Pizano's Pizza

After reading some raves about this place, I tried the location on State (we had it delivered).

We ordered a deep dish sausage, breadsticks, and a large salad.

All of it arrived relatively quickly but cold, which was OK for the salad but not great for the breadsticks or the pizza.

The pizza was strange. It almost seemed like it had been pressed. It was very thin for deep dish. The sausage was pretty good, but the sauce was bland and the crust was OK but does not compare to the more interesting crusts at Gino's East or at Pizzeria Uno.

Bottom line: If I lived in Schaumburg and this placed opened, I would be relatively happy. For Streeterville/River North though, it is nothing special and definitely not worth another trip.

I tried Pizano's based on the hype and also thought that it was okay, though not great. FWIW, we ordered in a bunch of pizzas for the office, and everyone, including myself, liked the thin crust quite a bit more than the deep dish.

The Pizano's thin crust is the ticket. Still, for whatever you order, it's a bit unfair to judge a place's food based solely on a delivery experience.

Nothing will be as good as on-premise consumption, and I think you need to establish that as a baseline before any other evaluation.

Olde School wrote:The Pizano's thin crust is the ticket. Still, for whatever you order, it's a bit unfair to judge a place's food based solely on a delivery experience.

Nothing will be as good as on-premise consumption, and I think you need to establish that as a baseline before any other evaluation.

I agree entirely.

In shop, Pizano's thin-crust sausage pie is quite good, IMO.

E.M.

I agree that you should try it at the restaurant. I like their pizza, but when I get the deep dish delivered, its not very good. Once it cools even a little, it becomes bland, the cheese starts to harden, and it's just not the same. The thin crust is very good and holds up well for delivery.

As for the crust, did you specify that you wanted the butter crust and not the regular? It makes a difference. I like Gino's crust, but it's so different I don't really compare it to Pizano's. Sometimes I feel more like a thicker, breadier crust like at Gino's, sometimes I want something crisper.

I think Pizanos is related to Lou Malnati's. They are going to have a restaurant in Glenview soon.

LAM026 wrote:I think Pizanos is related to Lou Malnati's. They are going to have a restaurant in Glenview soon.

Business wise, they are not related at all. The owners of the two restaurants happen to be brothers.

I just looked it up and in Metromix it said that it is owned by Rudy Malnati (brother of Lou).
Thanks for the info!

Pizanos in Glenview has been up and running for a week or two now in Glenview and my wife picked up a pizza tonight to try out.
We opted for the thin crust with onion and spinach and we were both impressed. We ordered the pizza well done and they didn't skim, producing a carmelization on the onions that was particularly tasty. And I must say I love the crust in all of it's crackly, corn derived glory.
The place is already a hit around here with valets working hard despite the fact that they have a parking lot and it was only 5:30 on a Tuesday.
The problem is, I want to go back and have another now.

It is good stuff, but I was slightly put off by the pricing...a 12 inch (medium) "Rudy's Special" thin with sausage, peppers, onions, and mushrooms was $18. We arrived around 9:30pm, put in our order and had a beer each at the Glenview location bar, and after tip our tab for the 2 beers and tiny pie was $40.

By the way, what is up with so many pizza places these days offering a 14 inch pie as their largest available size?

Madison St. location is the best, and yes eat in is the way to go. Delivery always compromises a pizza.

I tried the Glenview location last week for lunch. We had a cheese deep dish (which isn't that deep)

I agree that the crust was very good, but I would still rather have a Lou's pizza

BTW: I have NO idea how the village allowed them to open a 100+ seat restaurant with maybe 25 parking spaces. That's why they need the valet. The valets told me that even they have trouble finding spaces and that they shuffle cars between 3 separate lots.

MJN wrote:Madison St. location is the best, and yes eat in is the way to go. Delivery always compromises a pizza.

True. However, if you're getting a pizza for carry-out, asking them not to slice it, and doing so at home, can help preserve the crispness of the crust.

Regarding the price of pizza. . . .anywhere. . . .anyone looked at cheese and flour prices lately? Your favorite pizza, regardless of where it comes from will become or already is more expensive.

My wife & i visited pizano's last week, & thought it was very good.
MY only complaints were parking & wait time after ordering a pizza.
We ordered a deep dish with spinach, sausage & mushrooms & it took
almost 50 minutes before we were served.The female bartender with
all the tatoo's is extremely hot. My feelings are that this place will
definitely put a hurt on the existing pizzeria's in Glenview & surrounding
area's.[/b]

glfball wrote:MY only complaints were parking & wait time after ordering a pizza.

Deep-dish pizza takes a long time to bake, typically 30-50 minutes. All of the places that sell it let you phone in your pizza order ahead of time, so that they have it ready when you get there or shortly thereafter. You can check the menus on their website to assist in ordering (Pizano's is pizanoschicago.com.)

The female bartender with all the tatoo's is extremely hot.

Google Image Search results for "Pizano's Bartender:

http://images.google.com/images?q=pizan ... =N&ndsp=18

Your guess is as good as mine.

Bottom line: If I lived in Schaumburg and this placed opened, I would be relatively happy. For Streeterville/River North though, it is nothing special and definitely not worth another trip.


