[Chicago Pizza News] Suburban Family Sending 3,000 Pizzas to Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

In the 1990s, Air Force officer Mark Evans of Elk Grove, IL, sent 50 Lou Malnati's pizzas to the troops in Bosnia. Recently, he and his son have decided to repeat history, but on a much bigger scale.

They decided to try to raise money to send 300 Lou Malnati's pies to the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan for a Fourth of July pizza party. The response has been so tremendous that they have increased their goal to 3,000 pizzas.

Anyone interested in helping can send an email to Evans. Kudos to DHL for offering free shipping for all of the pizzas the Evans buy for this project.

[Chicago Pizza News] Piece Offers a Truly Special Delivery

Piece, the New Haven style pizzeria in Wicker Park, is raising money for PAWS Chicago in a rather unique manner. Rick Nielsen, lead guitarist for Cheap Trick, who is an investor in Piece, will turn into a pizza delivery boy for one night and will deliver pizzas to the highest bidder on eBay.

The winner gets five pizzas delivered anywhere within 40 miles of the restaurant, a couple of Rick Nielsen autographed Piece t-shirts, some guitar picks, and they can hang with Rick Nielsen for a bit. None of Piece's award-winning beer is included in the auction.

The auction ends just before noon (Chicago time) on Monday, June 23.

[Special Report] Pizza Rustica

Pizza Rustica
270 Wellington Street, Toronto ON Canada
(416) 260-0200

In the midst of a fine weekend of Cubs baseball and gastronomic excess, my friend and I were looking for a place to eat when we stumbled upon Pizza Rustica (no relation to the Chicago pizzeria with the same name). One look through the window at the pies on peoples' tables and it was an easy decision for us to head inside.

Pizza Rustica is about two blocks north of the Rogers Centre, next door to Wayne Gretzky's (he was a hockey player) restaurant, and a couple of blocks away from Toronto's booming night club scene. Despite it's location, it's a nice quiet restaurant.

We got two pizzas, the Spinach and Blue Cheese which, aside from the obvious, was topped with sun-dried tomato sauce, mozzarella, and sliced roma tomatoes; and the Salsiccia, which came with fresh sausage, sweet red onion, gorgonzola cheese, mozzarella and tomato sauce.

The crust of both pizzas was very thin and yellow - likely the result of the corn meal that seemed to be in it. The oven cooked the pies quickly at about 280 degrees. That might not seem very hot, but the silly Canadians use celcius. In civilization, that's 536 degrees.

Both pizzas were very good. The spinach and blue cheese had fresh spinach and just enough blue cheese to give the pizza a good tanginess, but not so much as to overpower the rest of the pie. The sliced roma tomatoes were a nice treat, as they always are on top of a pizza. I didn't taste anything particularly sun-dried about the tomato sauce, but that may be because there was not much on it.

The Salsiccia also had a good balance between a strong cheese - gorgonzola - and the mozzarella. The sausage, which was obviously fresh, was excellent. Again, I didn't think there was enough sauce, but I never do when eating Neapolitan pizza (or similar styles).

If you're in Toronto, I'd recommend stopping by Pizza Rustica if you're in the mood for pizza, but there was nothing particularly mind-blowing about it that makes it a must-see in anyone's eating tour of the Great White North.


Look at all the friendly, pizza-loving Canadians...


The oven, makin' it happen...


The Salsiccia Pizza...


The Spinach and Blue Cheese Pizza...


Where it went down...

[Chicago Pizza News] Fun Pizza Facts

According to this article, the following are all true:

• There are almost 70,000 pizzerias in the United States
  
• More than 66 percent of them are independently owned
  
• 17% of all U.S. restaurants are pizzerias
  
• Nearly 33 percent of all U.S. restaurants have pizza on their menus.
  
• Chicago is the largest frozen pizza market in the world
  

[Chicago Pizza News] My Pie Down to One Location

When the Chicago Pizza Club recently visited My Pie in Lincoln Park, we were surprised to learn that there had once been 23 different locations in 9 states, but that according to the website there were now only two locations, one in Lincoln Park and one in Bucktown.

It turns out that the out of state locations were franchises and that at some point in the 1980s, the owner decided to stop franchising My Pie and the restaurant went back to being exclusively owner-operated and in Chicago.

