.com describes the paradox perfectly: “New England Beach Pizza Is Not Very Good. Everyone Should Try It.”

How To Make New England Beach Pizza

Luckily for us, Chef John—aka John Mitzewich, who has his own cult following here on Allrecipes, on his YouTube channel, and at the California Culinary Academy where he is an instructor—is defending this questionable dish and showcasing it in all its glory with a new recipe for New England Beach Pizza.

The recipe comes together in about 40 minutes, with only 10 minutes of prep. After preheating your oven to 475 degrees F (245 degrees C), prepare the sauce: a mixture of sautéed garlic, tomato paste, a jar of marinara, water, more sugar than you might think, and a 1/4 teaspoon each of oregano and chili flakes.

Chef John calls for store-bought pizza dough, which you’ll stretch out onto a sheet pan prepped with olive oil. Top the dough with a light layer of sauce, then a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese. Bake until the crust is cooked through and the bottom is golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes. When your pizza comes out of the oven, top it with slices of provolone. You can serve and eat it immediately, or return the pizza to the oven for a few minutes to melt the provolone a bit more.

And now, enjoy your “bad” pizza!