The 10 States of Chicago's Pizza Nation
Plus, a garden tour, a cherry pie, and a sleepy cat
No Matter How You Slice It
Last week, Local Food Forum shared the word about Pizza City Fest, a fantastic two-day pizza-tasting party that will be held Aug. 26-27 at The Salt Shed (the former Morton Salt building at 1357 N. Elston Ave. in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood).
Later in the week, I had the pleasure of interviewing TV food reporter Steve Dolinsky, a longtime acquaintance who with his wife Amy Dordek Dolinsky is producing the 2nd annual Pizza City Fest as an offshoot of their Pizza City tours. There will be 20 pizza makers featured on each of the days, two each representing the 10 different styles of pizza that are rooted in Chicago’s food culture.
I’ll have an article soon, based on the interview, that focuses on his journey to becoming one of the nation’s leading pizza mavens. But first, I thought it would make sense to provide a primer on the definitions of those 10 pizza styles. And who better to use as a reference than Steve Dolinsky himself and his book, The Ultimate Chicago Pizza Guide: A History of Squares & Slices in the Windy City (Northwestern University Press, 2021).
The following descriptions are just tiny excerpts from a 302-page book filled with info, mouth-watering photos and recommendations for the best places to find each variety. You’ll want this book if you have a pizza jones, and it would make a great housewarming gift for a pizza lover who is new in town.
We’ll start, as does the book, with the three leading contestants in the unsolvable debate over Chicago’s signature pizza style.
TAVERN-STYLE (CHICAGO-STYLE THIN)
“Chicago is the city that works, and immigrants who originally built the roads, bridges, and skyscrapers loved to end the workday at the neighborhood tavern for a beer. Savvy bar owners realized they could make ultra-thin pizzas for cheap, cut their pies into tiny squares (known as the ‘party cut’) and then pass the bite-sized snacks around the bar…
“The goal for Chicago’s early tavern owners was to get something salty into the customers’ mouths so they’d order more beer. The plan worked. The practice launched the Chicago tavern-style pizza, also known as Chicago-style thin, which shows up at legendary places like Marie’s, Vito & Nick’s, and Pat’s, not to mention suburban haunts like Barnaby’s and Armand’s.
“There are entire swaths of the city that claim true Chicago pizza is thin and not a thick casserole. My eating research led me to actually identify five different categories of thin pizza in Chicago: thin, Chicago-style thin (or tavern-style); Neapolitan; New York-style slices; and artisan. After all my research, I theorize that tavern-style is what Chicagoans mean by ‘thin.’”
DEEP DISH AND DEEP PAN
“Classic deep-dish usually begins with a circular steel pan, greased with corn or vegetable oil. A pliable, somewhat oily dough is smashed into the pan until it covers both the bottom and interior walls. Some restaurants will make a butter crust, which emerges from the oven with an almost pastry-like crispness… Also, if you order a deep-dish to go, always ask for it uncut unless you want a soggy bottom by the time you get it home.
“I can appreciate the boulders of fennel-laced sausage and hunks of juicy tomatoes at La Barra. I can easily polish off two thick slices from Bartoli’s, even though I know it’s like eating the equivalent of a block of mozzarella. There is a delicious harmony between the brightly acidic, charred, and naturally sweet tomatoes and the rich layer of Wisconsin mozzarella that rest above a buttery, short-dough crust from the likes of Pequod’s or Labriola. I dare any naysayer to take two bites and proclaim otherwise…
“There is some disagreement about the differences between pan and deep-dish. My theory is ‘all deeps are pans; not all pans are deep.’ To me, pan implies baking in a rectangular pan — what some might refer to as Sicilian, or, if you live in New York, grandma-style.”
STUFFED
“I don’t want to make this all about Giordano’s, but we have to address the nine-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. With seventy restaurants in nine states, fifty of which are in Illinois, the brand has stores as far west as Las Vegas, and east to Ohio and Florida. Ironically, they manage to sell a significant amount of tavern-style thin pizza, which makes up about 40 percent of their business. The rest is stuffed.
‘It’s all about the cheese pull; it’s indulgent,’ said Tod Barber, Giordano’s vice president of operations. ‘When you have the tourists in town, they think about that one trip they had to Chicago as a kid, and they want the deep-dish.’
“So let’s pause there for a second. True, a stuffed pizza is made in a traditional deep-dish pan. But stuffed and deep-dish are different styles. In a deep-dish, the slices of cheese across the bottom dough meld with the ingredients and the tomato sauce while baking. In a stuffed pie, the sauce is segregated above a second layer of thin dough (the top crust) so that you can taste the independent flavors. That cheese resting on the bottom layer of dough is typically shredded mozzarella, and by adding a pound or more to a medium pizza, you’ll get those dramatic cheese pulls for your Instagram feed.”
