Entries tagged with 'Illinois'
Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 17, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Serious Eats contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Freddy's Pizza & Gelateria
1600 South 61st Avenue, Cicero IL 60804 (map); 708-863-9289
Getting There: Blue Line to Austin, walk nearly 1 mile south to corner of Austin Blvd. and 16th Street; or drive
Pizza Style: Italian bakery (Sicilian), Margherita, thin crust
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Great pizza, even better non-pizza food options, and even better service
Notes: Mon.–Sat., 10 a.m.–7 p.m.; extensive catering options available; cash only
Most people who have heard of Cicero, Illinois, know it for one of three things, all negative. First, it is the place where Al Capone moved to escape the pesky Chicago authorities trying to stop the man from making a living. Second, when Martin Luther King led a fair-housing campaign in the Chicago area in 1966, the residents of Cicero, nearly all of whom were white, were so violently opposed to integration that King assented to the wishes of Mayor Richard J. Daley and various civic leaders and opted to avoid Cicero. Third, Cicero has a history of corruption that makes Chicago politics seem pure, most recently highlighted by the imprisonment of Cicero Mayor Betty Loren Maltese.
Today, Cicero is, in some ways an altogether different place. It is no longer a safe haven for the mob, and, thanks to a huge influx of Mexican-Americans, it is a racially diverse town. Of course, not everything has changed: Current Cicero Mayor Larry Dominick is being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, has given plum jobs to campaign donors, and has been accused of a variety of unsavory political acts. On the bright side, another part of Cicero that has been consistent for 41 years is that Freddy's Pizza & Gelateria continues to serve up a variety of excellent Italian foods, including three types of pizza.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 3, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Serious Eats Chicago contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
O’Famé
4159 N. Western Ave., Chicago IL 60618 (map); 773-866-9300; ofame.com
Getting There: Brown Line to Western, walk just over ½ a mile south; or take #49 Western Avenue Street bus to Berteau
Pizza Style: Thin Crust, Pan and Stuffed
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Fresh ingredients, nice crust, but surprisingly bland pizza
Price: 12-inch thin crust pies range from $10.25 to $13.75
For years, O’Famé was a fixture in the heart of Lincoln Park where it seemed to have a pretty loyal following. I only visited the restaurant a couple of times, but it was crowded on both occasions and things seemed to be going well. On each visit, I had the same reaction: The pizza was close to very good, but there was something that was not quite right, either in texture or taste, that stopped me from going out of my way to return.
About a year ago, Lynn and John Casale, who started O’Famé in 1983, closed up shop there and headed to North Center, a less populous and less affluent neighborhood than Lincoln Park. Another change was that the new location does not have a dining room – it offers only carry-out and delivery. Last week, I met someone who raved about O’Famé and insisted I must have had really bad luck. Since I now live a relatively short bike ride away from the new location, I decided to give it one more try.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, May 28, 2009 at 3:55 PM
Serious Eats contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Gigio’s Pizzeria
4643 N. Broadway Street, Chicago IL 60640 (map); 773-271-2273
Getting There: Red Line to Wilson, walk 1 block north; or take #36 Broadway bus
Pizza Style: New York thin
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Solid option for Chicagoans seeking a New York pizza fix
Price: 9-inch slices range from $2.60 for cheese to $3.25 for sausage and pepperoni; additional toppings are 50 cents each.
Rumor has it that there are people in Chicago who occasionally crave a New York style pizza. I’m not talking about high-quality coal-oven pizzas, but rather the true New York style: the greasy, foldable slices that are available on every block in Manhattan, the style that all 472 iterations of Ray’s put out on a daily basis. When people in Chicago want some of that kind of pizza love, their options are rather limited. Some of the more popular choices for best New York slice in Chicago are Santullo's in Wicker Park, Renaldi's and Cafe Luigi in Lakeview, and Gigio’s Pizzeria which is where I went this week.
Gigio’s was opened by the Buttitta family in 1965 after they moved to Chicago from Palermo, Italy. The original location was about 10 blocks south on Broadway. That neighborhood got a lot nicer and rents went up, so in 1993 John Buttitta moved the restaurant to a part of Uptown that does not appear headed for dramatic increases in property value any time soon. There are a few other Gigio’s in the area, most notably one in Evanston, but the only Gigio’s that is tied to the Uptown one is the D'Gigio's Pizza, which is far west on Belmont and also offers catering services.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, May 20, 2009 at 10:45 AM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Marcello’s (Father & Son)
2745 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago IL 60647 (map); 773-275-7080; marcellos.com/
Getting There: Blue Line to Logan Square, walk 1/3 of a mile south on Milwaukee or take #56 Milwaukee Avenue Street bus to Sacramento
Pizza Style: Thin crust and pan/deep dish
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Classic Chicago thin crust is definitely worth a visit; deep dish/pan pies are an added bonus
Price: 14-inch thin and crispy pies start at $10.45; 12-inch pan/deep dish pizzas start at $13.95
Father & Son has been selling classic Chicago thin crust pies in
Logan Square since it first opened in 1947 at the corner of Diversey and Whipple. Seven years later, 24-year-old Marshall Bauer became the pizzeria's third owner, and the restaurant has truly been a family affair ever since. Upon taking over, Bauer was guided in the ways of the pizza business by family members who owned Rossi's, a southside pizzeria. A few years later, Bauer brought his father into the business, where he would stay until he passed away 30 years later. In 1962, the restaurant was doing so well that Father & Son relocated to the larger Milwaukee Avenue location I visited for this review. Today, the company is still in the Bauer family, with Marshall's son Bill in charge of day-to-day operations. Marshall’s other son, Jay, runs Nation Pizza Products, which makes frozen pizzas and related products. Marshall Bauer remains the CEO and Chairman of both companies. His third son, Jack, is not directly involved with either company, but he does keep the pizza-eating world safe by fighting terrorists.
In addition to the Logan Square location, there is a huge restaurant and banquet hall on the border of Old Town and Lincoln Park as well as a new place (2 years old) in the northern suburb of Northbrook. Twelve years ago, Father & Son added a catering division it dubbed Marcello's, a name the company applied to its pizzerias two years ago. While the name has changed, the pizza is still very good and understandably popular. And between the catering business and three spread out pizzerias, Marcerllo's serves the entire Chicago area. They were the first or one of the first pizzerias in Chicago to offer delivery and today, they make between 8,000 and 10,000 deliveries per week.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, May 14, 2009 at 2:15 PM
Paula & Monica's
1518 W Chicago Avenue, Chicago IL 60622 (Armour Street/Greenview Avenue); 312-929-3615; paulaandmonicas.com
The Skinny: Worthy newcomer with an unusual "Combo" hybrid pie that combines Italian beef and pizza
Price: 10-inch Combo, $10; 14-inch Combo, $17
As happens every spring in the midst of the NBA, NHL, NCAA sports championship hoopla, mayors in every major city hunker down and waste public tax dollars trying to feed the PR machine with cheeky side bet offerings of their particular cities culinary offerings. Just before the Blackhawks–Canucks game, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley promised Vancouver's mayor Red Hot Chicago hot dogs, Red Hots candies, and Goose Island Brewery's new Red Felt beer if the the Blackhawks lost. They didn't, and I don't know what we get in turn from Vancouver, but with all the TV shows filmed there and the proximity to the water, probably some old X-Files props and a bag of fish.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, May 6, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Serious Eats contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Monticchio
4882 N. Clark Street, Chicago IL 60640 (map); 773-275-7080; monticchiopizza.com/
Getting There: Red Line to Lawrence, walk half mile west and 2 blocks north; or #22 Clark Street bus to Ainslie
Pizza Style: Neapolitan-style and thin crust
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Comes up short on what they call Neapolitan pizza, but the thin crust is worth a visit
Price: 11-inch Neapolitan pies, $9.75 to $14.50; 14-inch thin crust (2 toppings), $16.25
Like most major American cities, Chicago has seen an incredible amount of urban renewal over the past few decades. Nowhere has that been more evident than in north side neighborhoods along the lake stretching almost all the way from Old Town to Andersonville. For reasons that would take a team of political scientists, economists, historians, and sociologists to adequately explain, the periodic economic booms of the last 30 years have somehow consistently skipped much of Uptown, the large community between Lakeview and Andersonville. The most recent boom finally saw some economic growth in Uptown, but the forces that have kept the neighborhood struggling could not be defeated entirely.
Perhaps no one block better defines the slow transition of Uptown than Clark Street between Lawrence and Ainslie. At the southern end sits Rainbo Village, a beautiful new development that was built and financed by overly optimistic folks who thought hundreds of people would pay a premium for a view of St. Boniface Catholic Cemetery. The development is failing. Further to the north sits a remnant of Uptown’s past, Lincoln Towing Services, among the most hated of Chicago corporations. Immortalized in song by the brilliant Steve Goodman, LTS seems to have progressed beyond the days when it would routinely tow legally parked cars, but a mere mention of its name can send countless longtime Chicagoans into a rage. And next to LTS sits what may well be a part of Uptown's future: Monticchio (pronounced Mone-tee-kee-oh), a six-month-old pizzeria that serves both Neapolitan-style pizza and a more traditional Chicago-style thin crust. The good news is that Monticchio serves up one OK and one very good style of pizza. The bad news is that neither the Neapolitan pies nor the Chicago thin crust fit most definitions of their respective styles.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, April 29, 2009 at 11:15 AM
Serious Eats contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Pizza By Alex
5040-44 W. Montrose Avenue, Chicago IL 60641 (map); 773-427-8900; pizzabyalex.com
Getting There: Blue Line to Montrose, walk half mile west; or take #56 Milwaukee Ave. bus to Montrose
Pizza Style: Chicago thin crust
Oven Type: Wood-burning oven
The Skinny: Decent pizzas worth trying for innovative Mexican toppings
Price: 14-inch specialties, $13.95
Note(s): It's BYOB; liquor store around corner on Milwaukee Avenue
Inspired by a recent mini-run of nontraditional pizzas that has included macaroni and cheese pizza and bulgogi beef pizza, I headed to Portage Park to continue the trend. The neighborhood has long been home to Chicago's largest Polish community, which is saying something, given the city's huge Polish population, but inexplicably does not, to my knowledge, have a pizzeria with distinctly Polish pies (anyone besides me up for sauerkraut and Polish sausage pizza?). Recently, there has been a rapid increase in the neighborhood's Latino population and businesses, including Pizza By Alex, which has been serving up Mexican-influenced pies since 2004.
