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."

"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"

Louie & Ernie's Pizza in Pelham Bay, Bronx, has operated since 1959 after a stint in Harlem beginning in 1947 and earned recognition as New York's top hole-in-the-wall. The pizzeria is celebrated for a fennel-laced sausage pie on a sauce-slicked, thin-crusted, slightly charred base that diners fold and eat quickly. The interior holds only a few tables, with much of the dining taking place on car hoods or a backyard patio where longtime locals gather. The shop emphasizes no pretension and no gimmicks, maintaining a no-shortcuts approach under owners John and Cosimo, who took over in 1987.

Read at Time Out New York