In much more recent news, it seems the CPC were among the final visitors to the Lincoln Park location, as it is now closed! The Bucktown location is still open and the company is looking for a new location in Lincoln Park.

[Special Report] Punch Neapolitan Pizza

Punch Neapolitan Pizza
704 Cleveland Ave S, St Paul MN
(651) 696-1066

I went to my college reunion this weekend and may have stumbled on the future of Neapolitan pizza in the United States. Punch Neapolitan Pizza was founded in 1996. Sorrano and his family had moved to Italy when he was 8 and he spent a lot of time in a pizzeria there. While on his honeymoon in France, he was reinspired and opened Punch about six months after getting home. He clearly knew what he was doing as Punch's pizza was certified as authentic by Vera Pizza Napoleatana.

To people who are in love with Neapolitan pizza, that certification is important. More important to the long-term success of Punch is that in 2000, regular customer John Puckett bought into the company. That's the same John Puckett who started Caribou Coffee, sold it, and has a whole lot of money and entrepreneurial experience. There are now five locations in the Twin Cities and a new one is set to open this summer. I suspect there will be many more in the near future.

On to the pizza...

There are two basic pies at Punch: the Margherita which is made with basil, and the Napoli, which is made with oregano. They offer almost 20 different combinations of toppings as well as a build-it-yourself option. All of the pizzas are very thin and cook in an 800 degree wood-burning oven for 90 seconds. As is common with Neapolitan pizza, toppings are fairly sparse and my sausage margherita was no exception. The sausage, which is homemade, is excellent, but there is just not much of it. The sweet sauce, made from crushed San Marzano tomatoes was very good and there was more of it than I expected (but still not enough for my liking). I ordered mine Doppio, which means it has extra mozzarella di buffala. That was a wise decision as the cheese, which is flown in from Naples weekly, was outstanding. Someday I would love to try a stuffed pizza made with mozzarella di buffala. It would cost a fortune, but it would be good.

My cousin got a kid's size margherita with pepperoni which he liked a lot. From what I could tell, the pepperoni was higher in quality than the typical Hormel-style that most places use.

My only complaint about the pizza (aside from my standard gripes about Neapolitan style not having enough toppings or sauce or cheese) was that there was too much olive oil on it. The crust, which had a great taste, was soggy. To eat each piece, I folded the piece in half horizontally and again vertically. That was the easiest way to avoid a mess. And because the pizza is so thin, when I folded it twice, each bite was still smaller than a bite of deep dish or stuffed pizza.

For a Neapolitan pizza, I was very happy with Punch. It was every bit as good as Spacca Napoli, but lacked all of the pretension of the popular Ravenswood spot. Hopefully, the company will expand to Chicago soon.


The Pepperoni...


And the Sausage Pizza...


Behold, the Oven!


Where it went down...

[Special Report] Mineo's Pizza House

Mineo's Pizza House
2128 Murray Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA
(412) 521-9864

A marital union of two pizza club members is always a special occasion, and on Saturday, May 31, El Presidente and Kate (hereinafter known as La Primera Dona) wed. On Sunday, a few Pizza Clubbers and their friends were to visit Mineo's, which is widely recognized as the best pizza in Pittsburgh. Because a number of Pizza Clubbers were much worse for wear on Sunday morning, only four people attended: Stu and I and our respective Pittsburgh friends/hosts, Joe and Alyssa. Alyssa's boyfriend, who was home recovering from the Penguins loss and a truly impressive amount of whiskey, received a share of pizza at home after the visit.

Mineo's offers three kinds of pizza: a regular thin crust, a white pizza and a Sicilian pizza. Of course, we got one of each. The ordering process was complicated as none of us speak Pittsburghese. When I inquired about the size of the pizzas, the answers were all about cuts as in, "you can order a six-cut Sicilian or a whole Sicilian." After much confusion on my part, I figured out that cut is used instead of slices. It was the first time I truly felt dumb ordering pizza.

Anyhow, we got a small meatball thin crust, a small white pizza with tomatoes and a whole sausage Sicilian (only $4 more than a six-cut). The crust on the meatball thin crust was a good, dense crust - almost like a french bread crust. It's unclear if the ground beef that was allegedly a meatball was ever actually shaped into a meatball, but by the time it was on the pizza, it consisted of pretty sparse small pieces of meat. The sauce was smooth and seemed a little pasty - a far stylistic cry from typical Chicago sauces which are much chunkier.

