Windy City Food Writer: 'Ed Levine Has a Blind Spot for Chicago Pizza'

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.

It's true that Ed is not a huge fan of Chicago pizza, which is why we have Daniel Zemans on the ground in the Windy City doing justice and honoring the pizza there as only a well-versed local can.

About other food, Gelbert goes on to say:

So Ed Levine writing about essential Chicago foods is going to be sort of like Sean Penn’s guide to Great Republican Secretaries of Defense. There are many things I would like to hear from Ed Levine, but I can’t see how this list is going to be anything other than tired old rehashings of tired old New York-Chicago rivalries.

I don't think what Ed made clear is that, for upcoming Serious Eats City Guides, we've been working with local writers for their take. So future City Guides will be every bit as authoritative as Ed's was with New York.

Gebert himself responds with a Chicago food list I'd feel confident working my way through, given his background. He recommends Art of Pizza's spinach pie for deep dish and Vito & Nick's sausage pie for thin-crust. (See Slice's Daniel Zemans on Art of Pizza and on Vito & Nick's.)

But, to bring it back to pizza (this is Slice, after all), here's what Ed recommended pie-wise in New York City, in case you missed the guide on SE:

For purists, the Neapolitan style pies at Una Pizza Napoletana are hard to beat. Anthony Mangieri's individual pizzas are the lightest of airy pizza clouds, with a crisp exterior that represents pizza perfection. For elevated, classic New York slices, Di Fara in Brooklyn. Dom DeMarco is the only person who has ever made the pizza in his undistinguished storefront since it opened 44 years ago. For New York coal-fire brick-oven pizza, Totonno's in Coney Island cannot be improved upon.

Related

All Slice's Chicago pizza reviews
Slice on Una Pizza Napoletana
Slice on Di Fara
Slice on Totonno's

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