A Chicago pizza expert's guide to the city's best pies

Outside Chicago, the term "Chicago-style pizza" is invariably associated with the deep-dish pie that's often mocked by out-of-towners as "lasagna in a bread bowl". But true Chicagoans know that the city and its suburbs are actually home to three iconic styles of pizza: deep-dish, stuffed and Chicago thin – AKA: "tavern style".

"People think Chicago is all deep-dish and was invented by the Uno's guys," says renowned local food reporter Steve Dolinsky, who published Pizza City, USA in 2018, documenting all of the region's delicious styles. "But there's so much more to it."

The story of Chicago pizza doesn't start with a deep dish, but with a tavern. In the 1940s, when men habitually popped into bars after work, "bartenders realised that by serving a salty snack, they'd sell more beer," says Dolinsky, whose book led to a Pizza City podcast, Pizza City tours and the wildly popular Pizza City Fest. "With the advent of gas ovens, they started making thin-crust pies, which they'd cut into squares and pass around the bar on cocktail napkins for free."

Then, in 1943, when Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo opened a bar in Chicago's busy River North area, Riccardo used cake pans inherited from the bar's previous occupant to develop a deep-dish pizza, leading the duo to open The Pizzeria (later renamed Pizzeria Uno). "Unlike its thin-crust predecessor, this dough was pressed into a pan," explains Dolinsky. "They topped it with cheese to protect the dough, then added toppings and a chunky tomato sauce." 

Fast forward to 1971 and Rocco Palese's invention of the stuffed pizza at Nancy's; purportedly inspired by his mother's pizza rustica (Italian stuffed savoury pie).

"All visitors and most locals still don't understand stuffed is a sub-category of deep-dish," says Dolinsky. "It bears little resemblance to a classic deep-dish or even a deep-pan pizza, due to that thin second layer of dough. Fortunately, we have so many other styles of pizza here, you don’t have to rely on just one.”

Here are Dolinsky's favourite pizzas in Chicago.

Quintessential tavern-style

1. Best for the thin-crust diehard: Pat's Pizzeria on North Lincoln Avenue 

Pat's opened in 1950, bringing their spin on thin-crust pizza to Chicago's North Side, where it was a smash hit.

The magic here is in Pat's iconic dough, says Dolinsky, which is proofed overnight, then put through a dough sheeter (used to flatten pizza dough into large sheets), which helps to make a really thin crust. The "skins" are then cured in a cooler for about three days. "After the dough is sheeted, it's laid between sheets of paper and put on a rack to let it really dry out," explains Dolinsky.

The result is one of the thinnest pizza crusts in Chicago, which is topped from edge to edge with sauce, cheese and crumbled fennel sausage before it's baked to a crisp. Dolinsky likens it to eating "a salty cracker dipped in tomato sauce".

2. Best for a true working-class pizza: The Original Vito & Nick’s Pizzeria

This family business originated in 1923 as a tavern on the South Side of Chicago; in 1946, they became one of the city's first thin-crust pizza makers. "This pizza starts with a thin layer of tomato sauce topped with pinched and pressed raw bulk Italian sausage, which renders delicious fat into the pie as it's baked," says Dolinsky.

The cracker-thin pizza is finished with handfuls of whole milk mozzarella. Due to baking directly on the hot stone deck of the oven, the bottom (or "undercarriage") has blistered, charred spots that add to the texture. It's cut into squares, and whether you go for the crackly edges or cheesier middle is up to you.

Nick Barraco, the founder, declared in 1965 that they would never deliver their pizza, which is honoured to this day, as is the pizza's original recipe. 

3. Best for a chef-driven tavern-style pie: Pizza Matta

Jason Vincent is the James Beard award-winning chef and owner of Giant and Chef's Special Cocktail Bar. During the pandemic, he started making pizza from a portable truck and in 2023 he opened Pizza Matta next door to Giant.

When Vincent first opened Pizza Matta, he was serving East Coast-style pizza by the wedge-shaped slice. Once he perfected that pie, he added a tavern-style pizza as a weekly special. Because it was so successful, it's now on the regular menu and customers can get both styles every day.

"Vincent's pies are perfectly thin and crispy, and being the accomplished chef that Vincent is, he finishes his pizza with SarVecchio, a dry, shredded, salty and nutty cheese from Wisconsin that resembles Parmesan in flavour," says Dolinsky. Vincent also uses sausage, ham and chicken from a farm in Michigan, premium pepperoni from Ohio and mushrooms cultivated in Chicago.