The white pizza was not a traditional white pizza - there was no ricotta cheese. Instead, there was a nice thick layer of provolone cheese. The crust was similar in texture to the thin crust, but had a significant amount of olive oil in it, giving it a yellowish color. We got tomatoes on the white pizza, which was recommended and they went over very well. There was also a decent amount of olive oil on top of the pizza. Or perhaps that was oil from the provolone cheese. Either way, the white pizza was the unanimous favorite at the table.

The Sicilian pizza had a fluffy crust that was about an inch and a half thick. The sauce on the Sicilian did not seem to be as pasty as the sauce on the thin crust pie. It actually seemed to have even less sauce. The sausage, which is homemade, was incredibly tender and, I thought, delicious.

In the end, we had about twice as much pizza as we needed, but we felt we did our duty by trying all three kinds of pizzas offered by the king of all Pittsburgh pizzerias. Although, by eating the pizzas in the restaurant, it seems we may have been in the minority. A lot of people go to Mineo's and get their pizzas "half-baked" and then take them home to cook it themselves.

One interesting Chicago connection: Before Giovanni (John) Mineo opened the place in 1958, he was planning on opening a bakery when he went to Chicago to visit a friend who owned a pizzeria. According to family legend, that friend convinced Mineo to open a pizzeria and taught him how to make pizza. I've never had anything in Chicago remotely similar to Mineo's, but I can't imagine they'd make this up. If anyone knows the name of the Chicago establishment where John learned how to make his pies, I'd love to know.


Trying to bring back the cup...


The crowd-pleasing White Pizza...


Meatball Thin Crust Pizza...


The mighty Sicilian...


Where it went down...

My Pie [Meeting #58]

My Pie
2417 N. Clark Map
773-929-3380

The Chicago Pizza Club invaded My Pie on 5/20/08.

All of the Pizza Clubbers in attendance tonight have walked by My Pie numerous times, but none of us had ever been there (at least not to this location - a couple had been to the much smaller place in Bucktown). The first thing we all noticed was how much bigger the restaurant is than we expected. From the outside, it seems like it would be primarily a take-out place with a few tables. But it's actually a nice, large restaurant with brick walls and heavy wood tables.

My Pie is a family-owned chain that has opened 23 locations in 9 states. They claim to be the first Chicago deep dish pizzeria to open outside of Illinois. It's unclear how many My Pies currently exist since the claim about other locations is in the past tense, but the only two mentioned on the website are both in Chicago. I shall try to solve this pizza mystery someday.

We ordered four pizzas: a deep dish sausage and mushroom; a deep dish pepperoni, onion and garlic; a thin crust roast beef; and a stuffed spinach soufflé. My Pie says that is makes its dough daily and that it uses different dough for the three different styles of pie. In fact, they say they use different cheese, spices, sausage and tomatoes for each of the three types. After about a 40 minute wait, our pies were all delivered to the table.

The thin crust with roast beef had no characteristics that really stood out. The crust drooped when one held up a piece, but there was some debate whether that was because of a flaw in the crust or because of the weight of the beef. There was definitely not a shortage of roast beef on the pizza, but the amount of cheese made it less than easy to taste the roast beef. Indeed another possibility for the lack of sturdiness in the crust may be that the oil that came out of the cheese during cooking softened it up. One thing to note about the crust is that it is thicker than a typical Chicago thin crust like the one at Pat's or Vito & Nicks.

The deep dish pizzas were noticeably different from typical deep dish pizzas in that their crust was not particularly thick. In fact, it seemed no thicker than the crust on the thin pizza. The crust seemed to have a garlic flavor to it and it definitely had a lot of butter, so it wasn't entirely unique for Chicago deep dish, but the crust/cheese breakdown was different. A couple of notes on the toppings: the sausage had a higher fat content than most sausage. Also, while My Pie is generous with the toppings, the chefs are not particularly careful about even distribution. On one slice of my pepperoni, onion and garlic pie, I counted six pieces of pepperoni on top of one another and I had a couple of bites with no pepperoni at all.

