Phoenix ranks no. 16 on national pizza list. Should we be higher?

Locals know Phoenix is a pizza town. With the help of a few James Beard Awards and an episode on Netflix show Chef's Table: Pizza — not to mention exceptionally good pies — local chef and restaurateur Chris Bianco has helped that reputation grow beyond Arizona.

A new study from Clever Real Estate ranked our desert sprawl as the no. 16 best pizza city in America. And while we'll proudly argue that we deserve a higher spot, it's maybe about right. But those that did rank above us on the list may surprise you.

New York City has to take the cake, right? Wrong. According to the list, New York is no. 8, bested by cities like Pittsburgh and New Haven, Connecticut.

So which spot took the top prize for being the best pizza city in the country? Rochester, New York, a city famous for a dish called the Garbage Plate.

The local tourism agency, Visit Rochester, has a page on its website dedicated to the strangely named delicacy. According to the site, a Garbage Plate consists of "your choice of cheeseburger, hamburger, Italian sausages, steak, chicken, white or red hots, served on top of any combination of home fries, french fries, baked beans, and/or macaroni salad. The plate is usually topped with “hot sauce.” Rochester hot sauce is a spicy meat sauce. Optional mustard and onions may be added on top (as a heartburn garnish). It is usually served with a side of buttered bread."

Clever Real Estate is a company that conducts research in order to help "readers make smarter real estate decisions," according to its website.

Choosing where to live based on the food is a plan we can get behind. But when the results turn up Rochester for best pies, doubts creep in.

The researchers took into account several factors, including the number of pizzerias per 100,000 residents (Phoenix has 4.6), the average Yelp rating (Phoenix pizzerias score 4.25), and the cost of a large cheese and pepperoni pizza (in Phoenix, $16.83 and $19.46, respectively).

Some of those factors knocked down cities known for their slices, such as New York City, which has the most expensive pizzas nationwide, according to the list.

They also included some less-defined data points, like a city's "pizza passion score" and a city's "perceived pizza quality." In Rochester, apparently, folks are really passionate about pies, clocking in at a 98 out of 100.

Overall, Philadelphia took the no. 2 spot and Boston was no. 3. Tucson was the only other Arizona city on the list. Our neighbors to the south came in at no. 52. If you love pizza, maybe give Wichita, Kansas, a miss. The city ranked last, at no. 100.

The different data points were put together to determine an overall score out of 100. Phoenix got a 93.3. So, while we'd love to rank higher than no. 16, we're happy with our A-grade pizza.