Best stuffed pizza in Chicago?

[Thomas Maurice Booth]

Not pizza, but since you'll be heading to Wrigleyville - I highly recommend grabbing breakfast at Ann Sather's.

http://www.annsather.com/Restaraunts%20 ... Bkfst.html" target="_blank

Typical diner sort of food, but the cinnamon rolls are not to be missed.

TMB

[Three Valves]

Stuffed pizza??

You mean lasagna, right??

[Steve Marcus]

Good thing that you already have your Cubs tickets.

In order to get 4 seats together for my wife, son, and daughter, we're watching the Cubs...at Miller Park in Milwaukee (aka "Wrigley north").

Back to the OP's question: I like deep dish pizza from many restaurants, but have no favorite. There's one pizza place whose deep dish I find almost flavorless. But with its multiple locations, many people do like it...so I won't name it because my thumb is down and I don't want to get into a "this is the best" argument.


This coming from a Chicago guy who grew up on the east coast with NY style pizza cut into wedges instead of squares.

[Michael Bush]

There is no pizza in Chicago. There is pizza-flavored casserole.

For pizza, you go to New Haven, Connecticut. Everything else is something between a good imitation and a pizza-shaped object.

[bort]

There is no pizza in Chicago. There is pizza-flavored casserole.

For pizza, you go to New Haven, Connecticut. Everything else is something between a good imitation and a pizza-shaped object.

Yup. I miss the good old fashioned NY utility slice!

[Three Valves]

Stuffed pizza??

You mean lasagna, right??

No noodles here.

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https://oursideoftown.files.wordpress.c ... -pizza.jpg" target="_blank" target="_blank
[/img]

No "pizza" either!!

[Donn]

What makes pizza great, and the reason why calzones and stuffed pizzas and so forth are edible but no real competition for the pizza, is the browning. The cheese and other toppings toast a little on the top, where they're exposed to very high oven temperature (450°F is adequate, but the hard core afficionado may file off the oven door lock and use the self-cleaning cycle for temperatures in the 700°F range.)

[Three Valves]

I will say that growing up in Texas has given me a cultural neutrality on this topic.

Cultural neutrality??

In Teas??

Oh, maybe you are from Austin!!

[bort]

[quote="58mark"]We have both kinds here without the petty bickering. People eat what they like and nobody gives them a hard time about it.[\quote]

See, that's crazy to me. Out on the east coast, people constantly bicker, tease, and give each other a hard time about things. It's only when people *don't* do this that you know they don't like you.

[quote]I wasn't even aware people cared about the subject until I saw John Stewart's childish rant about it a couple of years ago. (like he's not bias)[\quote]

I generally don't like John Stewart very much, but having lived in NYC for 8 years, he pretty much nailed it... especially the "irresponsible amount of napkins part."

[quote]I tried both kinds equally until I decided that new York pizza is a waste of money, calories, and pizza sauce (what their is of it)[\quote]

...and this isn't petty bickering?

[Three Valves]

After all, we are talking about Pizza here, it isn't as if we are discussing Bar-B-Q

[Michael Bush]

This is not petty bickering. It's just a little mutual ribbing about a difference that doesn't really matter much. Not everything has to be quite that serious.

(Now barbeque? That's serious. Smoked whole pig is barbeque. Everything else is an analogy.)

[Michael Bush]

See, that's crazy to me. Out on the east coast, people constantly bicker, tease, and give each other a hard time about things. It's only when people *don't* do this that you know they don't like you.

This.

[Three Valves]

I'd order;


Italian Beef Sandwich
$6.95

Thinly sliced roast beef topped with sweet peppers. Served with your choice of side.

THAT's eats!!

[Tubajug]

I recently went to Chicago and was told to try Giordanos. It was delicious. A friend and I shared their smallest size and we still took some home because it was so packed full of meat and cheese we couldn't finish it. Good stuff!

And yes, get some Italian beef sandwiches while you're there, also very tasty (thought my friend and I both agreed that the sandwich shop here in Lincoln, which was started by a guy from Chicago, had better sandwiches than the place we went to IN Chicago). Go figure.

[pgym]

The general consensus on Pizzamaking.com is that the BEST Chicago-style deep dish/stuffed pizzas in Chicagoland are homemade.

In terms of restaurant deep dish/stuffed, the ones that consistently receive positive mention are Lou Malnati's, [the late, lamented Burt's], Pequod's, and Giordano's. [Disclosure: I'm partial to Giordano's, but that's probably because that's where I lost my DD cherry.] Gino's East and Home Run Inn fall into the "some people swear by them, some swear at them" category (note that the frozen HRI pizza sold in grocery stores and supermarkets is very different from the pizza served in their restaurants). Pizano's and Aurilio's serve deep dish, but are generally considered also-rans in the category. Pizzeria Uno (and Due), aka Uno Chicago Grill, are soul-less, corporate commisary plastic and red food color on cardboard, and only merit mention as a "I'd rather eat a crap sandwich" warning.

