Tony's Pizza Napoletana has been named one of the best pizzerias in the United States, tying for second place in the 50 Top Pizza USA 2026 guide released June 23 — the highest the North Beach restaurant has ever placed.

The 50 Top Pizza guide is among the most closely watched arbiters in the pizza world, and its 2026 USA list puts a San Francisco pizzeria within a single rung of the top of the national field. For North Beach — a neighborhood whose Italian-American identity has thinned over the decades — it is a rare bit of culinary bragging rights with a national audience.

The San Francisco shop shares the No. 2 spot with Pizzeria Sei of Los Angeles, according to the official rankings published at 50toppizza.it. Una Pizza Napoletana in New York took the top spot, followed by Razza in Jersey City at No. 3 and Truly Pizza in Dana Point at No. 4. Tony's was the only Bay Area pizzeria to crack the upper tier of the list.

The guide, produced by the Italy-based 50 Top Pizza organization, ranks pizzerias worldwide through anonymous inspections and is widely treated within the industry as one of the genre's most prominent honors. NBC Bay Area reported the placement on June 23, noting the restaurant's reputation for pies baked in wood-burning ovens.

At 1570 Stockton St., Tony's Pizza Napoletana is the flagship of chef Tony Gemignani, a 13-time World Pizza Champion who has built a small empire of restaurants in San Francisco and beyond. The menu is unusual for its breadth: rather than specializing in a single regional style, the kitchen turns out Neapolitan, Sicilian, New York, Roman and Detroit-style pies, among others, with several baked in separate ovens calibrated to each tradition.

Gemignani has long framed his work as a craft to be shared rather than guarded. "My success is your success," he writes on the restaurant's website, describing a philosophy of teaching and mentoring other pizzaioli — a posture that has made him an influential figure well beyond his own dining room.

The North Beach location anchors a stretch of upper Grant and Stockton streets that still carries the neighborhood's Italian heritage, even as rents and turnover have reshaped the area. A national ranking of this kind draws tourists and food pilgrims to a corner of the city that trades heavily on exactly that history.

The 2026 placement caps a steady climb for the restaurant, which has appeared on the guide in prior years without reaching the runner-up tier. With the guide's profile growing each year, second place puts Tony's in the national conversation about American pizza's best kitchens — and keeps San Francisco on a map increasingly dominated by New York and Los Angeles.