The world’s largest pizza was created in Los Angeles, California, on 19 January 2023. Measuring 1,296.72 square metres, it was officially recognised by Guinness World Records.
The record-breaking pizza was made at the Los Angeles Convention Center by American YouTuber Eric Decker, better known as Airrack, in partnership with Pizza Hut. The project celebrated Airrack reaching 10 million YouTube subscribers and the return of Pizza Hut’s Big New Yorker pizza.
How do you cook a pizza that large?
The pizza was too large for any conventional oven. Instead, its base was assembled across the convention centre floor before being covered with sauce, cheese and pepperoni. It was then baked in separate sections while remaining connected as one enormous pizza.
The ingredients included approximately:
6,193 kilograms of dough;
2,244 kilograms of marinara sauce;
3,992 kilograms of cheese;
630,496 slices of pepperoni.
Altogether, the pizza covered an area comparable to several tennis courts.
Guinness World Records requires food prepared for record attempts to be suitable for human consumption and not wasted. After the record was confirmed, the pizza was divided into portions and donated to charities supporting people experiencing food insecurity in the Los Angeles area.
The record it replaced
Before 2023, the title belonged to an Italian pizza called Ottavia, created in Rome on 13 December 2012.
Ottavia measured 1,261.65 square metres and was prepared by Dovilio Nardi and a team of Italian pizza makers. It was also entirely gluten-free and remains recognised as the world’s largest gluten-free pizza.
The Roman pizza held the overall record for more than ten years before the Los Angeles creation surpassed it by approximately 35 square metres.
Interestingly, Ottavia itself broke a much older record. In 1990, a South African supermarket produced a round pizza measuring 37.4 metres in diameter. That record remained unbeaten for 22 years.
Is the Los Angeles pizza still the record holder?
According to the current Guinness World Records listing, the 2023 Los Angeles pizza remains the world’s largest officially recorded pizza.
It may not have fitted inside a pizza box — or even an ordinary restaurant — but every part of it was real, cooked and ultimately served.
From South Africa to Rome and finally Los Angeles, the history of the world’s largest pizza has taken more than three decades to reach its present size.