4. Best for vegetarians: My Pi

This famed spot was founded in 1971 by Larry Aronsen and is now run by his son, Rich. Larry opened My Pi because he loved Uno and its sister pizzeria, Due; tinkering with the pie to make his own version

What makes My Pi so special? "It's known for this secret spice mix, which Larry makes at home and gives to Rich to add to the tomato sauce," says Dolinsky. No one knows the recipe but Larry, who put the mysterious formula in his will so that Rich can one day make the mix. "While most pies get a ton of flavour from the rendered sausage," says Dolinsky, "this one is great for vegetarians because the spices add that flavour."

This is a one-hand pie: firm, no flopping, with a crisp-tender dough. It earns Dolinsky's stamp of OBR – optimal bite ratio – meaning every bite has the perfect mix of crust, cheese, sauce and topping.

5. Best for a taste of 1940's original deep-dish: Lou Malnati's

Lou Malnati started his pizza-making career managing Uno and Due but after being turned down when he tried to buy the businesses, he opened his namesake pizza spot in 1971. The business now has more than 70 locations throughout Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Arizona.

This deep-dish pizza is made with plenty of oil in the dough, which helps it spread in the bottom and up the sides of the pan and creates a sturdy crust. It has thin slices of Wisconsin mozzarella spread across the bottom. The sauce at Lou's gets great acidity from chunky California tomatoes and it’s finished with a bit of pecorino Romano cheese. Be sure to order the fennel sausage "crumbled", or they’ll press a sausage patty right into the pizza, which sits in the pie like a manhole cover. "You can upgrade to a Buttercrust (pizza crust made with butter instead of oil) for $0.75 more," says Dolinsky, "but word on the street is it's just more oil in the dough." 

6. Best for a great deep-pan pie: Labriola

In 2014, pizza in Chicago took a new course when Rich Labriola, a former commercial baker, opened Labriola just off Michigan Avenue. "Labriola ferments his dough for two to three days. This allows the yeast to eat the sugar to develop carbon dioxide during the ferment, which gives the dough some lift and airiness," says Dolinsky, explaining that this helps the dough maintain shape during baking. 

There's a nice Midwestern spin here with nods to corn: Labriola incorporates corn oil in the dough, and then lines the bottom of the pan with coarse cornmeal to provide some texture underneath, but also to help release the pizzas when they’re finished baking.

Much like in Detroit (which has its own style of pizza), the cheese is spread to the very edge of the pie, so as it bakes, the cheese seeps down between the dough and the pan and burns a little, getting super crunchy like a frico (a crispy Italian cheese cracker). This is a thicker pizza that definitely demands to be eaten with a knife and fork.

7. Best for the tastiest crust: George's Deep-Dish

The award-winning pies at George's Deep Dish are based on Greek lagana, a flatbread similar to focaccia that's only eaten on Shrove Monday ahead of Easter. George Bumbaris, the eponymous founder, was inspired by the bread from Grevena, the region in northern Greece where his father was born. He uses a natural sourdough starter and cold ferments the ball of dough for at least two nights, yielding one of the tastiest crusts in Chicago. "You must get the pinched and pressed sausage here so that fat renders into the pie as it bakes," advises Dolinsky. 

Bumbaris comes from the fine-dining world, so he takes a slightly more studied approach to pizza than the average pizzamaker. He’s also clever with his pizza names, with fun names like Orwell's Farm (a vegetarian pie) and Clooney's ER (with sausage, meatballs, pepperoni and bacon). 

8. Best pie for true pizza indulgence: Nancy's (West Loop)

There's some confusion about Nancy's, which people often say serves deep-dish pizza. Incorrect: it's stuffed pizza. Back in 1971, when Annunziata Palese and her husband, Rocco, took over Guy's Pizza, Rocco went home to Italy and was inspired by his mother's pizza rustica. When he came back to Chicago, he built a deep-dish pizza with a bottom crust, topped it with cheese and fillings, then placed another thin layer of the dough over the pie, poked holes in it, and put tomato sauce on top of that. The stuffed pie at Nancy's was born. 

You know a pizza is stuffed when it's as high as the pan in which it's baked. "These pies are heavy," said Dolinsky. "I wouldn’t recommend eating more than a slice – maybe two if that’s all you’re going to eat for a meal." 

-bbc