I flew into Chicago a deep-dish virgin, and emerged a full-fledged, lip-smacking, Chiago-style pizza-lusting woman. I’m hooked.
I honestly thought deep-dish would never stack up to Italian thin crust. I’m happy to say I was wrong. They are simply different animals and both utterly sublime.
We stuffed as much pizza in our gobs as humanly possible within a three day span, and as far as the judging goes, it’s only on the goods. Not the decor, complete menu, or even customer service. It’s apples to apples, or in this case, deep-dish to deep-dish. Specifically, deep-dish with sausage, mushrooms, green peppers & onions; tomato sauce & more cheese on top; and with a butter crust if we could get it. All of the contenders faired well with the toppings - it’s not difficult to throw in sausage, peppers, mushrooms and onions; the mere fact that those simple ingredients bubble together for at least forty minutes lends a complete flavor to the end result. It’s definitely one of those “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” So the real deciding factors are the crust and the sauce - and in pizza, it always seems to come down to the crust & sauce.
Between the three of us we had many opinions, but you’d think we’d have a tie breaker. No. We simply couldn’t decide on a clear cut winner, so first place was a dead heat.
1st Place: Bacino’s
Even cold and sitting in the box for a few hours at the airport, Bacino’s pizza ruled. The crust was tasty, crisp and a good thickness; the topping flavors melded very nicely; the cheese was abundant & schmoozy; and the herb-flecked sauce divine.
Situated on the ground floor of Club Quarters Hotel, the decor was quite a bit more upscale than the other pizza parlors we visited (not that it had anything to do with its placement). It felt very Italian trattoria-esque with the traditional, dark wood, soft lighting, and the Italians sitting at the bar...
75 East Wacker Drive, Chicago (Loop)
312.263.0070
Also in First Place: Pizzeria Due & Uno (Zagat score: 22)
Ahhhh, Pizzeria Due, mmmmmmm. To be completely honest, because Due was my first, I might be a tad biased. Just a smidgen. The crust was buttery and crisp without being dry; the sausage, mushrooms, peppers & onions perfectly married the sauce and cheese. It was here that I understood why that particular combination of toppings seem to be the classic Chicago style. It was perfect.
Due’s decor is also part of the whole experience. It was exactly what I naively thought a Chicago pizza place should look like - kind of kitschy in a 1980s “if Cheers were a Chicago Pizza joint rather than a Boston bar” kind of way. I liked being there. I liked the pizza. I even liked the scene at the bar: guys watching the game.
619 North Wabash Avenue, bet Ohio & Ontario, Chicago (River North)
312.321.1000
3rd Place: Lou Malnati’s (Zagat 24)
Lou Malnati’s is a chain, but the pizza is good. Really good. It’s the place to go with your old high school pals; not that they lack finesse, per se, but they like their Coke in really, really big cups. It basically feels like Pizza Hut without the chemical fragrance of fast food. Chemical fragrance-free - that’s good. Really good.
The butter crust stands up to the best in the city; the toppings, sauce and cheese were good... Yes, really good.
439 North Wells Street @Hubbard, Chicago (River North)
312.828.9800
Fourth Place: Art of Pizza (Zagat 24)
After a train ride and lah-hot of walking through picturesque suburban neighborhoods, we finally made it to the highly acclaimed Art of Pizza. In the spirit of full disclosure, it needs to be said that this was the only place we did not order individual sizes. Being pressed for time to squeeze in the entire day’s pizza allotment, we opted for the ready-made pizza by the slice. We also didn’t realize it wouldn’t always be offered from all other pizza establishments.
The cheese was generous, the toppings excellent, and the meaty sauce superb (didn’t dry out from the lengthy baking time). Everything was good, great in fact, except the crust on one pizza was doughy. It was crisp and brown on the bottom, but perhaps a little thick, because it was quite doughy in the middle. If they were crazy busy, I might make a few allowances. But they weren’t, and it was.
All in all, Art of Pizza has very good pizza. And the sunshiny-yellow strip-mall atmosphere and relentless Christmas carols on November 5th didn’t even really bother us.
3033 North Ashlands Avenue, Lakeview
773.327.5600
Fifth Place: Giordano’s (Zagat 21)
Giordano’s pizza was our least favorite. It’s a typical chain all around. The crust was quite bland in taste and texture, and the sauce seemed as canned as the 1980’s checkered decor. The sausage was oddly gray - probably fine, but I ate around it.
1040 West Belmont Avenue @Kenmore, Lakeview
773.327.1200
Comments