East Village Pizza Joins Lineup of Top-Rated Pizzerias at Dave Portnoy's One Bite Pizza Festival

Dave Portnoy's One Bite Pizza Festival is one of the most anticipated pizza events in New York City, drawing enthusiasts from across the region to taste and judge the pizzas from the city's most respected pizzerias in a single afternoon. Being selected to participate is a significant honor — it places East Village Pizza in the company of the restaurants that serious pizza lovers consider essential. The announcement of East Village Pizza's participation in the September 13, 2025 festival at Randall's Island Park confirmed what regulars and media coverage have been saying for years: this is one of the best pizzerias in Manhattan.

Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, has built a second reputation as one of the most influential pizza critics in the United States through his One Bite reviews, which have driven enormous traffic to the restaurants he rates highly and created a community of pizza enthusiasts who take their slice opinions seriously. The One Bite Pizza Festival brings that community together in person, turning what is usually a solitary judgment into a shared experience. Thousands of pizza fans sample slices from dozens of top-rated pizzerias and vote for their favorites, creating a real-time competition that combines the energy of a food festival with the stakes of a competition.

East Village Pizza's inclusion in the festival reflects the restaurant's standing in New York's pizza conversation. Frank Kabatas has been building that standing since he purchased the restaurant in 2003, year by year, through the consistent production of a product that holds up under scrutiny. The 72-hour cold-fermented dough, the fresh in-house mozzarella, the precision of the bake — these are the details that earn the kind of respect that gets a restaurant noticed by Portnoy's team.

For East Village Pizza regulars, the festival appearance was a chance to see their neighborhood pizzeria represent at a city-wide level. For first-time visitors to the festival who encountered East Village Pizza at Randall's Island, it was an introduction to one of the East Village's defining institutions — one that has earned media coverage from the New York Times to PIX11 and built a social media following of 1.7 million Instagram followers through the genuine quality of what comes out of the oven at 145 1st Ave.

The festival format — multiple pizzerias, side-by-side comparison, enthusiastic crowds — is perhaps the most rigorous test a New York pizzeria can face. Quality that works on a slow Tuesday afternoon also needs to hold up when you are producing volume for a festival crowd with high expectations and easy access to alternatives. East Village Pizza's participation demonstrated confidence in exactly that kind of performance.

Whether you attended the 2025 One Bite Pizza Festival or are encountering East Village Pizza for the first time through this coverage, the restaurant is at 145 1st Ave in Manhattan, open daily from 11AM until 3AM and until 5AM on Fridays and Saturdays. The same quality that earned a spot at Portnoy's festival is available every day of the week, for a $4.99 cheese slice or a $46 double-stacked pie.