It might be a new year with a new president, but one thing remains the same: Chicagoans will always eat more pizza. Perhaps the pandemic has us all craving the comfort of dough, sauce and melted cheese, but even though we cataloged a surprising number of new pizzerias a few months ago, more kept opening. So many have opened since then, we realized we’d have to go back on the pizza beat.
Instead of slinging the same standard pie, restaurants are embracing the freedom that pizza provides, from specializing in different regional styles to experimenting with completely different cuisines.
Of course, by the time you read this, there inevitably will be more new pizzerias to try. We already know about Pizza Boy (6694 N. Northwest Hwy.), a promising new pizzeria from Carlo Bertolli, which plans to open very soon. Plus, virtual pizzerias (run out of another restaurant’s space) like Fold Pizza Co. continue to proliferate.
But in the meantime, here’s where you should place your next takeout order.
Pizza Lobo
This Logan Square pizzeria opened right before we put together our list of the best 25 pizzas in the city. While impressed, I wanted to give the restaurant some time to work out a few kinks. Fortunately, those are gone, and now Pizza Lobo is serving some of the best thin-crust pizza in the city.
Owner Dan Snowden, who also ran Bad Hunter until it closed last year, admits that the pizza took a long time to get right. “When Bad Hunter was on hiatus, I dove into making pizza and fell in love with it,” says Snowden. He wanted to recreate the pizza he grew up devouring on the East Coast, which meant a very thin crust with chewy, crispy ends. “Growing up in Boston, that’s the kind of pizza that I got accustomed to,” says Snowden. “Eventually, we got a pizza oven, and just went to town trying to perfect it.”
After “lots and lots of research and lots of trial and error,” he settled on a pizza dough that begins with a sourdough starter and requires three days of cold fermentation. “I wanted elasticity with each bite, along with it being really crispy,” says Snowden. The first thing you’ll notice about the pizza is how unbelievably thin it is in the middle. It somehow manages to stand up to the toppings, though like most East Coast pizzas, the middle will droop if you try to pick it without practicing good pizza folding technique before consuming.
3000 W. Fullerton Ave., 312-265-1745, pizzalobo.com
Masala Pizza and Moti Modern Indian Kitchen
Like a lot of restaurateurs back in March 2020, Moti Cafe owner Jay Patel realized he needed to act fast to stay in business. His quick-service Indian restaurant in River North was struggling because of the coronavirus pandemic. But he noticed that a certain kind of restaurant was doing better than others. “I noticed pizza sales were off the charts,” says Patel. “We immediately started experimenting with Indian pizza.”
Less than a year later, he opened Masala Pizza, a virtual Indian pizzeria, which other restaurants can partner with to bring in more money. “We provide our sauces to existing pizzerias, so it can give them another source of revenue,” says Patel. “We teach them, give them training documents and recipe sheets.” Currently, you can order Masala Pizza in the suburban Naperville and Aurora area from masalapizzacompany.com. But don’t despair city folk, because you can also order Indian pizza at Moti Cafe.
That’s where I picked up the chicken tikka pizza ($17.49), a colorful creation featuring marinated chicken drizzled with a creamy and spicy house made Moti sauce and bright green cilantro lime sauce. The crust is very thin, allowing you to appreciate all the toppings.
This is certainly not the only place to find Indian pizza. Superkhana International has been serving it for years, but there does seem to be an uptick in the number of places in the suburbs, including Shaahi Pizza (258 Town Center Lane, Glendale Heights).
“I think Indian pizza is going to go mainstream,” says Patel. “A lot of people are still scared to try Indian food, thinking it’s spicy. I think this breaks down that barrier. The whole world knows what pizza is, but we are giving it an Indian twist.”
70 W. Huron St., motichicago.com and masalapizzacompany.com
Pizza Finestra
Superkhana International has been exploring Indian pizza, and butter chicken calzones, on its menu for a couple years now. But since the pandemic, owners Zeeshan Shah and Yoshi Yamada have been open to suggestions from their employees. You may remember their Takeaway Bagel concept by then-employee Kelly Helgesen (which sadly ended recently). But employee Cornelius Bouknight had an idea for Roman-inspired pizza, now going by the name of Pizza Finestra. (The name refers to the fact that customers pick up the pizza from the restaurant’s side window, as “finestra” means “window” in Italian.)
“I went to Rome on my honeymoon and fell in love with the food,” says Bouknight. “I was captivated by the toppings. Like a lot of Italian food, it’s all about taking four or five high quality ingredients and letting them shine.”
In other words, toppings are kept to a bare minimum. The pizza bianca ($9) features the crust just brushed with olive oil and salt. Pizza rossa ($12) adds a thin layer of tomato sauce. The busiest offering is the pizza con patate e rosmarino ($16), which features a layer of thinly sliced potato topped with onion and rosemary.
