This beloved Bronx pizzeria was just named the best hole-in-the-wall restaurant in New York

New Yorkers don’t exactly agree on much, except maybe that the best pizza is never found in a glossy dining room with a marble bar and a wood-fired oven imported from Naples. It’s usually tucked inside a tiny storefront that looks like someone’s cousin’s basement. Which is why it feels right that Louie & Ernie’s Pizza in the Bronx just landed the crown as the best hole-in-the-wall restaurant in New York.

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The pick comes from Food Republic’s new roundup of the best hole-in-the-wall restaurants in every state, a coast-to-coast celebration of the kind of places with handwritten menus, squeaky screen doors and enough history to make you feel like you’re part of the family after one visit. For New York, they didn’t look to a flashy Manhattan slice shop or a TikTok-famous Neapolitan joint. They went straight to Pelham Bay, where Louie & Ernie’s has been slinging perfect pies since 1959 (after a stint in Harlem dating back to 1947).

What makes it worthy of the title? For one, the sausage pie. Locals will tell you this is the move, with fennel-laced sausage from a nearby butcher scattered generously across a sauce-slicked, thin-crusted pie that teeters on the edge of charred. It’s not the kind of pizza you eat politely; it’s the kind you fold, inhale and then wonder how you’ve already taken down three slices before the box has cooled.

Inside, there are only a handful of tables, but the real magic happens out front on car hoods or in the backyard patio, where neighborhood regulars swap stories about eating here since they were kids. There’s no pretension, no gimmickry—just pizza done so well that you almost don’t want the secret getting out. (Almost.)

Today, the shop is run by John and Cosimo, who took over from Ernie in 1987 and have kept the tradition alive with the same no-shortcuts approach. The vibe is pure Bronx: warm, unflashy and rooted in community. And while awards and accolades are nice, the real proof is in the repeat customers—families, firefighters, little league teams—who keep Louie & Ernie’s buzzing day after day.

So yes, New York’s “best hole-in-the-wall” might just be a pizza joint that looks like a house. And honestly, what could be more New York than that?