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Openings: Coalfire Pizza, Chicago

Posted by Adam Kuban, May 9, 2007 at 8:00 PM

Woo! Coal-oven pizza comes to Chicago! From Chicagoland's LTH Forum:

They opened yesterday. Located on Grand Avenue, about three storefronts west of Ogden. This is a cute place, wood floors, warm colors with a huge coal-fired oven in the back. I'm told that it gets about 800 degrees hot, sometimes more.

Due to time constraints, I had to order my pizzas takeout, and as such, all pizzas suffer when cooled down a bit. But still, these pies (I ordered two) had a bready, thin crust with all the integrity of an East Coast pizza. (The guys who own this are from Western Mass.) The crust was a little tough but I'm willing to give them a pass because mine had cooled down significantly before I had the chance to bite into it. Also, the pies coming right out of the oven looked amazing - big blistery crust. One noticeable difference from Neapolitan types is the black, dusty char on the top of the crust from the coal oven.

I ordered two pies - one margherita with fresh mozz and big whole pieces of basil on top and one with pepperoni, black olives and mushrooms. The sauce was tomatoey, with a tomatoey acidity, and lacking the cloying tomato paste taste of typical Chicago pizza. Both were quite tasty, and quite foldable. It is a welcome addition to a neighborhood that is without any East Coast/true Italian style pizza options.

But for the first day, there appeared to be no kinks and they had quite a crowd for opening day. Definitely worth getting down here for a try.

Coalfire Pizza

Address: 1321 West Grand Avenue, Chicago IL 60622 (at Ogden Ave.; map)
Phone: 312-226-2625

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