Alex Pinega learned the pizza business at Caponie's, where he rose from dishwasher to general manager. After developing his pizza-making expertise, he went out on his own and founded Pizza By Alex. Caponie's is home to one of the oldest still-active wood-burning pizza ovens in Chicago (which, at less than 20 years, isn't saying much), and Pinega opted to continue the tradition at his pizzeria, where he did well enough that, less than two years after opening as a take-out-only operation, he expanded into the storefront next door and added a sit-down restaurant.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, April 22, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Serious Eats contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Cheogajip
8273 W Golf Road, Niles IL 60714 (map); 847-583-1582; cheogajip.co.kr
Getting There: Drive
Pizza Style: Apparently, this is Korean pizza
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: The nicest thing I can say about the pizza is that people should go to Cheogajip for the chicken
Price: 12-inch pizzas, $10.99 to $12.99; fried chicken, $10.99 to $15.99
I had so much fun with the toppings I had last week at Ian’s Pizza (reviewed here for Slice) that I decided to press my luck again this week with a trip out to Niles, a northwestern suburb of Chicago with a significant Korean population. The purpose was to go to Cheogajip (pronounced chuh - ga - jeep), the Chicagoland outpost of the Korean megachain (over 1,200 strong). I think this was Cheogajip's fourth location on these shores. The first two U.S. locations opened in the Virginia suburbs of D.C. (Annandale in October 2005 and Centreville in March 2006). A third location has been in Flushing, Queens, since April 2006, and the Niles outpost opened in the summer of 2007. There are other locations in the U.S. that operate under the name Pizza and Chicken Love Letter, but I'm unclear as to the relationship between those places and Cheogajip, but I do know that the name is not the English translation of Cheogajip, which actually means something along the lines of "wife's family's house."
I’m not sure about the other U.S. locations, but the Niles restaurant is an independently owned franchise, and our server said the menu was identical to the locations in Korea. Presumably also part of the Korean Cheogajip experience is the panchan, which here consists of a plate of coleslaw and a bowl of pickled daikon radish. The coleslaw is shredded cabbage topped with a staggering amount of Thousand Island dressing and some corn kernels. People who, like me, can enjoy an occasional overdose of Thousand Island, will be just fine with slaw, but others may want to pass. I was more appreciative of the pickled radish, although it was on the sweet side. The menu is almost exclusively in Korean—the names of the 11 dishes (six chicken and five pizza) are in English, but the descriptions are in Korean. What the menus failed to mention is that the chicken is excellent, but the pizza is not very good.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, April 15, 2009 at 9:58 AM
"Drunk customers would be far more likely to think that pizza toppings like mac and cheese are a good idea."
Serious Eats contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Ian’s Pizza
3463 N. Clark Street, Chicago IL 60657 (map); 773-525-4580
Getting There: Red line to Addison, walk one block west and one block south; or Brown or Purple line to Belmont, walk 3 blocks north, including soft left onto Clark from Sheffield; or #22 Clark Street bus
Pizza Style: Defies categorization, but structurally most similar to standard New York slices
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Much more than a gimmick, Ian’s puts out surprisingly good pizzas with odd combinations of ingredients that may have been designed for drunken customers, but are happily eaten by the sober
Price: Most slices are $3.75; whole pies range from $9 for a 12” plain or pepperoni to $28 for a 20” 5-topping specialty pizza
Website: ianspizza.com
Here is the history of Ian’s Pizza, as entirely made up by me: A couple of guys were hanging out in Madison, Wisconsin in 2001, treating their glaucoma with medicine procured from a community pharmacist. Being pacifists, they were lamenting the tension that existed between first-year students of different socioeconomic classes. On one side were the residents of the privately owned Statesider and The Towers, elite enclaves of wealthy children from the East Coast and Chicago's North Shore. On the other side were the residents of the original Ogg Hall, the public dorm that was home to huddled masses of first-year students who correctly suspected that communist countries offered students better housing than did the University of Wisconsin.
That night, these two upstanding citizens decided that there was no better way to bring Madisonians together than through pizza, so they decided to open a place that was equidistant from the two rival camps (and a very short walk/stumble from each). As the night progressed and they continued treating their glaucoma, they decided that they would not put out just any pizza, but they would top their pies with an unprecedented variety of ingredients and they would target customers in their most intoxicated states. The logic behind the business plan was twofold. First, drunk students were much more prone to violence so that was the ideal time to focus on distracting them. Second, drunk customers would be far more likely to think that pizza toppings like mac and cheese are a good idea.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, April 9, 2009 at 10:30 AM
"Stefano's uses the secret trick of Chicago stuffed pizza by using quantity as a means of getting to quality."
Serious Eats contributor Daniel Zemans checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Stefano's Stuffed Pizza
2124 W. Lawrence, Chicago, IL 60625 (map); 773-271-9696; www.stefanosstuffedpizza.com
Getting There: Brown Line to Damen, walk one block north and about two blocks west
Pizza Style: Stuffed
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: This former Giordano's franchise has not lost a step since going out on its own
Price: Medium stuffed pizza with two toppings is $19.45
Over the past few months, I've reviewed a particularly wide variety of styles of pizza. As much as I have enjoyed the exploration, something was missing. And the more I thought about it, the more a craving began to consume me. I wanted—no—I needed a stuffed pizza. It had been almost four months since I had eaten the pizza I grew up with, and I missed it.
And so it was that I ended up at Stefano's, the self-proclaimed "Home of the Stuffed Pizza," which is in Lincoln Square on Chicago's far north side. Stefano's has been around for 22 years, although for the first 18 it was a Giordano's franchise. Four years ago, there was a falling out and the owner of Stefano's went out on his own.
This is the third pizzeria I have reviewed that was created after the owner broke up with Giordano's (reviewed here for Slice), although this split happened with a different owner of Giordano's. As was the case with Edwardo's (reviewed here for Slice), and
Bacino's (reviewed here for Slice), the owner of Stefano's used an Italianized version of his own name in naming his pizzeria, although rather than changing the spelling, Stefanos Vaiopoulos merely needed to add an apostrophe to make it work. As for the pizza, Vaiopoulos did not need to change a thing to put out his version of this classic Chicago style because it was already delicious.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, March 18, 2009 at 4:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. —The Mgmt.
Antica Pizzeria
5663 N. Clark Street, Chicago IL 60660 (map); 773-944-1492
Getting There: #22 Clark Street bus to Hollywood
Pizza Style: Neapolitan
Oven Type: Wood
The Skinny: Very good Neapolitan pies. High-quality ingredients. Good chew in the crust but not a lot of crisp
Price: Pizzas are about 12” and range from $11-$18
There is no denying the rapid increase in high-quality thin-crust pizzerias in Chicago. While some seem to think that this is indicative of a decrease in the popularity of stuffed or deep-dish pies, the lack of any decline of such pizzerias suggests that is not the case. Instead, Chicago is simply expanding its pizza universe, and in my world, that's a very good thing.
A couple of months ago, I wrote a little about Andersonville in my review of Great Lake. This week, the neighborhood drew me back to try yet another new high-end place. Chef-partner Mario Rapisarda, a native Sicilian, is a Spiaggia veteran who opened Antica Pizzeria last October. He is committed to putting out fresh, high-quality, authentic Neapolitan pies, and I was pleased to discover that, for the most part, he succeeds.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, March 11, 2009 at 3:30 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Pizzeria Via Stato
620 N. State Street, Chicago IL 60610 (map); 312-337-6634; osteriaviastato.com/pizzeria
Getting There: Red Line to Grand Avenue, walk 1 block north
Pizza Style: Roman thin crust
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Crisp, thin crusts and high-quality fresh ingredients make for some very good pies. The Margherita, with even better mozzarella and sauce, is outstanding
Price: All pizzas are 11 inches and range from $10 to $15
When Rich Melman opened R. J. Grunts in 1971 in the not-yet-trendy Lincoln Park neighborhood, I can’t imagine that he or his business partner and financial backer, Jerry Orzoff, had any idea they were building the first in what would develop into a culinary empire. Sadly, Orzoff died at a young age, but not before seeing the company begin to expand beyond the burgers and milkshakes that made Grunts famous. And today Lettuce Entertain You (LEYE) owns, licenses, or manages more than 75 restaurants in seven states, ranging from the casual Grunts to the upscale L20 (check out the blog), and a whole lot in between.
Among that “in between” have been a number of pizzerias over the years. In 1976, LEYE opened the fabulously named Lawrence of Oregano, a Lakeview pizzeria that I think reintroduced Chicago to Neapolitan-style pizza (though the restaurant predates my pizza-eating years so I can’t be sure). The company ran the first franchise of Gino’s East (reviewed here on Slice) and later opened Tucci Bennuch, an Italian restaurant that offered thin-crust pizzas. Recently LEYE shut down the Tucci Bennuch location in Chicago and replaced it with Frankie's 5th Floor Pizzeria, which features Sardinian and Tavern pizzas. And finally, there is Pizzeria Via Stato, the focus of this review.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, March 3, 2009 at 6:10 PM
"Once the bowl is cut open, the toppings, sauce, and cheese pour out onto the plate. It’s not pretty but it tastes good."
