A Palms Pizzeria Is Ranked No. 2 in America. Its Original Shop Never Closed.

The No. 2 pizzeria in the United States, by one national list, sits on a corner in Palms, on the Westside of Los Angeles. Pizzeria Sei took that placement from the 50 Top Pizza USA ranking for a second year running and opened its first full dining room on June 24, 2026, Food Journal Magazine reported. Coverage of the list has been inconsistent about who shares the No. 2 spot with Sei, the outlet noted, so the placement is firmer than the tie.

My take: a national ranking is an argument, not a measurement, and this one is three months old. It cannot tell you what the best pizza in Los Angeles is. It can tell you which room a group of list-makers agreed to put near the top, twice.

For anyone here deciding where to eat this week, the number is not the useful part. The useful part is that there are now two Sei rooms, four miles apart, and they do different things.

What the ranking actually says

The 2026 list was announced on May 28, 2026, with Una Pizza Napoletana in New York at No. 1 and Pizzeria Sei sharing No. 2 with Tony's Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco. That tie is the soft spot. Food Journal Magazine reported that write-ups of the ranking have not agreed on who occupies the second position alongside Sei, which is why the placement travels better than the pairing.

The attention is not new. Food Journal Magazine points back to a New York Times notice by critic Tejal Rao, and sums up her verdict on the crust: buttery-tasting straight from the oven, salted, black-spotted on top, tender at the edge.

The Palms room opened June 24. The Pico shop never closed.

The new location at 10700 Tabor Street, at Overland Avenue, opened on June 24, 2026. It is the first new room the restaurant has added since William Joo, the chef, and Jennifer So — his wife and his business partner — started the Pico-Robertson shop in 2022, per Food Journal Magazine. The Palms space adds a sit-down dining room, a larger kitchen and a broader wine list.

The original did not shut. It trades now under the name Sei Pizza Bar, at the same address on West Pico Boulevard — 8781 — and it kept the two things Palms does without: a counter you can carry a box out of, and orders you can place online. Nothing a Pico regular has been doing for years has stopped. The ranked room is the one that now takes reservations.

What the bigger kitchen bought

Joo describes the style as Tokyo-style Neapolitan: a Neapolitan base baked fast and hot, then crimped so one crust carries soft airy sections, crisp edges and charred bubbles. He was born in South Korea and raised in Los Angeles, and he did not train in Tokyo; he built the method by watching and experimenting, the outlet reported.

The extra square footage bought two items the Pico kitchen had no way to make: montanara, the pizza that is fried before it is dressed, and scrocchiarella, a Roman crust rolled thin and baked to a snap. Past the Margherita, the board lists Four Culture Diavola, Mala Garden, Riviera, and a Patate that arrives under caviar. That is a lot of range for a room this size, and it is the plainest evidence on the page that the bigger kitchen was the point.

Nobody at this desk has eaten at the Palms location, so there is no verdict here on whether it is the best pizza in the city. What is on the record is the placement, the date and the two addresses.

The particulars

• Pizzeria Sei, 10700 Tabor Street, Los Angeles, CA 90034. Wednesday through Sunday, 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Reservations and walk-ins, per Food Journal Magazine.
• Sei Pizza Bar, 8781 W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90035. Same days and hours, with takeout at (424) 279-9800.

Source: foodjournalmagazine.com, retrieved August 28, 2026.