The stuffed spinach soufflé was definitely the most unique pizza of the night. Like a traditional stuffed pizza, the cheese and toppings sit between two layers of crust. But while the top layer of crust is normally paper thin, here it was about as thick as the bottom layer. Furthermore, while traditional stuffed pizza has only sauce on top of the top layer of crust, this one seemed to have a little more cheese on top of the crust and under the sauce. It's hard to say what the cause is, but the result is that the stuffed pizza at My Pie does not feel nearly as heavy as a traditional stuffed pizza.

Finally, a word about the sauce. This may have been the chunkiest sauce that I've ever had and there was not even a hint of acidity to it. I could not tell a difference between the sauces on the different pizza, but one reason for the lack of acidity could be, as My Pie claims, that their tomatoes are vine-ripened and only single-cooked, while most canned tomatoes are double or triple-cooked.

For those who are planning on driving, My Pie is on a busy street in a busy neighborhood - parking is sparse. My Pie offers discounted parking just two blocks north at Children's Memorial Hospital for $3.

Petey Pizza Gives My Pie a 6.2/10.


Serving up some deep dish...


The Roast Beef thin crust pizza...


Limp crust makes El Presidente sad...


The Spinache Soufflé


Who knew it was so big?


Where it went down...

[Chicago Pizza News] Vito & Nick's II Expands Again

Vito & Nick's II is owned by Nicholas Barraco II, son of Nicholas Baccaro, who is the Nick in Vito & Nick's, the southside institution at 84th and Pulaski that is home to many Pizza Clubbers favorite thin crust pie. Vito is Nick II's grandfather.

Initially, I assumed that the two were part of the same company and that Vito and Nick's II, which has multiple locations, was just an extension of the original. When I came across this article announcing the opening of another V & N II location, I did some investigating. While Vito and Nick's II emphasizes its ties to the original Vito & Nick's , the original states in block letters on its website, NOT AFFILIATED OR ASSOCIATED WITH VITO AND NICKS II IN MOKENA IL OR ANY LICENSEE OR FRANCHISEE. It seems likely that some family squabble got overblown and that there is some bad blood.

In any event, V & N II seems to be looking to become the Uno's of the thin crust world - the pizza that is the definition of Chicago style in the minds of the rest of the country. Not only does V & N II have six locations in the Chicago suburbs, it also has a location in Gilbert, AZ and is opening one soon in Coral Gables, FL. They also ship frozen pizzas and they are looking for people interested in franchise opportunities.

Perhaps the CPC should invest. But first, we should definitely plan a trip out there to see if the son is as talented as the father.

[Special Report] Imo's Pizza

Imo's
742 S. 4th Street, St. Louis, MO (GoogleMaps)
(314) 421-4667

Stu and I had a lovely day yesterday, making the trek from Chicago to St. Louis to watch the Cubs spank the Cardinals 9-3. As there are some White Sox fans in the CPC, I will respectfully decline to elaborate on the game. But I will write about my return to Imo's Pizza for the first time since I lived in St. Louis in 1998-99.

Imo's, which has been around since 1964, is the most prominent St. Louis pizzeria. It's pies have a cracker-thin crisp crust, a tangy sauce, and provel cheese. What is provel cheese, you ask? It's a cheese that was developed in St. Louis more than fifty years ago and, despite massive globalization in the food industry, is still pretty much only available in St. Louis.

A food reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch did some research into Provel's origins:

It was originally developed to meet perceived demand for a pizza cheese with a "clean bite"—one that melts well but still breaks off nicely when you bite into it. Neither gentleman had a definitive answer for where the name comes from, although one popular theory is that it's a combination of the words provolone and mozzarella, two of the cheeses for which it is substituted.

What the local reporter left out is that provel is actually processed cheese a la American cheese or those lovely Laughing Cow cheese disks. Like other processed cheeses, provel has a wax-like quality that both retains heat and gives it a very chewy texture.

The original Imo's is no more, so Stu and I opted for convenience and went to the location closest to Busch Stadium. We picked up our sausage pie and headed over to the Arch to enjoy St. Louis' pizza under St. Louis' classic monument.

While I understand why provel has not caught on nationally, I enjoyed the pizza. We had to walk about 3/4 of a mile from Imo's to the Arch, but the pizza was still warm and the crust still had it's cracker-like crispness. The sausage was nothing special, but there was a decent amout of it on the pizza.