NEAPOLITAN
”What is a Neapolitan? In short, it’s a pizza style originating from — you guessed it — Naples, Italy. There is actually an international governing body, the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana (AVPN), which attempts to preserve this tradition and ensure that restaurants claiming to serve the real thing abide by certain rules, such as the type of flour, cheese, and oven used in the restaurant.
“There is also an Association of Neapolitan Pizza Makers (APN), and, like the AVPN, their goal is to make sure anyone claiming to sell a Neapolitan pizza is upholding the tradition, but in the case of the APN, they certify only the pizza maker.
“In short, these pizzaiolos must use ‘00’ flour, which is highly refined. The water must have a certain pH level; sea salt and compressed solid yeast must be used; and there are rules regarding how many times the dough should rise and for how long. In addition, San Marzano tomatoes must be used for the sauce. Even the type of oven used to bake the pies is specified with somber authority.”
SICILIAN, GRANDMA, AND SHEET PAN BAKERY SLICES
“The rectangular slice has been elusive in Chicago, a city with at least ten unique styles to brag about… But for sheer pizza eating pleasure, it’s hard to beat a proper Sicilian slice. New York ex-pats who’ve moved to the Midwest might lament the absence of classic slice shops, and many will admit they miss the squares as much as the triangular foldable wedges… I can name my favorite Chicago Sicilians on one hand. A year ago, there would have been maybe one worth mentioning.
“Nonetheless, before there was Prince Street Pizza in New York City’s West Village… there were plenty of shops in Chicago selling rectangular slices, albeit not as memorable as the crispy-meets-spongy Sicilians on the East Coast. While there is no official pizza taxonomy, the best I could come up with in technical terms would be a sheet pan bakery-style slice, and it’s done the trick for generations of Chicagoans.
“When it comes to pizzerias with a house style, Sicilian just hasn’t caught on here yet. But several new options are challenging that assessment and creating craveable slices as good as anything in New York City.”
DETROIT-STYLE
“Detroit-style pizza has definitely become the ‘cool kid’ over the last year or so, and it must put a perplexing smile on the faces of natives who’ve grown up with it. A pizza that’s been around for seventy-five years is suddenly in fashion? What the hell took everyone so long?…
“In 1946, three years after Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo started selling their deep-dish pizza from the kitchen that would eventually be called Uno’s, the Sicilian cooks in the kitchen of Buddy’s in Detroit began experimenting. They placed dough in the ubiquitous ten-by-fourteen-inch rectangular blue steel pans left over from the auto industry, which were more readily available than the larger, shallower rectangular pans they were used to seeing in home kitchens. Today’s pans tend to be made of anodized aluminum with nonstick coatings.
“Flour is one of several factors. Most Detroit-style pies use bread flour, which has more gluten than all-purpose flour, allowing for more elasticity and a characteristic chew. The crust develops a signature browning from frying in the fat produced by the cheese that gets pushed along the sides. Not just any cheese, but a higher-fat Wisconsin brick cheese, which derives its name from the process of being placed between bricks during the aging process to expel excess whey. The cheese darkens as it bakes along the sides, and while it may look like burnt crust, it’s simply a crispy, somewhat charred cheesy edge…”
ARTISAN GAS, COAL, AND WOOD-FIRED
“Chicago’s pizza makers… usually come in one of two breeds. There are the teenage cooks who are trained to add ladles of sauce to a dough that’s been run through a sheeter and then apply handfuls of shredded mozzarella and toppings… The other type of pizza maker is the salty, old, I’ve-been-here-for-years cook who dons a company T-shirt, and maybe a sauce-splotched paper hat, and who has the burns and scars from a decade or more of honest service…
“Enter the pizza artisan…. The result of these obsessive cooks? Next-level pizzas with beguiling chew and char that haunt your dreams and make the pizzas of your youth seem, well, quaint. Customers have responded, and in Chicago, at least, there has been a nascent movement toward an actual artisan pizza category…
“They don’t over-handle the dough, treating each sphere as gently and tenderly as they would give a newborn a bath. They meticulously source (or more likely, make) their sausage, and they know most of the farmers who grow the produce for their toppings… In short, I’m talking about restaurants with very talented cooks in the back who use only the finest ingredients they can get and also happen to make pizzas.”
ROMAN
“One of the guys Anthony ‘Professor Pizza’ Scardino refers to, when praising Chicago’s willingness to adopt new styles, is Gabriele Bonci. The founder of Pizzarium, with several locations in Italy, has expanded on a style called Roman al taglio (‘by the cut’) that’s been around for about fifty years…
“The ‘al taglio' refers to a process involving scissors. You tell the employee behind the counter how much of the pizza you’d like… then they’ll cut it from the rectangular pan and weigh it. You pay by the pound. The slices are topped with all manner of seasonal and regional specialties….
