Chicago Pizza Club: Cafe Florian

Caffe Florian
1450 E. 57th Street (Google Maps)
773-752-4100

CPC invaded Caffe Florian on 3/29/06

Caffe Florian is one of many restaurants in Hyde Park that make pizza. During orientation at the U of C you quickly become familiar with The Medici, Caffe Florian, Pizza Capri, and Edwardo's since every function you attend has pizza from all of these places. Surprisingly, the university neglects to provide its students with Cholie's Pizza, but that's a different story. There are three reactions to the pizza offerings at these meetings. You can be (1) a rube and declare how delicious it all was compared to the standards (Pizza Hut and Domino's), (2) from Chicago and feel disheartened that Hyde Park doesn't contain good pizza, or (3) an East Coast snob and hate the pizza because it wasn't made in New York and OMFG, did you realize we're not in New York anymore???

Eventually you come to realize a few things

Cholie's is bad in a good way; the adjacent Falcon Inn is just bad
The pizza wasn't so bad, it was just laying in cardboard boxes for half an hour before anyone touched it
On second thought, the Medici really is that bad. Just because they let you carve your name anywhere you want doesn't mean the overpriced pizza is any good.

Though Hyde Park residents are split on their favorite pizza, Caffe Florian always has supporters that endorse its crust as the only one in Hyde Park worth a damn. Plus, it is BYOB, a handy touch for the cheap, the discerning, and the underaged. We sat down at the big booth in the back and ordered the following pies:

Thin Crust, Pepperoni, Garlic, Onion
Pan (regular), Ham, Basil
Pan (wheat), the special Artichoke Pesto pizza

It was pretty empty on this Wednesday evening and the pizza came very quickly, in 22 minutes. Our waiter was quick and unobtrusive, a refreshing change from our recent experiences and I didn't mind giving him his 18% gratuity for parties of 6 or more. All the ingredients that were sliced (ham, garlic, onion) were finely diced. I appreciated this because it ensured a better flavor distribution even if there is less texture. The artichoke pesto pizza was still covered in tomato sauce and not just pesto. As I said earlier, Florian is BYOB and good thing. For 3 pizzas and 7 people, it came to $9.50 per person. For anyone in their delivery area, I remember that they include little packets of cheese, oregano, and red pepper flakes in their orders. Now that's service. It's also right next to the 57th street Electric Metra line if anyone is going home to the south suburbs and wants some pizza.

Petey gives Caffe Florian a score of 8.6