What's the matter with Schaumburg ??!!! I grew up there and we always had very good pizza places. Malnati's at Schaumburg & Roselle,Barnaby's good thin crust,but the best thin crust I've EVER had was a place in Town Square-Musacci's (and not just because my brother worked there).Also a place on Roselle Road called Down The Hatch had some decent thin crust. Gotta defend my hometown !!

LAM026 wrote:I just looked it up and in Metromix it said that it is owned by Rudy Malnati (brother of Lou).

To clarify - Pizano's is owned by Rudy Malnati Jr. He and his brother Lou are both sons of Rudy Malnati Sr., who worked at the original Uno's in its early days. Depending on whom you believe, I've seen Rudy Sr. given credit for everything from being the manager at Uno's, to being the bartender there, to, as stated on Pizano's website, "opening" Uno's as "his first restaurant" in 1943 (which has to be a stretch, because most sources credit the original Uno's to Ike Sewell).

LAM026 wrote:
I just looked it up and in Metromix it said that it is owned by Rudy Malnati (brother of Lou).

To clarify - Pizano's is owned by Rudy Malnati Jr. He and his brother Lou are both sons of Rudy Malnati Sr., who worked at the original Uno's in its early days. Depending on whom you believe, I've seen Rudy Sr. given credit for everything from being the manager at Uno's, to being the bartender there, to, as stated on Pizano's website, "opening" Uno's as "his first restaurant" in 1943 (which has to be a stretch, because most sources credit the original Uno's to Ike Sewell).

Although the Uno organizaiton doesn't recognize it, historians have started to. I recently saw something on the Travel channel that mentions Rudy Sr. which is a change from him previously being unmentioned. Rudy Sr. was involved in all three places, Uno-Due-Su Casa. I believe that Penny P's and Jeff R's book "Everybody Loves Pizza" legitamizes Rudy Sr's involvement.

glfball wrote:The female bartender with
all the tatoo's is extremely hot.

That's an understatement. For those of us who spend most of our time in the burbs the average bartender is a 50+ overweight male who is balding.

She's reason enough to visit the bar.

I was there last night as part of a group of eight. Four pizzas, two deep dish, two thin. I thought they were acceptable, but not tremendous. Since I have few reasons to be in that neighborhood when I usually want pizza, I'll go there to meet friends like last night - but if I want deep dish I'll go to Due.

I was underwhelmed by the Glenview restaurant. We went tonight for dinner with our kids. First off, the parking lot is a nightmare. The valets were scrambling. They were incredibly polite and efficient as possible. We were seated in a small room with a fireplace and four television sets. It was an interesting juxtaposition. Romance blended with ESPN. The room was very crowded. The waitstaff and customers had a hard time getting through to the tables.

They do not have a children's menu, but they will give half orders of pasta. Our server suggested that often parents will order appetizers for the kids as a meal. We had acceptable garlic bread. I will note that a basket of bread and butter is $2.50. The house salad is nondescript. It was white lettuce with one cherry tomato, one cucumber chunk, three rings of red onion, and a few croutons. The house dressing is ok. My daughter ordered spaghetti. My son, husband and I split a large half sausage/half pepperoni pizza. A minor gripe; if you order an ingredient for half of the pizza, they charge you the full amount. Instead of saying "one meat" and charging us $2.10 total, we were charged $2.10 for each ingredient though it was only on half the pizza. So our large, essentially one topping pizza, was $17.50. The pizza was good. Bonus for the kids -- it was heart shaped. The pasta was fine.

All told, the bill was $50 or so for garlic bread, a small salad, four drinks, one bowl of spaghetti, and one large pizza, tax and tip. That's a lot of money for food that was good but not great.
Having read in the other posts that the take home version of this pizza isn't great, I don't think I'll be back. There is a Lou Malnati's nearby that we really enjoy, and that's where we'll be next time.

How was the bartender?

LOL. I was there with a five year old and a seven year old. We were nowhere near a bar. Though I could have used a drink....

iahawk89 wrote:A minor gripe; if you order an ingredient for half of the pizza, they charge you the full amount. Instead of saying "one meat" and charging us $2.10 total, we were charged $2.10 for each ingredient though it was only on half the pizza.

What most places I know do, when you order an ingredient on half the pizza, is they give you the same quantity of that ingredient as if you ordered it on the entire pizza; they just place it on half of the surface. So there is the same amount of that ingredient - a "double portion" on each slice on half the pizza, and none on the other half. Hence the appropriateness of charging the same amount.

That makes sense. If that's what they did, I certainly didn't notice.

I had spaghetti marinara there recently and I did not like it.

I'll have to try the pizza next time!

glfball wrote: My feelings are that this place will definitely put a hurt on the existing pizzeria's in Glenview & surrounding area's.

(I apparently can't figure how to do cool quotes like everyone else!)

Just curious - what other pizzerias in Glenview do you like? We are very frustrated by the lack of a good pizza and beer joint in Glenview. I consider the pizza places in Glenview-proper to be shameful. I like Viccino's, but you can't sit down and have a drink.

kdiener wrote:(I apparently can't figure how to do cool quotes like everyone else!)

Click on the "Quote" button in the upper right corner of the post you're replying to, rather than the "Post a Reply" button at the bottom of the page.