Best Restaurants for Chicago Style Pizzas (New Haven: live in, eat, suburban)

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by gomexico

"Chicago Style Pizza" is thin crust. Square slices. Cracker crust. A couple of places to try it out"

Southwest Side: Vito's and Nicks
North Side: Marie's

Two thirds of the OP list is known for deep dish...

Every head out to Beggar's? Would you call that "Chicago style"???

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by edsg25

if i had to pick one, it would be Uno's. Keep in mind that if you decide you want to go to Uno's, you really have two choices: Uno's and Due's, same place, one block apart.

you also definitely can't go wrong with lou's; it's founder was part of the Uno's organization from the get go. What Lou's does better than anyone else is take the really traditional Chicago deep dish pizza and cover the entire metro area with it......nobody exported the original to the suburbs better than Lou did.

I agree, if you want the penultimate Chicago experience, go with Uno's/Due's.

Even though I don't think it's the *very* best, the atmosphere /restaurant gives it the edge IMO. For just the food itself, Bacino's and Lou Malnati's are the best, Gino's East is great as well. Next tier (northside bias) is Chicago's, Art of Pizza, Nancy's, Father and Sons, Pete's, it's a pretty deep bench of excellent, excellent pizzerias here.

One thing of note - I do not get the appeal of Pequod's at all. It's good quality pizza for sure, but it isn't even remotely close to a Chicago-style pizzeria.

[Drover]

Pequod's is for people who regard cheese reduced to carbon as "tasty."

[chet everett]

Honestly I think Pequod's in Lincoln Park is a about as good a representation of deep dish as you can get. The way the crust is all cooked is the way that I swear that I rememeber Uno & Due's doing it all the time. I swear they have adapted to a more "chewy" crust over time, initially as something done by places like Girodano, Edwardos, and Lou's, who do use more sauce and a wider ranges of "wet" ingredients, but also because I think it is FASTER to serve the crust a little less well baked...of course you literally cannot eat much of that stuff without feeling like your gut is gonna stay welded to the booth,most I think a little faster turn helps the bottom line and more pitchers of beertoo...

[Chi-town Native]

ok, to be fair I am mostly familiar with the carbonized thin crust Drover is mentioning, I should give their deep dish another shot some time...

[NewOrleanianLA1]

I appreciate all the opinions and other suggestions of pizzerias to check out!

I thought deep dish pizza was traditionally Chicago not thin crust pizzas. Interesting!

Wow, it's so many to choose from. Of course, I expect to see Chicago tradition but the quality of pizza is very important at the same time. Many of my friends came back home from Chicago not satisfied with the food, especially pizzas from East Gino's and Giordiano's.

I am leaning towards Lou Malnatti in Downtown Chicago. It has the most positive reviews of all plus the pictures of their deep dish pizza look best.

Does anyone know which one of them has a map of Italy on their delivery boxes? My mother used to live in Chicago and she remember the best pizza ever from that box. She doesn't remember its name though.

[Drover]

Stuffed/deep-dish is mostly for tourists. When a native orders pizza, it's thin crust 95% of the time. Even so, a good stuffed/deep-dish makes for a nice occasional treat. Just remember they're incredibly filling and to order one size down from what you think you'll need. A medium can feed at least 3 people.

The boxes with the green map of Italy on them is a generic item. Dozens of mom-and-pop pizza joints use those boxes.

[chet everett]

I a going to disagree that "deep dish is mostly for tourists" as MANY places have a VERY solid business of almost EXCLUSIVELY deep dish pizza in 100% "local" carry out business. Lou's many suburban locations ar testiment to this as are Nancy's , Connies and Giordannos off the beaten path locations...

It is totatlly true that that thin crust outsells deep dish about 50:1. Places like Father and Son, HRI and HUNDREDS mom & pop places are the evidence of that.

Even "super fan" sized eaters would truly be incapaciated by other than occaisional ingestion of massive deep dish pizzas...


Another tip, if you don't "order down" left over deep dish does reheat / carry out well BUT IT IS KEY to NOT pre-slice the thing until everything has a chance to cool down a bit and the juices to sorta stabilize with non-molten cheese...

Originally Posted by Drover

Stuffed/deep-dish is mostly for tourists. When a native orders pizza, it's thin crust 95% of the time. Even so, a good stuffed/deep-dish makes for a nice occasional treat. Just remember they're incredibly filling and to order one size down from what you think you'll need. A medium can feed at least 3 people.

The boxes with the green map of Italy on them is a generic item. Dozens of mom-and-pop pizza joints use those boxes.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

I agree, if you want the penultimate Chicago experience, go with Uno's/Due's.

Even though I don't think it's the *very* best, the atmosphere /restaurant gives it the edge IMO. For just the food itself, Bacino's and Lou Malnati's are the best, Gino's East is great as well. Next tier (northside bias) is Chicago's, Art of Pizza, Nancy's, Father and Sons, Pete's, it's a pretty deep bench of excellent, excellent pizzerias here.

One thing of note - I do not get the appeal of Pequod's at all. It's good quality pizza for sure, but it isn't even remotely close to a Chicago-style pizzeria.

what I like about Lou's is that it is the closest thing to Uno's/Due's in its original format (we won't even get into how far Uno's franchised places are from that ideal). Back when deep dish was more limited (and still centralized to the city's near north side), I always thought that Gino's was right up there with Uno's/Due's. I don't have a problem with Gino's East today, but I don't find it as good as the original Gino's was.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Pizano's (a number of downtown locations plus Glenview) but the owners are part of the Malnati family (without the wide spread fame) and make their own outstanding deep dish (their thin is quite good, too). and Pizano's is one of the best examples I've seen of a more scaled down (though still deep dish) crust; it's just plain lighter. Again, not necessarily better in that regard, just different and very easy going down.

Pizano's Pizza and Pasta - The Best Chicago-Style Pizza and Italian Restaurant

[ChiGuy2.5]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Pequod's Pizzeria - DePaul - Chicago, IL

Originally Posted by deliz

Totally Agee

I also agree. Pequods is one of my favorites.