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
On February 14, 1929, Al Capone's gang left its South Side base on a trip to the North Side for a rendezvous with Bugs Moran's gang. Moran had ordered two unsuccessful assassination attempts on Capone and had taken to repeatedly insulting Capone in the press, and Capone decided it was time to teach Moran a lesson. So a group of Capone's men headed to the S.M.C. Cartage Company, which was a known front for a bootlegging operation. Two of the South Siders were dressed as police officers, and they ordered seven of Moran's men to line up against a wall. At that point, a couple more of Capone's men came in and all of them opened fire with machine guns and shotguns. Capone was in Florida at the time and was never arrested for his involvement. Indeed, Capone remained free until Kevin Costner came along and put him away for tax evasion.
The gruesome murders are now known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and took place at 2122 North Clark Street. Across the street, at 2121 North Clark, on a site where a couple of Capone's men allegedly sat as lookouts 80 years ago, sits the Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Company, which has been serving up pizza pot pies since 1973. Yes, you read that right: pizza pot pies.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, February 19, 2009 at 11:50 AM
The Chicago Tribune carried a story yesterday about the quest to officially document who invented deep-dish pizza. Like many a culinary origin story, this one remains shrouded in mystery.
The only paper trail indicates the pizza almost certainly came out of a 19th Century mansion built with lumber money at 29 E. Ohio St.—the restaurant now known as Pizzeria Uno. But the question of who exactly developed the concept remains a mystery despite the best efforts of the City of Chicago's official cultural historian.
But after proving that deep-dish came from the original Pizzeria Uno location, the question is who in that kitchen developed it: "It may have developed over time or been a collaboration," the paper says. "Samuelson and others tend to credit [Ric] Riccardo with the impetus for the idea and [Ike] Sewell with its fame."
Posted by Daniel Zemans, February 18, 2009 at 3:30 PM
"The crust is the thinnest, crackeriest (now officially a word) crust I have ever encountered."
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Candlelite
7452 N. Western Avenue, Chicago IL 60645 (map); 773-465-0087; candlelitechicago.com
Pizza Style: Very crisp, very thin
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Fantastic pizza for a neighborhood bar but only mediocre as a pizzeria; garlic fries are exceptional
Price: Specialty pizzas are $9, $14, $17; all pizzas are 2-for-1 on Tuesdays
If they made romance movies about restaurants, Candlelite's story would make a great script: In a working class neighborhood on the far north side of Chicago, a local bar served up classic cracker-thin-crust pizza for seven decades. In the mid 2000s, the owners decided to close up shop and some regular customers refused to let their local watering hole and pizzeria die. A group of them banded together and saved their beloved pizzeria, and they all lived happily ever after.
Well, as long as you define happily ever after as a nice bar, pretty good pizza, and exceptional garlic fries.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, January 28, 2009 at 4:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Great Lake
1477 W. Balmoral Avenue, Chicago IL 60640 (map); 773-334-9270
Getting There: #22 Clark Street bus to Balmoral, walk a quarter block east, or take the Red Line to Berwyn, walk one block north and half a mile west
Pizza Style: Biancoesque
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Extraordinary in every way
Price:All pizzas are 14" and range from $19 to $23
Since Great Lake opened last February in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood on the far north side, the small storefront pizzeria has gotten enough good press that it has been routinely packed. I was intrigued, but I had enough places that I knew to be good that I wanted to cover for Slice, so I had not made it a priority. Last weekend, I made it to Great Lake and was happy to find one of the best pizzerias in Chicago.
Nick Lessins and Lydia Esparza, the husband and wife team that owns Great Lake, are college sweethearts who are both Detroit natives (though she properly noted that, while she spent all of her youth in Detroit, Lessins spent much of his childhood in the suburbs). After graduating, they moved to Chicago and then, in the mid '90s, headed to Phoenix, where they came upon a small pizzeria in a strip mall operated by a New York transplant named Chris Bianco. Lessins and Esparza both grew up in families that did their food shopping at local markets, so it was no surprise that the pizza and ethos of Bianco lured them in as loyal customers. After a few years in Phoenix, Esparza and Lessins headed back to Chicago and continued working far away from the restaurant industry. Indeed, prior to opening Great Lake, their combined professional culinary experience consisted of a couple of stints by Lessins at fast food restaurants while in high school.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, January 21, 2009 at 6:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
I have never been one to mind the cold, but when I went to Pizano’s last Thursday, it was in the middle of an approximately 36-hour period where the temperature did not go above zero. And that’s not counting the wind chill, which was somewhere around 25 below. The cold made it impossible for me to keep my camera from shaking while I took a picture of the outside of the restaurant, but it did nothing to diminish my enjoyment of one of the best pizzas in the country.
Pizano's Pizza and Pasta was founded in 1991 by Rudy Malnati Jr., son of the man who was instrumental in the early success of Uno's (reviewed here for Slice). Pizano’s goes so far as to claim that Rudy Malnati Sr. invented deep dish pizza, citing a 1956 Chicago Daily News article but the article actually claims Malnati established Uno’s, which is definitely inaccurate (that honor goes to Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo). Regardless of who invented deep dish pizza, there is no question that Rudy Malnati Sr. played a huge role in its success, not only through his work at Uno’s and Due, but by teaching his two sons the craft that would enable them to start two of the best pizzerias on the planet, Lou Malnati's (reviewed here for Slice) and Pizano’s.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, January 14, 2009 at 3:30 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Apart Pizza Company
2205 W. Montrose, Chicago IL 60618 (map); 773.588.1550
Getting There: Brown Line to Montrose Avenue, walk 3 blocks west; or take #11 Lincoln Avenue bus to the corner of Lincoln and Montrose
Pizza Style: Neapolitanish, but not really
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: A thin crust pie that defies all categories other than delicious.
Price: $6 to $6.50 for a 10-inch pizza
Until last night, every time I had eaten near the corner of Montrose and Lincoln in Lincoln Square on the north side of Chicago, I had gone to Taqueria El Asadero (reviewed here on Serious Eats). For those unaware, as good and varied as the pizza offerings are in Chicago, the Mexican food may be even better. And El Asadero, home of arguably the best carne asada in the city, is all but impossible to pass up with an empty stomach. But on this snowy evening, I headed to Apart Pizza Company determined resist the siren call of fresh carne asada two doors away. I was glad I did.
The first thing I noticed about Apart was that virtually no thought seemed to go into the design of the place. The result is not a charming little hole-in-the-wall, but rather a pizza kitchen with a couple of tables. Apart is overwhelmingly a carry-out and delivery pizzeria. There is one counter at the window looking out at Welles Park and three or four small tables. The pizzas are served on cardboard disks and we were not offered plates. And all of this irrelevant to the quality of the pizza, which were very good.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, January 8, 2009 at 2:15 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Along the northern border of Chicago, Jerry Freeman and Burt Katz opened Gulliver's Pizzeria in 1965. Not long after opening, the two split and Katz went on to start a few other pizzerias, including Pequod's (reviewed here on Slice) and Burt's Place (reviewed here). Freeman gave up his day job as an insurance adjuster and devoted himself Gulliver's, where he would remain for more than 40 years until his death in 2006.
Over time, Gulliver's changed a bit. Freeman developed an interest in antiques, particularly lighting fixtures and sconces. Over time, he became a man obsessed, scouring not only antiques stores and shows but going around to old buildings slated for demolition and buying up things to take back to his store. Eventually, he amassed what the restaurant claims is the world's largest collection of its kind in the United States, that "kind" defined as American and European antiques from the Victorian and Art Nouveau eras (1860 to 1915). And today, every wall, nook, and most of the ceiling are covered in Freeman's collection.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, December 23, 2008 at 10:00 AM
"The lahmim beajin is not a study in confusion, rather an inspired flatbread that borrows the best of all cultures."
If you’re hungry and you can’t choose between a hankering for a kabob, some French patisserie, or a pizza pie, you no longer have to. In Chicago, all you have to do is head over to Sahara Kabob, aka Big Buns and Pita (heh), for some lahmim beajin.
Lahmim features finely ground, charcoal-roasted beef blanketed in a rusty rich tomato sauce studded with tomato, onion, parsley and aromatic sweet and hot spices like cumin and allspice nestled inside a buttery pastry crust sprinkled with a little lemon.
Unlike most fusion pizzas, aka Taco Bell Mexican pizza, The lahmim beajin is not a study in confusion, rather an inspired flatbread that borrows the best of all cultures.
Though, if you’re a purist and you want to keep it straight Middle Eastern, in this case mostly Assyrian goodies from owner Khoshaba Khamis, his wife, Hala, and his daughter Larsa, try the smoky charcoal-grilled kefta kebob laced with cilantro, caramelized onion, and cumin.
Sahara Kabob
6649 North Clark Street, Chicago IL 60626 (map)
773-262-2000
Posted by Michael Nagrant, December 22, 2008 at 2:15 PM
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Each year in December, I drive around the city, buy up platters of some of my favorite eats and invite friends over for a holiday noshing party. This year I rounded up lumpia from Isla Filipina; Chinese soy garlic chicken wings, aka "Little Hotties," from Take Me Out, Let’s Eat Chinese; the undisputed deep-fried doughnut champion of the world, aka the apple fritter, from Old Fashioned Donuts; and a sheet pizza pie split into sausage and onion and fresh ricotta, basil, and tomato topped halves from Italian Superior Bakery. All these goodies are the best of the best, but when I put the goods out this year, the slices from Italian Superior disappeared faster than a bowl of free drugs at Studio 54.
