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.
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.
1081 Third Avenue at 64th Street, New York NY 10021 (Upper East Side); 212-888-6333Anyone 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.
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."
9255 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles CA 90069; 310-270-4455You 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.
I tried the Subway mini pizza back in April. It's a niche that you, as a pizza consumer, don't wanna go near."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.
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.
Address: 1321 West Grand Avenue, Chicago IL 60622 (at Ogden Ave.; map)
Phone: 312-226-2625
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.
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.
NY vs. Chicago Pizza Throwdown [rachaelrayshow.com; via Tien, who said, "You see this crap?"]
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]
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...."
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.
"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]
And they are:
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]
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.
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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