Comments on Chicago Pizza Club: Gruppo di Amici [Meeting #99]

Gruppo gets a 6.5 from me as well. I like seafood...

2010-10-24T17:04:17.863-05:00

Gruppo gets a 6.5 from me as well.

I like seafood pizza, but this one turned into a sloppy meal with flavors that didn't mesh as well as you would expect. My main problem was that the tuna just wasn't good enough to showcase on its own.

Liked the mushroom heavy flavor (because I love mushrooms), but didn't like that the pizza became a greasy mess with a crust that lost any of its differentiating characteristics from soggy bread.

Unsurprisingly, the salsiccia was my favorite pizza because it followed the KISS method of pizza making. Nothing particularly outstanding about the sausage that I could detect - just standard Chicago sausage high quality stuff. the crust held up best here.

I will note that this place would be a nice date place if one were inclined to go on dates. Not that anyway here was bad, but it didn't inspire me to drive that far north in the future.

Gruppo di Amici turned out to be a mixed bag of tr...

2010-07-26T15:28:45.220-05:00

Gruppo di Amici turned out to be a mixed bag of tricks for me last week. I enjoyed eating two out of my four pizza slices. My first of the evening (and of my favorites) was the four cheese pizza. There were lots of cheesy flavors going on, and the crust was buttery and crisp, reminiscent of pita chips. There wasn't any tomato sauce on this slice, but I didn't miss it. The other slice I really enjoyed was the Salsiccia. AJ is right, this wasn't a spicy sausage, but there was definitely good sausage flavor. Although the chunks were big, there could have been more of them on the pie overall. The Funghi e Prosciutto on the other hand, had way too much weighing that crust down. The proscuitto was plentiful, and there were layers and layers of mushrooms. They tasted ok, but it was a wet mess. The mare also didn't skimp on the tuna or olives either, so that was one fishy tasting pizza. Not my thang...though I did eat it...all.

To conclude, I found half of the pies we tried pretty good, and the place itself was comfortable. If I'm up north and not heading to Pita Inn, I would swing by Gruppo for a cheese or sausage pizza, and maybe even try a risotto cake cause that sounded pretty interesting.

Gruppo di Amici gets a 6.5.

My favorites were the sausage pizza and the cheese...

2010-07-26T14:57:06.243-05:00

My favorites were the sausage pizza and the cheese pizza. I liked the sauce and the crust and thought the overall pie was well-balanced. The four-cheese pizza was more exciting, simply because they chose strong, distinct cheeses with a lot of flavor.

I'm almost never a fan of fish on pizza, so it's not really fair for me to say I didn't like the tuna. If you like fish on pizza, this is probably good for you. If you don't like fish on pizza, skip this one for sure.

The mushroom pizza was a overwhelmingly earthy. Again, if you love a really earthy, mushroomy-y pizza, go for it.

Overall, this is a nice place with good pizza that could use a little tweaking. I give it 7.0 out of 10.

I do not have much more to add to the review. I w...

2010-07-22T19:19:39.403-05:00

I do not have much more to add to the review. I will be going back to Gruppo soon in order to try their pasta offerings.

6.5 out of 10