Italian Superior Bakery is an 82-year-old tradition founded in Queens, New York, and moved to Chicago’s Little Italy a few years later. That being said, while I've spent quite a bit of time writing about about their history and their breads, the real unsung bounty of the place is their Italian-bakery-style flatbread.
Unlike other stalwarts in town, Superior’s version is less bready and dense than most. The crust also has a ridiculous versatility and resiliency in that it is almost equally satisfying, hot, cold, reheated, or fresh out of the oven. The guys down at the bakery generally start their 2 a.m. bread-baking shift with a "breakfast" slice or two. The loose sausage and sweet onion toppings and the creamy salty ricotta (made fresh by a local woman), basil, and tomato are my favorite combos. Capped off by a caramelized bubbling blanket of mozzarella and lightly spiced but mostly sweet pure sauce, this is one of my top five pies in Chicago.
Italian Superior Bakery
933 S. Western Avenue, Chicago IL 60612 (map)
312-733-5092
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 21, 2008 at 1:38 PM
From the New York Times:
A good place to experience Hyde Park’s cross-cultural vibe is 57th Street. There are tweedy academics rummaging through the dusty shelves at 57th Street Books (No. 1301; 773-684-1300; semcoop.booksense.com), and dapper African-American families sharing deep-dish pizzas at Medici on 57th (No. 1327; 773-667-7394; www.medici57.com). Indeed, Malia and Sasha Obama have held pizza parties at this popular Italian restaurant; just refer to the menu, where new “Obama Eats Here” T-shirts are on sale for $18.
Posted by Daniel Zemans, December 17, 2008 at 10:10 AM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Piece Brewery & Pizzeria
1927 W North Avenue, Chicago IL 60622 (map); 773-772-4422
Getting There: Blue Line to North Avenue, walk north on Damen Ave. 1/4 block and go east on North Ave. for 1/2 block
Pizza Style: New Haven
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Chicago's only New Haven–style pizzeria has been rightfully packing in customers since opening in 2001
Price: $19.56 for a medium pizza with two toppings
In 1983, Bill Jacobs and his brother Andy, fresh out of college, saw the country was ready to embrace bagels. Andy knew from visiting friends in Chicago that my hometown had extremely limited bagel options, particularly downtown. And so it was that the Jacobs brothers moved to Chicago and opened their eponymous bagel shop. Over the next 15 years, Jacobs Bros. Bagels grew to a mini chain of about 20 stores and sold among the best bagels in town. In February 1999, the Jacobs boys cashed out and sold their name and bagel shops. Three years later, Bill Jacobs, a native of New Haven, Connecticut, opened Piece Brewery & Pizzeria.
Jacobs is admirably zealous in his belief that New Haven is home to the nation's best pizza. In 2000, a year and a half before he opened Piece, he wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune in response to that paper's story on the best pizzerias in Chicago. He went after Chicago's deep-dish, stuffed, and thin-crust pizza, saying that "praising a crust as 'buttery' and 'flaky' seems more appropriate for a croissant or a pear tart" and that he was not impressed with the "dimensionless crackerlike quality associated with many thin-crust pizzas here." He also referred to New York before saying that "no pizza I've found holds a candle to that served in New Haven." With tough words like that, Jacobs really had no choice other than to turn out top-notch pizzas. Fortunately for him and for the pizza-eating public, he does.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, December 3, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Edwardo’s Natural Pizza Restaurant
1321 East 57th Street, Chicago IL 60637 (map); 773-241-7960; 8 other locations
Getting There: Metra to 57th Street or 6 Jackson Park Express bus to 57th Street and Stony Island, walk 1/2 mile west
Pizza Style: Stuffed and thin-crust available; known for stuffed
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: One of the oldest stuffed pizzerias; still good but, other than the crust, has declined in recent years
Price: $20.72 for a medium pizza with one topping
In my review of Bacino’s, I mentioned that the owner of that establishment got his start in the pizza business after entering into a relationship with the owners of Giordano's (review here). That relationship didn’t work out, and Dan Bacin opened Bacino’s in 1978 using an Italianized version of his name. It so happens that there is a second pizzeria that has a similar history.
Edward Jacobson split from the Broglio brothers (then the owners of Giordano's) and went out on his own in 1978. There was no way to Italianize Jacobson, so he added an o to the end of his first name and opened the first Edwardo's Natural Pizza Restaurant on the far northern border of Chicago in Rogers Park. A year later, he opened his second location, this time on the south side in Hyde Park.
Edwardo's sought to carve out a niche as the healthier version of stuffed pizza. They pushed (and may well have invented) a spinach-soufflé-stuffed pizza, which was full of finely chopped fresh spinach. Hydroponic basil and oregano was grown in each restaurant and they used it on the pizza and sold it separately to people who wanted to take home some fresh herbs. Edwardo's tried out a whole-wheat crust as early as 1981. A concern with quality was also evident in the restaurant's use of San Marzano tomatoes in the sauce.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, November 19, 2008 at 2:30 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
But President-Elect Appears to Favor St. Louis Pizzeria
Italian Fiesta Pizzeria
1400 East 47th Street, Chicago IL 60653 (map); 773-684-2222 to order; 773-924-5339 to reach restaurant
Getting There: Metra to 47th Street or 6 Jackson Park Express bus to 47th Street and Lake Park
Pizza Style: Tavern-cut thin crust
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Greasy thin-crust pizza
Price: $19.70 for a large pizza with one
When reports started trickling out in July that Barack Obama's favorite pizzeria was Italian Fiesta Pizzeria, I took it a little personally. By that time, I had already given time and money to his campaign, and despite my cynical nature, I had already had so many glasses of Obama Kool-Aid that my former neighbor and state representative could do no wrong in my eyes even as he surprised me by voting for FISA and shown cowardice political pragmatism on gay marriage. But now came reports that he favored pizzas from Italian Fiesta Pizzeria, which I knew served far from top-notch pizza.
Italian Fiesta has been in the South Shore neighborhood on Chicago's south side since 1951. Even as the neighborhood changed dramatically (read: blacks moved in and whites ran away), Italian Fiesta stuck around, eventually adding locations in Hyde Park and a couple of southern and southwestern suburbs. Michele Obama grew up in South Shore and, presumably, she gets the credit for introducing it to the president-elect.
After the jump, find out whose pizza Barack Obama really craves. [He] "wouldn't shut up about my pizza," the joint's owner said.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, November 13, 2008 at 1:45 PM
The family that owns and cooks at Chicago's Italian Fiesta Pizzeria, which has a location in President-elect Barack Obama's Hyde Park neighborhood, is being flown out to D.C. to cook up a batch of its thin-crust pies. The pizzas will be featured in a preview of the food to be served at Obama's January 20 inauguration.
Italian Fiesta Pizzeria makes Mr. Obama's favorite pizza, as was mentioned in an entry on his site.
As Patti Harris-Tubbs, co-owner (along with her two sisters) of Italian Fiesta, told the Joliet Herald News, "My first response was, 'Is this a joke?'"
Harris-Tubbs speculates that the pizza won't be served at any of the fancy inauguration events but rather dished out somewhere less glamorous, such as the press tent. (So much for the media elite.)
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, November 12, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Pizza D.O.C.
2251 W. Lawrence Avenue, Chicago IL 60625 (map); 773-784-8777; mypizzadoc.com
Getting There: Brown Line to Damen (station reopening soon); walk 1 block north and two blocks west
Pizza Style: Neapolitan
Oven Type: Wood-fired
The Skinny: One of the first places in Chicago to offer Neapolitan pizza. Undercooked crusts is all that is preventing a return to former glory
Price: $12.50 - $14.95 per pizza. Visa/MC/AmEx, cash
Founded in 1999, Pizza D.O.C. is the granddaddy of the Neapolitan pizza scene in Chicago. Offering 20 different pizzas in addition to periodic specialty pies, all of which are cooked in a wood-burning oven that was imported from Tuscany.
Cesar D’Ortenzi was already a well-established Italian restaurateur in Chicago, thanks to La Bocca della Verita, when he opened Pizza D.O.C. The D.O.C. in the name comes from "Denominazione di Origine Controllata," the designation given to some Italian wines, guaranteeing their authenticity. As far as I know, it has nothing to do with pizza.
When Pizza D.O.C. opened, it was an immediate hit and remained popular for years. It was the place where I first had Neapolitan-style pizza. I hadn’t been there in a couple of years before my most recent visit, and I was disappointed. The pizza is still good—but not as good as I remember. And from talking to other people, I know that I’m not the only one with that impression.
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While you still can, before the Obamas move to D.C., the Chicago Tribune lists places you might bump into the president-elect and family: "Medici on 57th Street in Chicago: Pick up your "Obama Eats Here" T-shirt and order a pizza." 1327 East 57th Street, Chicago IL 60637; 773-667-7394 (map)
Posted by Daniel Zemans, November 5, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
I Monelli Trattoria Pizzeria
5019 N. Western Avenue, Chicago IL 60625 (map); 773-561-8499; imonelli.info
Getting There: Brown Line to Western; walk 3 blocks south
Pizza Style: Roman; 5-, 9- and 18-inch pies
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Roman pizza featuring a light, crisp crust made with a lot of olive oil. Good assortment of fresh toppings
Price: Very reasonable. Not including tax and tip, there's no reason to spend more than $6 a person. Visa/MC/AmEx, cash
What do you get when you combine the pizza-making skills of three guys from Rome, Sardinia and Florence? Some outstanding Roman pizza in Chicago. I Monelli Trattoria Pizzeria opened in April as the joint venture of two people who had previously been affiliated with Pizza D.O.C., a Neapolitan pizzeria, and one of the owners of Pizza Metro, a Roman pizzeria. Together they have created a welcome addition to the Chicago pizza scene.