“The pizzas are stretched and baked in large steel rectangular pans, but after they’ve baked on the stone decks of the Castelli ovens imported from Italy and you’ve placed your order, the employee will reheat the slice in a different oven, then cut them into tiny, almost tapas-sized squares for easy eating. The focaccia-like interior is a result of three flours, a lot of water in the dough, and a thirty-six to seventy-two hour fermentation. The second bake ensures a hallmark of all Roman pies: they must be crispy.”
THIN
“Typically, in Chicago, ‘thin’ means tavern-style… But the thins I’m talking about… walk a fine line between long-fermented artisan, sturdy, foldable NYC-style slices, and crispy, light Chicago-thin.
“They are typically fermented for a day, maybe two. They bake in gas, wood, and electric ovens. East Coast ex-pats can relate to their tight heels, easy to pick up and do a three-finger hold. Demerits for tip sag; bonus points for the stability to withstand a fold, hold their shape, and maintain an interior height of just a few millimeters…
“Most of these places are going to be new to pizza fans, and I hope you get a chance to go give them a try. Get out of your usual pizza rut and go explore the city.”
NYC AND BY-THE-SLICE
“Let’s face it: Chicago is not a slice kinda town. Over the course of a day, we never really have the opportunity to walk by a window on the street, point to a slice, have it reheated in a gas or electric oven for two or three minutes, and be on our way.
“Pizza eating in Chicago is about making an appointment. Pizza eating in New York City is about a spur-of-the-moment decision to abate hunger before making your way to the train. In Chicago, we soak up alcohol with tacos, tamales, and sub-par slices. In New York City, the possibility of a transcendent slice is almost always right around the corner.
“What is a ‘New York slice?’ According to my friend and colleague Arthur Bovino… New York-style pizza is ‘a style of pizza that originated from Italian-American immigrants in New York City. New York-style pizza is thought to have first been born in coal-fired brick ovens with fresh mozzarella… generally, the characteristics of New York-style pizza include a pie about a foot-and-a-half wide divided into eight slices with a thin, pliant crust that bends or cracks when folded but never breaks and that is layered with a thin layer of shredded, low-moisture mozzarella and thin, mildly seasoned tomato sauce that completely covers each slice out to the crust, a raised, slightly browned, crunchy end about a half-inch thick.”
Got a favorite style, or better yet a specific pizza place that you think is the epitome of your favorite style? Leave a comment.
Forest Glen Garden Walk This Saturday
Local Food Forum supporter Corrinne Walenda shared the word that she is a host of the garden tour this Saturday in the Forest Glen neighborhood on Chicago’s Northwest Side. It sounds like an opportunity to view lovely gardens and meet some very nice people.
Here is the description from the organizers with a link to register.
Announcing the sixth Forest Glen Garden Walk on Saturday, July 22. Enjoy exclusive one-day access to the gardens of this naturally verdant Chicago neighborhood tucked between two Cook County Forest Preserves. Residents cultivate their yards with great pride and creativity, and the Forest Glen Garden Committee maintains three public gardens in the neighborhood. Rain gardens, koi ponds, impressive hardscapes and unique plant specimens abound in this extremely walkable and charming neighborhood. And, a chance to win a raffle prize. Maybe a gift certificate from your favorite garden center or local restaurant, or landscape services?
Saturday, July 22 10AM-3PM
Welcome Center: Berwyn and Laporte Avenues
Transportation: Metra Milwaukee North, Forest Glen stop; CTA Blue Line + Foster Ave bus. Plentiful free parking. Alternate access: North Branch Bike Trail
Children under 10 free
Each ticket includes one raffle entry
Can You Bake a Cherry Pie?
I met Kim Feil, chief marketing and strategy officer for locally based Aspire Healthy Energy Drinks, through my work with the Naturally Chicago non-profit, and she is a supporter of Local Food Forum.
This past weekend, Kim visited the Deerfield Farmers Market in the north suburbs, and was inspired to buy the beautiful sour cherries in the photo above for a pie.
She said it had been a while and she’d forgotten that pitting cherries is a bit of a process…
… but this thing of beauty made it all worthwhile. Thanks for sharing, Kim, and if you have a kitchen creation made with local ingredients that you’d like to share, our operators are standing by.
And learn more about Aspire Healthy Energy Drinks…
Don’t Worry About a Thing
Hobbes has been with us for seven months. I think he’s feeling pretty comfortable in his forever home.
I love Neapolitan, and I like other styles a lot too.
Gotta chime in and say Neapolitan style is the best style