We
always hear about Chicago's famous pizzas, and we figured we should make the
effort to try one of these sky-high deep-dish or stuffed pizzas while we were
in town for a few days.
Being
from metro Detroit, I was curious about Chicago deep-dish pizza.
Detroiters
are justifiably proud of their tradition as a pizza town. With places like
Buddy's, Loui's, Shield's and Cottage Inn drawing diners for deep-dish pizza,
and chains like Hungry Howie's, Domino's and Little Caesar's headquartered in
Michigan, metro Detroit is a b-i-g pizza town.
We
take our pizza seriously, and, so it seems, does Chicago!
Chicago's
most popular versions of deep-dish pizza appear to differ from Detroit's
version in several respects. Chicago deep-dish pizzas generally come in a round
pan, with the dough pulled up the sides to create a well that is several inches
deep. The tomato sauce goes on top of literally heart-stopping amounts of cheese,
all stuffed into the pizza-dough-well. Pizza here definitely requires a knife
and fork to eat.
The
Detroit deep-dish version I'm most familiar with comes from Buddy's. The
Buddy's deep-dish is a square pizza with sauce placed over some of the
toppings, but the cheese goes on top of the sauce. Buddy's also seems to be one
of the few places around here that can make a decent deep-dish pizza that
arrives at the table with dough that is nicely crispy and chewy at the same
time.
Walking
around town when restaurants usually experience a lull in mid-afternoon in
traffic, we thought it might be a good time to have pizza for early dinner.
We
were wrong...at least as far as going to Pizzeria Uno or Pizzeria Due, which
seemed like the closest locations for that chain from our hotel. There was a
two- to three-hour wait for a meal, and we knew that nothing stood a chance of
standing up to expectations fueled by waiting that long for food. I'm thinking
that a meal hand-served to me on from a 24K gold platter by roller-skating men
in skimpy shorts wouldn't even have managed to live up to such a wait,
especially as neither one of us had eaten since early morning.
I
remembered seeing a Giordano's tucked in between some high-rise buildings near
our hotel, and we managed to walk back to it and get in between the lunch and
dinner rushes.
Giordano's
makes a variety of Chicago deep-dish pizza they bill as "Chicago's World
Famous Stuffed Pizza". The folks at
Giordano's start out with conventional Chicago deep-dish dough in a round pan,
fill the dough well with cheese and a few toppings, top that with another thin
layer of dough, and add the tomato sauce, with maybe another topping or two, on
top of the second dough layer. Check out the Giordano stuffed pizza-making
method in this video.
We
ordered a Giordano's stuffed pizza with sausage and lots of green and black
olives.
Like
most deep-dish pizzas, the stuffed pizza takes a little longer to cook than
thin crust pies. We were pretty hungry by this time, so we ordered a salad as
an appetizer, still saving our appetite for the main event.
Our
pizza arrived about 40 minutes or so later, and even at the smallest size,
looked impressively boat-like with its deep sides.
Our
pie was tasty, there was enough cheese to more than satisfy the most ardent
cheesy pizza lover, the crust wasn't mushy, and we ended up with plenty of
leftovers to take back and stow in the hotel mini-fridge for a snack/meal later
that night.
We
enjoyed our stuffed pizza, and would definitely enjoy eating another one the
next time we visit Chicago.
Waiting
for three hours for it? Probably not.
Chicagoans
can be justifiably proud of their pizzas, and Chicago's stuffed pizza makes a
pretty good meal. But this metro Detroiter has a special place in her heart for
her hometown pies.
© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved
I live in Chicago and find the obsession with Chicago "deep dish" pizza annoying. It's just a tomato quiche. There was a place on Hubbard that made a proper New York style pizza, but not surprisingly, it went out of business.
Posted by: Reaperducer | October 31, 2009 at 01:16 PM
Wayne-I guess it's like anything else...we get tired of what we see/hear every day at home, while those sorts of things are novelties to out-of-town visitors.
I can kind of see the tomato quiche comparison, but that doesn't strike me as all bad. I'm not sure I'd want a steady diet of stuffed pizza, though...way too much food! Our Giordano's pizza had a crispy enough crust, and soggy crust is my pet peeve (no matter what style of pizza I'm having).
What I wish I could find around here is a really good crispy, thin-crust pizza. It's not always easy to find places to make pizza with nice, crisp crust. The fact that our Buddy's Pizza manages to make Detroit-style deep dish with a crust that isn't soggy beyond belief is what makes it our preference at home.
Posted by: Dominique | November 01, 2009 at 12:03 PM