I Monelli is a cozy little BYOB spot in Lincoln Square. Although it’s largely a neighborhood restaurant, ample evening parking and a nearly El (Western stop on the Brown Line) means that Chicagoans who do not live in the neighborhood have no excuse for not checking this place out. The dim lighting inside makes for a fairly romantic setting (and explains the odd coloring in my picture below). I think my friend and I were the only two people there not on a date, but we were there for the pizza, not the company.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, October 29, 2008 at 3:25 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Delisi's has been a fixture in Lincoln Square/Ravenswood for decades. It sits on the industrial west side of Western Avenue, across the street from Rosehill Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Chicago and final resting place of 11 Chicago mayors, a vice president of the U.S., and Oscar Mayer. Likely by virtue of its location (a place with little foot traffic in a neighborhood largely devoid of major landmarks or institutions that would bring in people to visit), Delisi's has not yet made its mark on the pizza consciousness of Chicago despite having some very serious devotees.
About nine years ago, the Delisi family sold the place, and it has gone through a number of ownership changes since then, the most recent occurring just eight weeks ago. When I went this week, one of the new owners explained that the pizza is largely unchanged from the original, but he added an important caveat. It seems the last owner made a few cost-saving changes to the ingredients, but those changes have been undone. This was a nice way of saying that the last owner sucked and if your only experience at Delisi's came in the last year and a half, you should give it another try.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, October 22, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Gino’s East
160 East Superior Street, Chicago IL 60611 (map); 312-266-DEEP (3337); ginoseast.com
Pizza Style: Deep dish
In 1966, Chicago cab drivers Sam Levine and Fred Bartoli, who had already built up a few taxi companies, made a smart real estate investment with their friend George Loverde when they bought a property just east of the Magnificent Mile. Rather than just sit on their investment, they opened Gino’s East, which evolved into one of the best pizzerias in Chicago.
Loverde was born in Sicily, and Bartoli was a first-generation Italian-American, but they had nothing to do with creating the recipe that made Gino’s famous. Instead, the owners of the new pizzeria hired Alice Mae Redmond, a black woman who had developed the dough recipe at Pizzeria Uno (reviewed for Slice here) and who had been at that company for 17 years. She would spend the next 23 years making the pizzas that made Gino’s East famous.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, October 15, 2008 at 4:15 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
A strip mall is generally not a place to go to find high-quality pizza. But there are exceptions to most rules, and one exists to that one at the Ashland Wellington Plaza. There, nestled between a Supercuts and an H & R Block, sits La Gondola Italian Restaurant, a 25-year-old restaurant that features a full Italian menu and some very good pizza that would make even the most biased New Yorker happy.
As soon as I entered La Gondola, I quickly forgot about the strip mall surroundings. The small restaurant has just six or eight tables close together. It is so dark that small flashlights are passed out so people can read the menu. The size, lack of light and décor gives La Gondola the feel of an out-of-the-way hole-in-the-wall.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, October 1, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Pizza Capri
962 West Belmont Avenue, Chicago IL 60657 (map); 773-296-6000; pizzacapri.com
Pizza Type: Thin-crust (but not Chicago thin-crust) and stuffed
Pizza Capri has been serving up thin and stuffed pies in Chicago since 1987. I must confess going in that I probably have overestimated Pizza Capri's import to the Chicago pizza scene due to the fact that I have lived, at different times, within a mile of two of the three locations. I was actually surprised when I discovered that there are only three locations.
Pizza Capri is owned by Anan and Margi Abu-Taleb, one or both whom went to business school at the University of Chicago (which I'd guess is fairly rare among pizzeria owners). The couple has owned a number of restaurants in the Chicago area, including a Latin American spot called Maya Del Sol. When opening that restaurant, they hired Rick Bayless' former sous chef at Frontera Grill to run the kitchen. Unfortunately, it does not seem that they paid as much attention to quality when deciding who would be responsible for the pizzas at Pizza Capri.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, September 24, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Just off of Lincoln Park on the near north side of Chicago, deep underground (well, 10 feet anyhow), sits Bricks, one of the more unique pizzeria locations I have encountered. The awning for Bricks proclaims it to be home of the best pizza on earth. I think that’s an overstatement, but it is one of my favorite places to go for thin-crust pizza, both for the ambiance and the pies.
To get into Bricks, you have to walk downstairs below street level, where most of the light comes from a neon sign announcing the restaurant’s name. That is also how one would get to a night club called Katacomb, a name that also accurately describes the feel of Bricks. While I doubt people were ever buried there (as they wereand still are in nearby Lincoln Park), the dimly lit, brick-walled cavern certainly feels like something scandalous may have occurred there at some point. The internal wall that separates the bar area from the main dining room adds to the dungeounesque feel of the place.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, September 17, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
It is always surprising when, in this information age of ours, a brilliant idea is not immediately replicated all over the country, if not the world. And when said brilliant idea has actually been around for decades and remains unique, I am at a complete loss. And so I write in complete and utter shock as I report on Marie’s Pizza and Liquors on the northwest side of Chicago.
See, as the name suggests, Marie’s is both a pizzeria and a liquor store. And while the restaurant has a full bar, patrons are allowed to head over to the liquor store and pick out a bottle of wine. The store sends the bottle to the bartender, who opens it (for a $2.50 corkage fee) and then pours glasses for your server to bring to your table. If someone can explain why this system has not become a model for pizzerias everywhere, I would appreciate it.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, September 10, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Pat's Pizza
2204 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago IL 60614 map); 773-248-0168; patspizza.info
Pizza Style: Bar pizza, with an impossibly thin, flaky crust somewhere between cracker and phyllo in consistency
Pat's Pizza has been in Lakeview on Chicago's north side for nearly 60 years, most of which was spent across the street from the Brew & View, which, with double features for $5 and a full bar, could well be the best movie theater in the history of mankind. Pat's was opened in 1950 by Nick Pianetto Sr., who was looking to supplement his truck-driving income. Before long, the truck driving income was no longer necessary.
After staying at the original location (which also served as the Pianetto's house) for about 55 years, Pat's apparently got an offer it couldn't refuse from a condo development a couple years ago and moved about half a mile southwest. The location is new, nicer, and no longer BYOB, but the pizza is still the same, and that's a very good thing. And it's still in the same family, now run by Nick Pianetto Jr.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, September 4, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Bacino's has been selling stuffed pizzas since 1978, making it one of the oldest purveyors of the Chicago delicacy. The founder, Dan Bacin, had a background in business, not cooking. No marketing dummy, Bacin used a variation of an old Chicago political trick in naming his restaurant. There is no truth to the rumor that Barack Obama's last name used to be Bama before he ran for office in Chicago, but many political candidates have changed their names to appeal to the significantly Irish electorate. While it would make no sense to name a pizzeria O'Bacin's, adding an o to the end of his name gave Bacin's pizzeria some faux Italian authenticity.
I don't know the full story behind the founding of Bacino's, but it involves Giordano's (reviewed for Slice here), Chicago's most popular stuffed pizza chain. Not long after Giordano's was formed in the mid '70s, the company was looking to grow. Dan Bacin got involved with them but ended up going out on his own and starting Bacino's. I'm unclear as to the time frame and whether Bacin ever actually opened a Giordano's, but a search of the relevant page on the State of Illinois website shows that on September 11, 1980, The Bacin Group was registered as Giordano's of Lincoln Park, Inc.
For this review, I went to the Bacino's location in the heart of Lincoln Park. There are three other locations, two downtown and one in the suburb of LaGrange. The building itself, both on the outside and the inside, is pretty nondescript. There is a bar on a different side of the restaurant that has a little more to look at. There is also a downstairs dining area that I've never seen used.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 29, 2008 at 8:00 AM
Oh, snap. Michael Gebert, Chicago food writer and cofounder of LTHForum.com, is bitin' back at our man Ed Levine on his blog, Sky Full of Bacon:
Ed Levine is a smart guy who loves New York pizza and food generally, and has a blog called Serious Eats which (MenuPages informs us) now intends to provide a guide to essential eating experiences in major cities. (You can see New York’s here.)
The problem is, Ed Levine hates Chicago pizza. No, perhaps it would be fairer to say Ed Levine has a blind spot for Chicago pizza. As in, Ed Levine, looking at a map of the United States, would not see anything between Brooklyn and Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, basically.
This was in response to our inaugural Serious Eats City Guide, which tackled New York.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, August 27, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Burt's Place
8541 North Ferris Avenue, Morton Grove IL 60053 (map); 847-965-7997
Pizza Style: Deep-dish
The Skinny: Run by the iconic Burt Katz, a legend in Chicago pizzadom, Burt's Place features a deep-dish pie with a caramelized crust similar to Pequod's (no surprise, as Katz founded that pizzeria as well). There's a little too much caramelization going on and less cheese than is normal in most deep-dish pies, but Burt's is still worth checking out.
Burt Katz, creator of the caramelized crust, is probably the best known pizza chef in Chicago. In his career, he has owned four different pizzerias here. Inferno was already established in Evanston when Katz bought into it in 1963. Two years later, Katz sold Inferno (which no longer exists), and opened Gulliver's in Rogers Park on the city's far north side. In 1971, he was done with Gulliver's (which is still open) and opened Pequod's (reviewed here on Slice), which he kept for 15 years before burning out and selling it. In 1989, he had the pizza itch again and opened Burt's Place in Morton Grove, where he and his wife, Sharon, have been making and serving pizzas (usually with no help) for nearly 20 years.