Imo's was a nice trip down memory lane for me and I'm glad I went. That said, if I don't eat it for another ten years, I'll be just fine.

A couple of Chicago-related notes. First, Hoffman's, the Milwaukee cheese manufacturer that developed provel with a St. Louis grocery store, is now owned by Northbrook-based Kraft Foods. Second, Feed the Beast, a bar and restaurant in Chicago, is owned by a St. Louis native and serves St. Louis style pizza, complete with provel cheese. Perhaps the CPC will visit someday.


Award Winning St. Louis Pizza... at least until 1999...


I wonder what's inside?


Oh yeah... Pizza!


Dan enjoys a square under the Arch...


Where it went down...

[Chicago Pizza News] Homer Simpson's Wildest Dream Has Come True

If you read this blog, the chances are you love pizza. If you love pizza, the chances are you love beer. You probably even love pizza with beer. But what about pizza-flavored beer?

Too good to be true, your inner Homer says? Well, a suburban Chicago couple has developed Mamma Mia Pizza Beer. It's being brewed and bottled by Sprecher Brewing Company in Wisconsin.

If you are in Chicago, head over to Sam's and pick it up for $1.99/bottle. If you are not in Chicago, you can order it online.

[Chicago Pizza News] Pizza.com sells for $2.6 million

In 1994, Chris Clark registered the domain name pizza.com when he had a consulting company and was hoping to get some contracts with a pizza company. He sold his consulting company in 2000, but continued to spend $20 a year to keep the website. He just sold it for $2.6 million.

Perhaps someday, some fool will give the CPC $50 for our website. That would be awesome.

[Chicago Pizza News] Pennsylvania Town Has Delusions of Grandeur

Chicagoans have enough trouble dealing with self-important New Yorkers declaring their hometown to be the best place in the world for pizza. But now it appears there's another whose populace we're going to have to listen to. Old Valley Forge, PA, population 10,000, has
declared itself to the Pizza Capital of the World.

This is obviously silly, but the town, located 5 miles outside of Scranton, does seem to have an interesting pizza history and a high concentration of pizzerias. For one thing, the local places do not use mozzarella cheese. I'm not sure what cheese they actually use - it's apparently a secret. The pizzas there are rectangular and come in two varieties, red, which has sauce, and white, which has none. The white pizza is particularly unique as it has an equally-thick layer of crust on top and on the bottom.

About the Rankings

One of the stated goals of the Chicago Pizza Club is to rank the pizzas we consume. We have used a basic scale of 1-10, which works fine. The only problem has been that we have not used a guide for what different numbers mean. As a result, we noticed that many of our numerical rankings did not accurately reflect our feelings about the rankings of the pizzas.

So, when looking at numbers assigned before April 23, 2008, know that the guide was not in place.

For pizzerias we visit after April 23, 2008, here is a guide to the numbers:

• 10 - A perfect pizza, one that cannot be bettered in any way
• 8 - An excellent mix of quality ingredients and flavors; I would gladly eat this pizza regularly
• 6 - A good pizza, perhaps very good in some respects, but only average in others (often found in pies with good toppings, but flavorless crusts)
• 4 - Tolerable if no other options are around and I am really hungry
• 2 - Pizza by definition only (has all the "right" ingredients and is cooked in an oven, but has no redeeming features)
• 0 - Cannot finish a slice

[Chicago Pizza News] Uno's Seeks to Move Further From Chicago Pizza Roots

Last week, I wrote about Uno's Chicago Grill being named the healthiest chain restaurant in America. Well, the Boston-based pizza chain (yes, you read that right - Uno's has been a Boston corporation for years) is not content in its quest for healthy food.

The Boston Globe reported today that Uno's is getting close to unveiling a low-calorie, gluten-free deep-dish pizza.

[Chicago Pizza News] You Think Gas Has Gone Up - Check Out Pizza Ingredients

In what could be the most devastating story so far in this recession that everyone but the current President seems agree we are entering, the prices for some key pizza ingredients are skyrocketing. According to the New York Times,

Flour prices are up 93 percent from February 2007 to February this year, and cheese jumped 25 percent, federal statistics show.

However, relief could be on the way. According to this profile of how rising costs have affected a couple small pizzerias in Malden, MA,

Ramsey said he expects wheat and flour prices to fall in the next six months, as U.S. farmers begin to harvest winter wheat in June. Ramsey said he also anticipates that tomato prices — assuming that the weather cooperates — and cheese costs will come down, too.

