The Best Pizza in Des Moines, by Style and by Crowd

Ordering pizza for a group is less a decision than a hostage negotiation, and there's always one person holding the whole thing up over pineapple like it's a matter of principle. The group chat has forty unread messages. Someone has typed "I'm flexible" and then shot down three straight suggestions. Half the crew wants thin crust, half wants the deep dish that could double as a doorstop, and the lone vegetarian is being very quiet and very patient. If that's the energy in your rental right now, the good news is the best pizza in Des Moines is diverse enough that everybody can win, as long as you order two pies instead of fighting over one.

Short version: Des Moines has a genuinely fun pizza scene, from a famous crab-rangoon pie to wood-fired Neapolitan to thick, crispy Detroit-style. The trick is knowing which style each spot does best.

Still reading? Smart. Pizza is the one food where ordering wrong actually costs you, so here's how a local sorts the Des Moines scene by style and by crowd.

The famous one: Fong's Pizza

Every pizza town has its signature, and in Des Moines it's the crab rangoon pizza at Fong's Pizza. It sounds like a dare and tastes like a revelation, cream cheese and crab and crispy wonton bits on a pizza, served in a building that used to be a Chinese restaurant and now runs a full tiki vibe. It's the pie you order so you can tell people back home you did, and then you quietly order a second one.

Fong's is also just a fun room, which matters more than the food snobs admit. A pizza spot that's a good hang is worth driving across town for, and this one pulls double duty as a bar, so the group that wanted drinks and the group that wanted dinner both get their way.

If you've never done the crab rangoon thing, here's the honest pitch: it's not a gimmick that tastes like a gimmick. The cream cheese does what cream cheese does, the crispy wonton bits add crunch, and the whole thing works in a way that annoys people who came in ready to hate it. Order one of those and one normal pie, and you've covered both the bragging rights and the person who just wanted pepperoni.

Crab rangoon pizza has no business being as good as it is. That's the whole charm. Order it, let the skeptic at the table take one bite, and watch them go quiet.

Creative local pies: Gusto Pizza Co.

Gusto Pizza Co. is the local favorite for pies with personality, a homegrown spot with a rotating lineup of specialty combinations that go well past pepperoni without getting precious about it. It's the move when your group has adventurous eaters and picky ones at the same table, because the menu's got a creative pie for the brave and a straight-up classic for the one who orders the same thing everywhere.

• Best for: mixed groups, lunch, and anyone who wants a specialty pie without a fancy-restaurant price.
• Order strategy: one wild specialty pie, one crowd-pleaser, and let people graze across both.
• Why it works for a trip: it's casual and quick, so it fits a lunch between activities or an easy dinner before a night out.

What a spot like Gusto gets right is the thing a lot of ambitious pizza places forget: a pizza night should be easy. You're on vacation. Nobody wants to study a menu like it's a final exam. Gusto lets the adventurous person chase a weird combination and the creature of habit order the usual, and both of them are happy within the same fifteen minutes.

Wood-fired and Detroit-style: Eatery A and Parlor

If your pizza taste runs more refined, Des Moines delivers there too. Eatery A is the wood-fired, Mediterranean-leaning kitchen locals point to for blistered-crust Neapolitan-style pies, the kind with char on the crust and restraint on the toppings. It's a sit-down-and-make-an-evening-of-it spot more than a grab-a-slice one.

On the other end of the thickness spectrum, Parlor has built a name on Detroit-style, the rectangular, thick-but-airy pie with the crispy caramelized cheese pushed right to the edge of the pan. Detroit-style is having a national moment, and it's worth seeing why: that lacy, crunchy cheese edge is the best part of the pizza, and Detroit-style is basically engineered to produce more of it. If you've only ever had round pizza, it's a genuinely different experience.

These two cover the spread from delicate to decadent, so pick your crust and commit, or better yet, order one of each and settle the thin-versus-thick debate with evidence instead of opinions. That's usually the fastest way to end a pizza argument anyway.

Want a nicer evening built around one of these? Pair it with our picks for date night ideas in Des Moines and you've got the whole night planned.

Pizza by the occasion

Style is half the decision. The other half is why you're ordering, and most pizza nights fall into a few familiar camps.

• Feeding a crowd: Gusto or Fong's, ordered as a few pies in different styles so the picky and the adventurous both leave happy. Pizza is the great group peacemaker, which is exactly why it starts the fight.
• Game day or a night in: grab takeout, spread it across the rental's kitchen island, and let people pick as they go. No reservations, no waits, no gavel required.
• A real sit-down dinner: Eatery A, where the wood-fired pies and a proper room make it an evening, not just a meal.
• Trying something only-here: Fong's, full stop. The crab rangoon pie is the local rite of passage.

One more honest note on timing: weekend evenings and any night there's an event downtown, the popular spots get busy and the wait on a fresh pie stretches out. If you're feeding a hungry group, call ahead, order for pickup, or go a little early. A pizza place at capacity is not a place you want to be standing with six people and a dropping blood-sugar situation.

And if pizza's just one stop on a bigger eating tour, we mapped the whole city in our guide to the best restaurants in Des Moines, district by district.

Where you stay decides how you eat

Here's the part the pizza rankings never mention. Your home base quietly decides how easy any of this is. Stay somewhere central and a takeout run from Fong's or Gusto is a quick trip, the pies are still hot when you walk in, and the group eats around a real table instead of balancing boxes on their knees in a cramped hotel room.

That's a big reason a whole-home rental beats a hotel for a group that likes to eat. A real kitchen and a big island mean takeout night actually works, leftovers go in a real fridge, and the person who wanted the crab rangoon pizza and the person who wanted plain cheese can both be right at the same table. You own the itinerary, the city does the cooking.

It also quietly fixes the leftover pizza problem, which is a real problem. Cold pizza the next morning is one of life's small, reliable joys, and that only happens if you've got a fridge and a counter to reheat on, not a hotel mini-bar and a prayer. Stay somewhere with a real kitchen and the pizza you over-ordered tonight becomes tomorrow's free breakfast.

The bottom line

The best pizza in Des Moines isn't one winner, it's a style for every craving. Fong's for the famous crab rangoon pie and a fun room, Gusto for creative local combos, Eatery A for wood-fired Neapolitan, and Parlor for crispy-edged Detroit-style. Order a couple of styles for a group, check today's hours, and nobody has to lose the pineapple argument to eat well.

One last tip: don't try to find the single best pizza in town. That's a fool's errand, because the "best" changes with your mood, your crowd, and whether you want to sit down or sprawl out at the rental. The better plan is to hit two or three over a few days and let everyone crown their own winner. That's a more fun argument than agreeing anyway.

Want to land somewhere with a real kitchen to spread the boxes across? Book a Stay-A-While home in the Des Moines area and let takeout night be the easy part.