Unlike most legendary pizza chefs, Katz did not travel throughout Italy, work his way up under a master pizza-maker, grow up in a family pizza business, or even go to culinary school. All he did was develop a very good crust; use high-quality, fresh ingredients; and proceed to turn out pizza after outstanding pizza for the next 45 years and counting. How iconic has Katz become? When Saveur magazine devoted an issue to Chicago, it put a slice of Burt's pie on the cover. The folks at LTH Forum, which in my opinion is the best website out there related to food in Chicago, have anointed Burt's Place as one of their Great Neighborhood Restaurants.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, August 20, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Jonathan Fox was the CFO at Maggiano's Little Italy when decided to go back into the kitchen. Trained at the Culinary Institute of America, he had previously spent time working in a variety of cuisines, including French, Greek, and New American. He did not have a professional background in pizza before opening La Madia last October, but you wouldn't know that after trying his pizzas.
Fox did extensive research and travel, particularly in Italy, before opening La Madia, but he was surprisingly slow in answering when I asked what his favorite pizzerias were. He eventually settled on Da Michele in Naples, Italy; Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix; and 2 Amys in D.C. When I asked whether he liked deep-dish, he dismissed the notion in a way that would make many readers of this site proud. While I question his taste, I cannot doubt his abilities: Fox has built a nice pizzeria that offers one of the better thin crust pies in Chicago.
As La Madia is located on a busy commercial street in the northern part of downtown Chicago (about a block and a half southeast of the Rock N Roll McDonald's ), I was surprised to discover there was outdoor seating and large open windows at the front of the restaurant. I'm not a stickler for ambience, but the sounds and smells of three lanes of traffic might get in the way of pizza enjoyment. Once inside, I was happy to discover that the design of the space is such that the traffic did not affect the space at all (I still have doubts about the outside seats).
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, August 13, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Caffe Florian
1450 East 57th Street, Chicago IL 60637 (Hyde Park; map); 773-752-4100
Each year, nearly two million people visit the Museum of Science and Industry. And though I don’t have the numbers to back it up, I think it’s safe to say a significant number of those visitors decide to enjoy a Chicago-style pizza during their stay in my hometown. But I would guess that virtually none of the out-of-town visitors to the museum know that there is an outstanding pizzeria just a few blocks directly west of the museum.
I grew up in Hyde Park, and Caffe Florian opened before I left for good, but I had not set foot in the place until recently. That was a mistake. I really do have a good excuse: Caffe Florian opened in a space that had previously been occupied by Medici on 57th and I was not a fan of their pizza. I assumed the location was tainted with bad pizza juju, so I never tried Florian. Turns out, that was an error in judgment and I am now committed to making up for lost time (and pizza).
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 12, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Spacca Napoli
1769 West Sunnyside, Chicago IL 60640 (map); 773-878-2420;
spaccanapolipizzeria.com
Pizza Style: Neapolitan, as verified by the VPN
Oven Fuel Source: Wood, of course
I wanted to love Spacca Napoli. I really did. Having taken massive amounts of grief for allegedly dissing deep dish Chicago pizza by characterizing it as "at best, a good casserole" in my book Pizza: Slice of Heaven, I was hoping to swoon over Jon Goldsmith's VPN-certified pizzeria in the Windy City and put Spacca Napoli in my pizza pantheon. The friend I met there, Andrew Huff, founder of Gaper's Block, compared Spacca Napoli to Pizzeria Bianco. High praise, indeed, coming from a fellow as smart as Andrew.
I met Andrew there at 2:30 p.m. The day before, serious eater Michael Nagrant had taken me on a phenomenal tour of Chicago (more about that in a future post) that featured the cemita and the huarache of my dreams and the best Sicilian sweets I have ever tasted, so I thought I could continue my Chicago eats hot streak at Spacca Napoli.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, July 30, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Pequod's Pizza
2207 North Clybourn Avenue, Chicago IL 60614 (map); 773-327-1512. Additional location: 8520 Fernald Avenue, Morton Grove IL 60053 (map); 847-470-9161 pequodspizza.com
Pizza Style: Deep dish and stuffed crust
The Skinny: One of the better deep dish pizzas in Chicago. The thickness of the crust may upset the balance between the crust and toppings, but that the crust is caramelized by a thin layer of cheese results in a great, unique chewy texture. The sweet, chunky sauce goes perfectly with the sausage.
Pequod's was founded by Chicago pizza legend Burt Katz a little over 30 years ago. He sold the place in 1986, but Pequod’s has remained one of the most beloved deep dish spots in Chicago. There are two locations: the original in the Northwest suburb of Morton Grove, and another in the Lincoln Park neighborhood (where I went for this review).
Before heading to the restaurant, I took advantage of a trick that many deep dish and stuffed pizzerias allow—I preordered, which is like calling ahead for takeout, except when you get to the restaurant, you sit down and eat. Since these pies take 40 minutes to cook, it makes sense to call ahead so you don't have to wait long before starting your meal. I phoned in an order of half sausage, half pepperoni pizza before eagerly making my way over to Pequod’s.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, July 23, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza, along with his friends, on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Very few places in Chicago sell deep-dish pizza by the slice. On a recent trip to Art of Pizza, I learned why. Until this visit to Art of Pizza, I had never eaten in the restaurant. I had only ordered whole pies and had them delivered or I had picked them up. I had never gone there for slices; and after this experience, I never will again.
The restaurant is located in what was once a small strip mall but has since become Art of Pizza Plaza—the restaurant has expanded over the years to take over the entire development.
Art of Pizza
3033 N Ashland, Chicago IL 60657 (map); 773-327-5600
Pizza Style: Deep dish and stuffed crust
The Skinny: It's not much to look at, but the Art of Pizza lands atop many Chicagoans' best deep-dish list. And they do have a great pizza there—just don't order it by the slice. The herbed crust sets AoP apart from the other players in town, and the crust on the stuffed pizzas are noticeably less flaky than at other joints
The inside of Art of Pizza is nothing special. In fact, for a place that many people rank as among their favorite pizzerias, it is noticeably unattractive. From the old formica tables, to the lack of wall décor to the 20-year-old television set to the view of a parking lot, there is nothing physically appealing about the restaurant. But just like it would be wrong to judge New York by the overflowing piles of hot garbage that line the city's streets, it is wrong to judge the food at Art of Pizza by the restaurant's physical limitations.
The crust at Art of Pizza is what noticeably distinguishes it from other pizzerias. Both the pan and stuffed pizzas feature an herbed crust that goes very well with the impressive amounts of mozzarella both pies use. Also, the stuffed crust, which is two inches tall around the outside of the pie, is not nearly as flaky as other stuffed pies in Chicago. I suspect they use either less shortening than other pizzerias or none at all, but I'm not enough of a breadsmith to be able to tell, and the kid working the counter on this trip had no idea about the dough recipe.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, July 11, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza, along with his friends, on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
The Chicago Reader, the Windy City's preeminent free weekly, recently named Coalfire the best pizza in Chicago. I disagree, but Coalfire does make a very good pie.
Neapolitan-style pizza has been making headway in Chicago for a few years, but Coalfire, which opened 14 months ago, is the only coal-oven pizzeria in Chicago. The creative force behind Coalfire is J. Spillane, who brought his pizza love to the Midwest from Worcester, Massachusetts. After ten years as a bartender, he perfected his pizza-making craft at home and opened Coalfire.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, July 5, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Do you remember when the Chicago Bulls had a 1.7 percent chance of getting the first pick in the NBA Lottery and won? Sure you do—it was only a little over a month ago. And surely you remember when the Bulls drafted Derrick Rose last week while the Knicks took some dude from Italy. I don't know what Danilo Gallinari knows about pizza or whether he is the next Frederic Weis, but I do know that Derrick Rose is going to be a star and that he is a pizza connoisseur. The point guard of the future's favorite pizza is Home Run Inn, an institution on the southwest side of Chicago.
Home Run Inn opened as a bar in 1923. According to restaurant lore, the place got its name after a ball from a neighborhood baseball game flew through the front window (which was not open). For the next 24 years, the family-owned bar established itself as a neighborhood fixture, with Vincent Grittani serving the drinks and his wife Mary cooking up midday meals. In 1942, Nick Perrino married Loretta, the Grittani's daughter. In 1945, he returned from World War II and Vincent Grittani died. Two years later, Perrino and his mother-in-law decided to start giving away Mary's pizza for free in an effort to boost business. Needless to say, the idea worked. Today, the business, which is still family owned and run by Nick's son Joe, has eight locations and a booming frozen pizza business, all of which serve up pizzas made according to the family recipe introduced to the world in 1947.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 25, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
"I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite."
Lou Malnati's
Location visited: 958 West Wrightwood Avenue, Chicago IL 60614 (map; but there are multiple locations); 773-832-4030; loumalnatis.com
Pizza Style: Known for deep-dish but also serves thin-crust and gluten-free
The Skinny: The best deep dish in the Chicago area can be found at this local chain of pizzerias located mostly in the suburbs. The signature pizza, The Lou, comes with a butter crust, but it's worth the 75¢ upcharge to get the butter crust on any other pizza you get. Malnati's also serves a unique "gluten-free" pizza that does right by the celeiac set by replacing the crust with sausage
Price: The Lou, large, $22.50; medium, $17.85; small, $12.85; individual, $6.65
When I was a young sparky attending Cubs games, I noticed advertisements for a pizzeria called Lou Malnati's on the back of the tickets. I have a vague recollection (perhaps completely fabricated) that I asked my father about going there and he explained that they were in the suburbs and did not have stuffed pizza. That meant they were far away and that I would have seen no point in eating there (in my young mind, if a pizza wasn't stuffed, it wasn't good).