Instead of austere or boring, these carefully topped pizzas allow you to appreciate the remarkable crust. Bouknight explains that the dough has a remarkably high hydration level of about 80%, and needs three days of cold fermentation. Thanks to all the water that evaporates in the hot oven, the dough becomes particularly airy, with delicately crisp crust.
B Square Pizza
Mychael Bonner, a chef/partner at four Lettuce Entertain You restaurants (Saranello’s, Di Pescara, The Ivy Room and Petterino’s), also had to figure out how to adapt in 2020. He decided to partner with Saranello’s executive chef Michael Brownell to create B Square Pizza, which specializes in Detroit-style.
While Brownell, a Michigan native, was already a fan of the style, it took Bonner some time to come around. “I grew up a thin pizza fan,” admits Bonner. “I find it hard to have too much crust. So I really wanted to create something that was airy, crispy and not as thick.” To accomplish this, the dough gets a four-day fermentation. “The long fermentation process makes it easier to digest,” explains Bonner.
Sure enough, the pizza is thinner than most Detroit-style pizzas in Chicago, yet the interior is open and airy, not dense and heavy. Even though Chicago already has a number of great Detroit-style pizzas, this is definitely worth trying if you’re a fan of the style.
At first, the pizza was available only at Saranello’s location in suburban Wheeling (601 N. Milwaukee Ave., Wheeling). But as Bonner explains, the demand was “getting out of control.” Now the pizza is also available at Osteria Via Stato (620 N. State St.), a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant in River North.
Bill’s Original Tavern Pizza
Another virtual restaurant from the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group, Bill’s Original Tavern Pizza is named for RPM Restaurant’s partner, Bill Rancic, who grew up on thin-crust tavern-style pizza on the South Side. But it was chef Sam Dickstein of Pizzeria Portofino who was tasked with creating the recipe. After a whirlwind tour of local tavern-style pizzerias, it was back to the kitchen for three weeks of recipe testing.
“I kept messing with the hydration of the dough,” says Dickstein, adding that he eventually settled on 51 percent hydration, which is much lower than the dough used at Pizzeria Portofino. “I want to create that perfect bite. It needs to have enough sauce and cheese, but not too much. I think I found a great balance.”
Like the best tavern-style pizzas, the crust is remarkably thin with a crispy, crackerlike crunch. I’d suggest topping the pie with fatty nuggets of intensely seasoned Italian sausage ($18 for the 12-inch). You can pick up the pizza in River North at Pizzeria Portofino, and at the Bub City location in suburban Rosemont.
Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream
Wait, haven’t I already written about this matter-of-factly named Bridgeport shop? When I visited in the fall, the kitchen served exceptional thick-crusted Sicilian slices. Now, they’ve gone all in on thin, tavern-style pizza.
Why the switch? According to co-owner Cecily Federighi, the restaurant thought that tavern-style would do better in the winter. “Our generic name allows us to experiment with a lot of different kinds of pizza,” says Rodriguez. “Tavern-style is delivery friendly and good for families. Plus, everyone else started doing Sicilian slices.”
To get the pizza so outrageously thin, the dough is rolled and left to cure in the fridge for a week. “That’s how you get the nice, crisp texture and intense flavor,” says Rodriguez.
Whatever the process, it’s working. Thanks to the delicately crunchy crust and high-quality ingredients, it’s easily one of the best tavern-style pizzas in Chicago. It’s also helped by my favorite locally made Italian sausage, which is based on a recipe from the restaurant and made by Makowski’s Real Sausage Co. in Bridgeport.
960 W. 31st St., 773-565-4192, pfcic.com
Pazza Pizza
As I noted last year, Chicago isn’t exactly filled with many great pizza-by-the-slice spots, especially compared to New York. But thanks to a host of openings, this is beginning to change. Go ahead and add Pazza Pizza in Old Town to that list.
It’s owned by Adi Halimi, whose family used to run a bakery and pizzeria in Kosovo, Albania, before they became refugees during the Kosovo War and moved to the United States. “The pizza is almost the same as in Kosovo, but we had to adjust it a little for Chicago,” says Halimi.
All the dough is given 36 to 48 hours of cold fermentation before it’s ready. “The taste gets so much better after 36 hours.” says Halimi.
Like any good New York-style pizza, each slice is impressively thin, and topped with just the right amount of cheese and sauce ($3 for plain cheese). While the Italian sausage slice ($4) is great, Halimi admits that the most popular offering is the Buffalo chicken and bacon slice ($4). “I don’t know if it’s America or Chicago, but people just gravitate to it,” says Halimi.
1543 N. Sedgwick St., 312-774-0303, pazzapizza.net
nkindelsperger@chicagotribune.com
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