[Meet the Members] Fred

Screen Name: N/A

Real Name: Fred

Came out of the Oven: Unknown, rescued at a young age in Chicago (Lakeview)

Favorite toppings: I love every one I've tried, but some of the spicier ones don't agree with my stomach

First Pizza Club Meeting: Chain Pizza Extravaganza, March 21, 2008; ate leftovers beginning with O'Fame Italian Restaurant, October 5, 2006

Favorite Deep Dish Pizza: Every one I've tried

Favorite Stuffed Pizza: Every one I've tried

Favorite Thin Crust Pizza: Every one I've tried

Favorite Pizza outside of Chicago: Have never tried any, but I think I'd like all of them

Had Pizza in the Motherland? No

What Do You Do When Not Eating Pizza? I sleep, I hump, I poop, and I eat. Not necessarily in that order.

Personal Pizza Statement: There is no such thing as a bad pizza. It is tied as my favorite food with: beef, chicken, fish, pork, shrimp, lamb, cheese, marshmallow fluff, pumpkin pie, cookies, yogurt, animal crackers, broccoli, ice cream, burritos, rice, grease from hamburgers, pasta, sour cream, tortilla chips, pita chips, potato chips, Trader Joe's pot stickers, Gatorade, mayonnaise, and eggs.

[Chicago Pizza News] Uno's Named Healthiest Chain Restaurant

Health Magazine has named Uno's Chicago Grill (the national version of our local institution) the healthiest chain restaurant in the United States. Sadly, this is not because deep dish pizza is a treat for dieters, but because of other offerings on the menu. But if you're not counting calories and happen to be in a mall somewhere with someone who is, Uno's can be a good compromise. There are currently over 200 Uno's spread across 29 states.

[Meet the Members] Marla Collins' Husband

Screen Name: Marla Collins Husband

Real Name: Daniel Zemans

Came out of the Oven: Chicago (Hyde Park)

Favorite toppings: Sausage and mushrooms

First Pizza Club Meeting: O'Fame Italian Restaurant, October 5, 2006

Favorite Deep Dish Pizza: Lou Malnati's

Favorite Stuffed Pizza: Bacino's

Favorite Thin Crust Pizza: Vito and Nick's

Favorite Pizza outside of Chicago: Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix

Had Pizza in the Motherland? Yes, in Rome, and it was a dry cracker with too little cheese, too little sauce, and too few toppings.

What Do You Do When Not Eating Pizza? My time away from pizza is divided between the Cubs and figuring out what to do with my life. I'm still technically a lawyer, but most of the work I do does not require a law degree. I work at home, which gives me lots of time to research pizza and stare lovingly into the eyes of my favorite pizza club member, Fred. Oh, I also have a blog.

Personal Pizza Statement: Growing up in Hyde Park, I was aware of three pizzerias: Giordano's, Edwardo's and Medici. In my mind, the stuffed pizza at Giordano's and Edwardo's was the definition of Chicago-style pizza. They both served (and still serve) thin crust pizza, but I don't think I've ever had it. Medici serves a pan pizza and a thin crust (again, never tried it). I was not a big fan of Medici. I did like going there once a year to make my own pizza, something I got to do because the owner's daughter was in my elementary school class, but compared to stuffed pies, the pan pizzas had no chance. I had heard of Lou Malnatti's because they used to advertise on the back of Bulls tickets in the early 80s, but I don't ever remember having pizza in Chicago outside of Hyde Park. I do remember when I was eleven and visiting relatives in southern California who insisted on taking us to their favorite pizza place in LA. I was served a large pile of ass, beginning my realization that the best pizza on the planet was in my hometown.

I didn't try a more traditional deep dish pizza until a friend visited Chicago during college and wanted to try Gino's East. I thought it was good (especially the amount of sausage), but found it didn't have enough cheese. After college in Minnesota where the only pizza I had was a local late night delivery place, and a year in St. Louis, home of provel cheese pizza, I returned to Chicago and worked two blocks from a Lou Malnatti's. I ventured over there one day for lunch and my pizza worldview was changed forever. I still like stuffed pizza, but Lou Malnatti's is the pie I crave the most.