By the time I tried Malnati's for the first time in 1999, I already knew that deep-dish pizza was worth eating. But the buttery crust, sweet chunky tomato sauce, and fresh homemade sausage on a Lou Malnati's pie changed my pizza worldview forever. Since that time, I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite.
Lou Malnati and his wife, Jean, opened the first Malnati's in 1971 in Lincolnwood, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. Before that, he had worked at Uno's with his father, Rudy Malnati. In fact, there is some debate as to who actually created the deep-dish pizza that Uno's introduced to Chicago. Uno's says Ike Sewell did, but a Malnati's spokesperson says that Rudy Malnati was the creator. According to Wikipedia, there was a 1955 newspaper article that backs up the Malnati version of events.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 19, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
Vito & Nick's Pizzeria
8433 South Pulaski Road, Chicago IL 60652 (map); 773-735-2050; vitoandnick.com
The Skinny: Very thin, crackerlike crust "bar pizza" cut into squares. Sparse sauce but plenty of toppings
It is a common misconception that Chicago-style pizza is limited to deep dish and stuffed pies. There are even many residents of Chicago who don't realize that their city has its own distinctive style of thin crust pies—a very thin pie with a crisp, almost crackerlike crust that is cut into small squares. At the same time, there are plenty of Chicagoans who think of that thin-crust style to be the true Chicago-style pizza. Personally, I don't care which one people think of as "the" Chicago style, I'm just glad I live in a city that has all three.
For your introduction to Chicago's distinctive thin-crust pizza, I went to a place few tourists ever venture other than to see the Museum of Science and Industry or the University of Chicago: the South Side. Specifically, I went to the Ashburn neighborhood, located on the Southwest side. About three miles south of Midway Airport and one mile east, Vito & Nick's stands on the corner of 84th and Pulaski.
Vito and Mary Barraco opened their first tavern in 1923. Another location opened a few years later, and in 1939, they started selling some Italian food. In 1945, their son Nick joined the family business, and four years later Mary began making pizzas with a dough recipe that remains a secret to this day. In fact, even the guys who make the pizza do not know how to make the dough. Nick's daughter comes in and makes the dough a few times a week, and the cooks do everything else. Also keeping the family tradition strong is Nick's sister Lee, who is a couple years shy of 90 and works as a waitress every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 11, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.
In my last post I discussed the best-known example of deep dish pizza, the style that put Chicago on the international pizza map more than 60 years ago. There is a second style of Chicago pizza that people inside and outside the city often conflate with deep dish, and that is stuffed pizza. Of the many places that offer it, Giordano’s, which has proclaimed itself as "Chicago's World Famous Stuffed Pizza," is the best known and most popular.
Stuffed pizza entered the American culinary scene in the early '70s when Nancy’s and Giordano’s both opened in Chicago. The Boglio brothers, who founded Giordano’s in 1974, are from a small town near Turin, Italy, and say their stuffed pizza is based on their mother’s Easter pizza, which featured a double crust and was stuffed with ricotta cheese.
This makes sense except for the fact that Nancy’s claims its pizza is based on an Italian pastry. Given that they developed incredibly similar pizzas in Chicago around the same time and were from near each other in Italy, I suspect that there may be more to the story.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 5, 2008 at 9:45 AM
Editor's note: I'm pleased to introduce you all to Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago. Daniel and his friends have been blogging about pizza in the Windy City on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. He'll be dropping by here on Slice with the deets on the eats in this pie-mad city. —The Mgmt.
Greetings from the Pizza Capital of the World!
Stuff Chicago's Known For: The 1893 World's Fair, Al Capone, Michael Jordan, Barack Obama, deep-dish pizza.
This is the first in what will be a weekly series on pizza in Chicago. For those unfamiliar with Chicago—and having spent three years in New York myself, I know many of you are—allow me to give a brief introduction full of references to your fine town.
Chicago is in Illinois, one of the many states in this country that does not sit next to an ocean (and is therefore a great mystery to many in New York, where I'd imagine most of Slice's readership lives). Over time, Chicago has been famous for a few different reasons. In 1893, the city made its first splash on the international scene when it was chosen over New York and a few other cities to host what would be the wildly successful World's Columbian Exposition.
To most of the world, the Chicago World's Fair, as the event is commonly known, symbolized Chicago—until Brooklyn-born Alphonse Capone attained a level of power that no gangster ever had. Capone remained Chicago's enduring image until Brooklyn-born Michael Jeffrey Jordan mastered basketball and sports-marketing in a way that nobody ever had. While Jordan remains Chicago's most widely known icon, he is soon to be displaced by New York–educated Barack Obama (Columbia '83).
Just as Capone did with gangland violence, Jordan did with basketball, and Obama is doing with politics, Chicagoans have taken pizza and elevated it to a level previously unimaginable. Scale the pinnacle of pizzadom, after the jump.
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Pizza Fest: Features a variety of thin, deep-dish, and stuffed pies, plus live music and a "best pizza" contest with celebrity judges. June 21 to 22. 2400 North Racine Avenue, Chicago IL 60614 (map); 773-868-3010. Cost: $5
Posted by Adam Kuban, March 20, 2008 at 5:15 PM
Do you live in Chicago? Interested in blogging for Slice? We're looking for a pizza-mad Chicago correspondent to document the Windy City pizza scene.
You should love pizza and know all the Chicago haunts—from the old standbys to the up-and-comers. From the tourist traps to hard-to-find hole-in-the-walls. And, oh, yeah: You should also be able to write and edit well. This is an ongoing assignment that would pay per post. Details after the jump.
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 3, 2008 at 6:30 AM
According to Chicago Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel, the Windy City's deep dish pizza mania may finally be on the wane.
In other words, the tasty casserole that is deep dish is being shoved aside for more serious Neapolitan and Roman-inspired creations. Vettel cites the popularity of new thin-crusted pizzerias La Madia, Frankie's Fifth Floor Pizzeria, A Mano, and Pizzeria Via Stato.
What do Slice readers, in Chicago or not, think of this heretical notion? As someone who practically needed police protection for suggesting in Slice of Heaven that at best Chicago pizza is a good casserole, I wholeheartedly welcome this development. But maybe I'm in the minority on this issue.
I've been workin' in the coal mine, digging up some more coal-oven pizzerias to bring you. Although New York City and New Haven, Connecticut, are two of the most famous coal-oven towns, did you know there are coal joints in Florida; Philly; Chicago; Des Moines, Iowa; Dallas; and Scottsdale, Arizona? They're all on the Slice National Coal-Oven Pizza Map.
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 12, 2007 at 1:00 PM
- New York Times on Accademia di Vino:
Anyone familiar with the grilled pizzas of Al Forno, the Italian restaurant in Providence, R.I., will be glad that Kevin Garcia, who once worked the dough there, is serving very satisfying clones of those crackling crusted gems at Accademia di Vino, where he is now the chef.
X-ray-thin crusts have judicious coatings of cheese — robiola, goat cheese, ricotta, sheep cheese — and sparing but flavorful toppings like broccoli rabe, black truffle pâté and soppressata. The tomato and mozzarella pie is dotted with cherry tomato halves and fresh basil. One pizza caveat: skip the watermelon.
1081 Third Avenue at 64th Street, New York NY 10021 (Upper East Side); 212-888-6333
- The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Williamsburg hipsters lose free-pizza-with-beer dive Capone's:
The crowd—attractive local hipsters, artists, club kids, and even a few yuppies—was torn. "The skinny Williamsburg hipster fags need the carbs," griped Earl Dax, a promoter and performance-art curator. Some wished for a happy medium. "In a perfect world . . . " sighed a man in a harlequin get-up with sad, wistful eyes. Justin Bond (of Kiki & Herb) found the solution: "I've done performance where I strapped a pizza to me and then served it to the audience."
- L.A. Times on Nonna:
You also have the option of starting with a thin-crusted pizza, and they're very decent for a place that doesn't have a wood-burning oven. Classic too. The handful of choices includes a Margherita and a burrata pizza made with fresh tomatoes.
9255 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles CA 90069; 310-270-4455
- Mormon missionary discovers pizza in Italy, opens own pizzeria Stateside: "I don't think I was a great missionary, and Italy is mainly Catholic. I got over the fact that I wasn't going to convert people and just started helping people.... I loved the pizza there and it was a business that I didn't think had been tapped into very well in America."
- According to the Chicago Sun-Times, HomeMade Pizza Co., a Chicago-based take-and-bake pizzeria chain, is rapidly expanding thanks to the use of locally sourced ingredients—oh, and Brooke Shields and Oprah.
If the Sun-Times piece isn't enough for you, here's a profile on HomeMade from the Daily Southtown.
HomeMade store locations
- Subway, Dunkin' Donuts get into pizza:
"The demographic of pizza eaters is about the same as oxygen breathers," says Steve Green, publisher of PMQ's Pizza Magazine, a trade publication.
Recent pizza growth has been in artisan, take-n'-bake and rising-crust pizzas, Green says. Now, Subway and Dunkin' think faster, smaller pizzas may find a niche.
I tried the Subway mini pizza back in April. It's a niche that you, as a pizza consumer, don't wanna go near.
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
Posted by Adam Kuban, April 25, 2007 at 9:13 AM
Remember when Rachael Ray was asking for votes for the best pizza in Chicago and New York City?
