Lot of pizza talk - that's my kind of language. I can talk pizza all day lol. I'm very familiar with Buffalo and Rochester areas, have family up there, and the pizza is great. There are a ton of Italians in those areas and a ton of mom & pop pizza joints and red checkerboard restaurants that in my opinion, can rival NYC places. I heard from some Rochester residents that they have more pizza places there per capita than anywhere else in the country. The pizza up there is not like Chicago Deep Dish - its more like NYC pizza just slightly thicker. It's all personal preference at the end of the day.

I agree with pizzaboy (no pun intended) that Chicago style isn't, in my opinion, really considered pizza. They have something similar upstate in Utica called "tomato pie" - they're like Sicilian style squares with very sweet sauce and no mozz - just grated Romano. That's very good too, especially cold.

In NYC I prefer the original Patsy's, Gino's on E. 83rd, and Totonnos. The relatively new place Artichoke is great too; guys from Staten Island started it on E.14th like 5 years ago and now they have 3 locations. All of the locations got lines out the door no matter what time of day. It's great. Nothing beats original Patsy's on 118th though. Still can get a large for $11.