Barstool Sports founder back in Lexington for pizza review. What did he rate it?
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy has made another visit to Lexington for his online, one bite video reviews of pizza.
And this visit on March 22 was one of the highest rankings he has given to a Lexington pizza restaurant.
Portnoy visited Smashing Tomato’s Hamburg location at 2200 War Admiral Way for its traditional, wood-fired Neapolitan pizza.
The popular reviewer, who has 1.5 million subscribers on his YouTube Page, gave Smashing Tomato’s pizza a score of 7.1.
“Wow,” said Portnoy sad after his first bite. “This is a great Neapolitan. Better than a traditional Neapolitan.”
Portnoy said his rating was very high for the Neapolitan-style pizza. “It’s not my favorite type of pizza (but), this is a great Neapolitan though.”
“This isn’t my style of pizza I don’t think, but I’m going to say this, that looks better than I thought it was going to come,” said Portnoy, who went on to praise the staff at the locally-owned Italian restaurant.
Portnoy gives scores based out of 10 and very few get near a perfect score, with only one restaurant having received a 10.0.
Portnoy said he was nearby in Northern Kentucky at Turfway Park, visiting foals from some of his horses.
“Watching the horse in the park, I almost cried,” Portnoy said in the video clip.
Lexington pizza restaurasnts Dave Portnoy has reviewed
Portnoy made headlines with his viral 2018 review of Goodfellas Distillery District location that made Barstool Sports history when he gave the restaurant his worst pizza review ever: a 0.0.
Locals rallied around the restaurant, and two years later, during the 2020 Breaders’ Cup, Portnoy returned to Goodfellas, giving the local pizza place a 7.7.
In 2022, while once again in town for the Breeders’ Cup, Portnoy visited three pizza restaurants: Joe Bologna’s, Mad Mushroom Pizza and LexLive.
Joe B’s received a score of 6.7. He gave Mad Mushroom a rating of 5.2 and 0.04 for LexLive.
This story was originally published March 27, 2026 at 12:23 PM.