The results are in, and, according to Friend of Slice Tien Mao, they're being aired as we speak (if you're on Eastern Daylight Time). If you're in later time zones, you might still have a chance to watch; check your local listings. I, for one, will look for a rerun and try to DVR. In the meantime, Tien gave me some play-by-play. He's working from home, multitasking with some TV in the background, I assume.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 11, 2007 at 3:12 PM
When it rains, it pours, eh? On the heels of Subway's crazy venture into the pizza-making world, we get news out of Chicago that Dunkin' Donuts is making pizza. At least with Subway, you can imagine a connection—they deal with bread and cheese every day. But Dunkin'? Here's what Chicagoist's Louis Frascogna:
The deep dish-looking pizza has the exact same flavor as the frozen bagel bites we ate as kids, which isn't a bad thing. The crust isn't really crusty, but more like hot bread, and the sauce has that standard fake pizza sauce flavor with assorted bits of basil. The cheese was just as nondescript, but acceptable. We ordered pepperoni but didn't really see a lot of pepperoni.
It isn't that it is terrible, but it was a little overpriced for the size, at $3.99, and it was so hot it did burn our thumb a little bit. Also, now that we ordered that pizza we are still hungry and feel bad about ordering donuts too.
The pizza here looks and sounds like the kind I tried at Subway. I wouldn't be surprised if the "speed oven" used and distributor were the same.
Posted by Adam Kuban, February 21, 2007 at 11:35 PM
SPACCA NAPOLI PIZZERIA
Address: 1769 West Sunnyside Avenue, Chicago IL 60640 [map]
Phone number: 773-878-2420
Website: spaccanapolipizzeria.com
Hours: Lunch, W-Sat., 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dinner, W-Th., 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., F-Sat., 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., Sun., noon to 9 p.m.
An interesting story in the "Good Eating" section of the Chicago Tribune today about the Windy City's Spacca Napoli, complete with recipe. The piece touches on the Neapolitan pizza trend that's sweeping Chicago (as it has in New York, Phoenix, and San Francisco), namechecking a handful of thin-crust Italian-style pizzerias that have opened there in the last few years.
Spacca Napoli opened on Valentine's Day in 2006. That [pizzaiolo-owner Jonathan] Goldsmith could sell thin-crust deep inside deep-dish turf was a good omen to Chris Bardol, who was poised to open Stop 50 Wood Fired Pizzeria in Indiana. Bardol's first bite of thin crust was at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix and he was converted. But he wondered if his prospective clientele, which included large numbers of Chicagoans, would go for it.
Enter Goldsmith's venture. "I really felt we would do well if someone could see the opportunity in a deep-dish city," Bardol said.
Phil Vettel, the Tribune's restaurant critic, traces the city's fondness for thin crust to 1985 and the opening of Franco Zalloni's Trattoria Pizzeria Roma. "It brought to Chicago's mainstream the concept of appetizer pizzas, small pizzas with crisp, blistered crusts topped with all manner of creative (but appropriately Italian) ingredients.
Jeff Ruby, coauthor of Everybody Loves Pizza, senior editor at Chicago magazine, and an old friend and college newspaper colleague of mine, gets a quote in, too: "It seems [what has] happened here is pizza is going in two separate directions... There's California Pizza Kitchen where anything goes. Then there's the backlash. People are going back to the basics and following strict Neapolitan rules... Pizza has evolved so much in America it's come full circle."
A rather insightful observation, even if it weren't coming from a friend of Slice.
Newly launched Chicago foodblog Drive-Thru, which we've been enjoying around the Slice–Serious Eats office, responds to the Trib's piece and gives a less complicated recipe for pizza.
Sources
Pizza perfect [Chicago Tribune; via Lia]
Talkin' about a different kind of pie [Gapers Block; also via Lia]
Posted by Adam Kuban, October 30, 2006 at 3:05 PM
The previous post about Ed Levine's top pizza picks drew some emailed and IMed responses that the choices were mostly all coastal and that there were no Chicago joints on it whatsoever. Well, here's a list that ran earlier this month in USA Today. In it, Jeff Ruby, coauthor of Everybody Loves Pizza (along with Penny Pollack), gives the paper his and Ms. Pollack's top spots:
Metro Pizza [four locations, Las Vegas NV; metropizza.com]
"The pizza menu at this gourmet oasis in the desert reads like a map of regional flavors. With grilled shrimp on the New Orleans, barbecued chicken atop the Memphis and pineapple on the Honolulu, there's something for everybody...."
The Cheese Board Pizza Collective [1512 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley CA 94709; map]
" 'The Cheese Board is a collective, owned by its members, that brings sustainable agriculture to the pizza table,' Ruby says. Each day the menu, featuring a single sourdough vegetarian pizza, is decided collectively by the group...."
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 23, 2006 at 10:37 AM
If you're only a "foodie" when it comes to pizza, then you might not know that Chicago, as a city, decided to ban
foie gras a short bit ago. The ban, enacted by the Windy City's city council, went into effect yesterday. As befits residents of the "City of Big Shoulders," some chefs yesterday were still serving the dish—which is the fattened liver of a duck or goose that has been overfed. (The city banned it over concerns about animal cruelty.)
Other chefs actually
added it to their menus, including a pizzeria or two, per the
New York Times:
But Jerry Stout, a lunchtime diner at Connie’s Pizza, said city leaders should have more pressing matters to worry about than fattened duck liver. Hardly a foie gras connoisseur — he could not remember whether he had ever tasted it before — Mr. Stout, 54, tried it on his pizza and said he would recommend it because of its mild flavor. “I guess we were rebels today,” he said.
Defying Law, a Foie Gras Feast in Chicago [New York Times]
Posted by Adam Kuban, May 10, 2006 at 9:00 AM
"Taylor Street, the late 1890s. The neighborhood of Italian immigrants, largely from Naples, is packed with handcarts and makeshift stands selling fruit, vegetables, olive oil and bread. Speaking mostly in Italian, they buy, sell, argue and barter, when suddenly a man walks onto the street pushing a cart holding two copper washtubs. Their bottoms are packed with charcoal, keeping round pies of bread, tomato, spices and cheese hot. Walking near Taylor and Racine, he sells these pies for two cents each, and the people seem to like them. Little does he know that he is America's first pizza vendor, and in a hundred years those few cents would turn into a multi-billion dollar industry." A Pizza History: Charting the rise of Chicago's pie [NewCity Chicago]
"Michael Altenberg, chef and owner of Lincoln Square's Bistro Campagne, will open Chicago's first all-organic flatbread pizza restaurant, called Flat Earth, in Wicker Park in mid-September. The menu is '100-percent organic' and includes 'flatbread pizzas, salads and sandwiches,' according to managing partner Greg Christian." The Local Pizza Place [NewCity Chicago]
New Zealand pie chain Hell Pizza has box that turns into coffin for your slices' "remains" (pictured). [Boing Boing]
Totino's makes lean Pizza Rolls. Because people who eat Pizza Rolls are really big on dieting. [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
Satire: "Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) announced that it is teaming up with Federal Express (FDX) to provide nationwide pizza delivery. In a move expected to revolutionize the food distribution business, the pies will be assembled on-site in FedEx’s Memphis distribution facility, and loaded directly on airplanes for next day delivery." [TheSpoof.com]
Posted by Adam Kuban, April 28, 2006 at 1:42 PM
And they are:
- Zachary's Chicago Pizza: Berkeley, California
- PIzzeria Regina: Boston
- Patsy Grimaldi's Pizzeria: Scottsdale, Arizona
- Vic's Bar & Restaurant: Bradley Beach, New Jersey
- Tacconelli's: Philadelphia
- John's: New York City
- Star Pizza: Houston
- Imo's Pizza: Saint Louis
- Home Run Inn: Chicago
- Mellow Mushroom: Atlanta
- Windy City PIzza: Tampa, Florida
- Anthony's Pizza and Pasta: Denver
- Papreza's Pizza: Henderson, Nevada
Well, they say 13 is an unlucky number, right? I mean, only one New York City pizzeria on this list? And it's John's? John's is good, sure, but not the best in NYC. And maybe we should hold our tongue until we've had pizza from the Grimaldi's branch in Arizona, but how can it be any better than the homegrown original Grimaldi's? I guess AOL had to tailor its list to please people across the country. And it's further evidence that these lists are always flawed. Heck, even if Slice put out a list, I'm sure someone—lots of someones—would find fault with it. But they're always good for debate, so have at it. Comments welcome.
13 Perfect Pizzas Across America [AOL Cityguide]
Posted by Ed Levine, February 16, 2006 at 8:43 AM
Here's the American Pizzeria Timeline, which includes only two non–Pizza Belt entries, Tommaso's and Uno's:
1905: Lombardi's, on Spring Street in New York City, is granted the nation's first license to sell pizza.
1910: Joe's Tomato Pies opens in the Trenton, New Jersey, Chambersburg neighborhood.
1912: Papa's Tomato Pies in Trenton opened by Papa, who learned his trade at Joe's.
1924: Anthony (Totonno) Pero leaves Lombardi's and opens Totonno's in Coney Island, New York.
1925: Frank Pepe opens on Wooster Street in New Haven, Connecticut.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, October 27, 2005 at 3:00 PM
With a cover reminiscent of a retro pizza box and contents almost as tasty as the real thing, Everybody Loves Pizza, by Penny Pollack and Jeff Ruby, has earned a place on the Slice Bookshelf.
Full disclosure: I know one of the authors. Mr. Ruby and I were in the same journalism program at university. Still, that didn't stop me from turning a critical eye on this book. In fact, my initial reaction when hearing about it was, "Oy! Another pizza book!? What more can be said?"
Fortunately, Penny and Jeff find plenty new to say, particularly with some interesting history and facts that, surprisingly, I haven't read elsewhere. Concerning one of Slice's favorite pizzaioli, Dom DeMarco, for example, the authors tell us that he ends each pizza-filled day by drinking a "$100 bottle of Amarone Valpolicella—he buys 1 bottle a day and 2 on Saturday because the liquor store is closed on Sunday." Who knew!? (More important, how does Dom get himself into work by 7 a.m. after drinking a bottle of fine wine post midnight?)
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