After foolishly leaving Chicago to spend three years in New York, I was forced to start eating thin crust pizza. New York has plenty of good pizza and whole lot of bad pizza. That said, the city did open my eyes to the possibility that thin crust pizza could be a satisfying meal, but I was content limiting my pizza intake to deep dish and stuffed.

Since joining the Chicago Pizza Club, my pizza passion and palate have both increased exponentially. I actually crave thin crust occasionally, but my heart belongs to pizzas that are at least two inches thick.

Pat's Pizza [Meeting #56]

Pat's Pizza
2679 N. Lincoln Ave. (GoogleMaps)
(773) 271-7725

CPC invaded Pat's Pizza on 4/16/08.

The Chicago Pizza Club is growing. 8 people showed up tonight, including two new members. The venue, Pat's Pizza, has been in Lakeview since 1950. For most of that time, it was at 3114 N. Sheffield, a location that was recently replaced with a rather unattractive condo development across the street from the Vic Theater. Pat's moved about six blocks away to its current location. Fortunately, they remembered to bring their award-winning pizza recipes with them.

Pat's was recently named by Time Out Chicago as having the best bar style pizza in the city, suspiciously placing it one slot ahead of south side institution, Vito and Nick's. The CPC had to investigate.

The eight of us ordered five pies: A large thin quatro formagi, a large thin goat cheese and artichoke, a medium thin pesto and a medium thin taco pizza. In CPC-order-some-of-everything style, we also got a large pan sausage pizza. I am pleased to report that every pie was an unqualified success.

The quatro formagi was a spectacular blend of ricotta, gorgonzola, mozzarella, and parmesan. And garlic, a good amount of garlic. Sauce is optional of the four cheese pizza and we opted to have it. There wasn't much of it and with the heavy cheese flavor and the garlic, I didn't even notice it. The crust on the quatro formagi, like all of the thin crusts, was outstanding. It was cracker thin, not too oily to the touch, but with enough oil or butter to give it a lot more flavor than I expected from a crust so thin.

The taco pizza was topped with seasoned ground beef, refried beans, salsa, cheddar, mozzarella, lettuce, carrot, tomato and black olives. This was my introduction to taco pizza, though it has been ordered at a couple previous CPC meetings I did not attend, so I don't have a basis to compare it to. But those toppings, complemented by the perfect crunchy thin crust, made one excellent pizza.

The pesto pizza and the goat cheese and artichoke pizza were also both delicious. Particularly nice about the latter was the amount of goat cheese. Often, pizzerias put a couple of dollops of goat cheese on. Not so here - I think there was an entire layer. I would have preferred season artichoke hearts rather than the ones on this pie, that's a minor quibble.

I was initially hesitant to order the pan pizza as Pat's is so well known for it's thin crust pies. But I was quickly reminded that the CPC tries it all and I acquiesced. I'm glad I did. We got a simple pan pizza - nothing but Pat's homemade sausage. First, a word about the crust. I've never had a crust like this. It was about three times as thick as the thin crust (maybe 1/4 inch), but it was crunchy - like a well toasted piece of very good lightly-seasoned focaccia. The homemade sausage was delicious, though it was in such small bits that it was impossible to isolate a piece and eat it without the sauce. Speaking of the sauce, it was very noticeable on the pan pizza and that was a good thing. While not my favorite - I like a chunkier sauce and this one was chunk-free, the flavor was good - well-seasoned and not too sweet.

The food came quickly (less than 20 minutes), the service was good, the Cubs were beating the Reds on the big screen television, and the ambiance was fine, though a bit sterile (but the tablecloths and crayons were an unexpected nice touch). I was a little surprised that we had the restaurant to ourselves most of the night, but I think they do a big take-out business. Unlike the original location, this one is not BYOB.

As far as comparing Pat's to Vito & Nick's, I'm still torn. I definitely like the crust at Pat's, but I'm not sure about the toppings. The ambiance at Vito & Nick's is vastly superior, but since Pat's is five blocks from my house and Vito and Nick's is far away, my days of going to Vito & Nick's will be few and far between.

Petey gives Pat's Pizza an 8.0375/10.


The Sausage Pan Pizza


Taco Pizza!

Artichoke and Goat Cheese

Quatoro Formagi

The Pesto Pizza

The Chicago Pizza Club in action

Where it went down...