Chicago tavern style, aka "thin," is a (very tasty) phenomenon unto itself. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the area.

Here's a review (with pics) that hits a sampling of Chicago DD and thin restaurants.

[pgym]

I recently went to Chicago and was told to try Giordanos. It was delicious. A friend and I shared their smallest size and we still took some home because it was so packed full of meat and cheese we couldn't finish it.

Amateurs! (I've been known to polish off a medium 2 topping or half a large in one sitting … urp!!!!)

Good stuff!

Yup!

And yes, get some Italian beef sandwiches while you're there, also very tasty

Especially with hot giardinera.

A word to the wise, though: stay away from Giordano's Italian beef pizza. (Believe me: you DO NOT want to go there.)

[tofu]

here's a little secret. Stuffed pizza isnt' even my favorite kind. my fav is a thin crust loaded with toppings, but a crust so crisp is is practically a cracker. Not sure what that is called. Oven baked? I don't know and it doesn't matter. I'm going to chicago and I haven't had a stuffed pizza in years because the only place in Texas that made it right closed down, so that's what I want to get

When in rome...

I don't know about in rome... that seems to me a made up media thing that people have bought into about Chicago and deep dish pizza. Supposedly Giordano's invented deep dish back in the early 80's. I think it's mainly sold to tourists. My HR person keeps ordering that stuff from a lot of different places for office luncheons and it usually goes mostly uneaten. People won't even take it home - it ends up getting tossed. OTOH the thin crust stuff (and not that greasy slice stuff they eat in NY) is always completely gone. I know exactly the thin crust style of pizza you're talking about and that has been in Chicago forever and there are a lot of excellent places. I personally would rather eat the cardboard box the deep dish came in than the deep dish pizza.

There is a really excellent place for that style of thin crust pizza not far from Miller Park in Milwaukee -which is the place to watch the Cubs. A heck of lot cheaper, easy (and cheap) to park (steps) from the stadium, an unbelievably clean/comfortable stadium, great sight lines and the games go on rain or shine. When the sun shine it takes 10 minutes to open the roof. No wackos/pick pockets/shooters to harass you around the stadium and the people are very friendly. And where else do you get to see a sausage race??? Plus, people are there to watch baseball. Wrigley Field these days is pretty much populated by out of towners there for the "event aspect" and not to watch baseball. We caught the May series between the Cubs and Brewers up in Milwaukee and the cost worked out to be about a third of Wrigley. And it is about as easy to get to Milwaukee from Lake Forest, IL as it is to drive down to Wrigley and a heck of a lot saner and safer. You can even tour the Miller Brewery or this excellent place while you're up there https://www.sprecherbrewery.com/visit_menu.php Free pop and beer - how can you go wrong!

[alfredr]

Question: tofu says deep dish pizza was invented in the early 80s. Is deep dish not the same as pan pizza? Because we had Chicago style pan pizza at Champaign-Urbana in the early 70s, People talked about Uno's and Due's. But I'm not from Chicago.

Side question: do tofu and pizza go together?

[pgym]

Question: tofu says deep dish pizza was invented in the early 80s. Is deep dish not the same as pan pizza? Because we had Chicago style pan pizza at Champaign-Urbana in the early 70s, People talked about Uno's and Due's.

I think we are confusing deep dish and stuffed pizza, which are two different things

Exactly.

Deep dish – single crust with toppings, cheese, and sauce on top;
Stuffed – double crust with cheese and toppings between, sauce on top.

Tim Samuelson, Chicago's official cultural historian, dates the invention of Chicago-style deep dish to 1943.

Evelyne Slomon, author of The Pizza Book: Everything There Is to Know about the World's Greatest Pie (copyright 1984, by the way, before the eruption of the "invention" war) dates Chicago-style stuffed to the mid-1970s, and attributes its development to Rocco Palese of Nancy's Pizza.

[Donn]

Side question: do tofu and pizza go together?

I've never tried it. I eat a fair amount of both (made a rather tasty pizza night before last, and tofu appeared in last night's dinner), and while I may be influenced by blind prejudice (as for example against stuffed pizza), I know better than to put tofu on pizza. It would be like using ricotta cheese, another bad idea I've seen at restaurants. I would suggest regular beans, like refried beans or similar, will work out considerably better on pizza.