MarlaCollins'Husband wrote:I think it's not a minor nitpick and I don't think anyone can reasonably call stuffed a subset of deep dish.

It depends on how fine you want to be with your pizza taxonomy. I know the history of Uno's and Nancy's, but I'm charitable, as a lot (probably most) Chicagoans I know don't even know the difference between a Giordano's stuffed pizza and an Uno's deep dish. How many times have I heard someone recommend Giordano's for "Chicago deep dish" I can't even begin to tell you. So, rather than be nitpicky about it, I personally just divide them into classic Chicago single-crust deep dish, and Chicago stuffed, and put them both under a general deep dish category. I might even put Burt's and Pequod's in its own subset of deep dish instead of "pan pizza." Or perhaps we can reorganize everything under a broad "pan pizza" category.

One of my favorite Chicago (tavern)-style variations is subbing Alfredo sauce for the pizza sauce and topping with artichoke hearts, mushrooms and black olives.

Ooo...where can I find that?

Binko wrote:

ld111134 wrote:deep-dish (the usual suspects - Lou Malnatti's, Giordano's...), stuffed (Art of Pizza),

Minor nitpick: Giordano's should be in the stuffed category. (Although you can call stuffed a sub-set of deep-dish, but it looks like we're making a distinction here.)

As I wrpte upthread, I'm not a huge fan of Chicago-style thin crust (the crust is too crispy for my tastes, probably because the dough is rolled out using a sheeter).

Chicago-style thin crust is all over the map in terms of crispiness. Most of the thin crust I've had is usually pretty pliable. Yesterday's trip to V&N's was unusual in that we didn't even ask for the pizza well-done, and it came out cracker crisp--I've never had it like that in my dozens of trips to V&Ns. There's usually plenty of bend to it (you can fold it over if you wanted to--well, at least anything but the edge pieces. So it's kind of nice compromise. Like crispy? Get the edges. Like floppy? Get the inner pieces.) That said, it's not as floppy as a New York style pizza, of course. It's rare that I've had a pizza I'd truly consider "cracker crust" (like Zaffiro's in Milwaukee) here in Chicago. Maybe Candlelite, although I haven't been there in ages and don't know whether they still make it like that.

I was going to mention Detroit style, too. I still have yet to make it out to Jet's here in Chicago, but I can't pass through Detroit without stopping at Buddy's.

Also, I kind of like the variations within the Chicago styles from time to time. Like Home Run Inn is kind of unusual to me with its heavy buttery crust, and Barnaby's with its oddball almost pie-like cornmeal crust.

I stand corrected on Giordano's. I agree that V&N and other tavern-style pizzas aren't necessarily cracker-y crisp, they just seem to be compared to East Coast-style wedge-cut pizza.

I need to try Detroit-style pizza. I've had D'Amato's bakery pizza and I'm not a fan...it reminds me of the Sicilian-style pizza that my junior high school cafeteria served.

Good points Binko.
Sometimes I think we forget that many people don't share the penchant for culinary pedantry often on display here.

ld111134 wrote:I need to try Detroit-style pizza. I've had D'Amato's bakery pizza and I'm not a fan...it reminds me of the Sicilian-style pizza that my junior high school cafeteria served.

Detroit-style, at least the stuff I've had from Buddy's, is fairly doughy, yet surprisingly light. The crust on it has got a bit of a fried crispness to it (from all the oil in the pan.) It's served in a square pan, and it has caramelized cheese edges just like Burt's and Pequod's. The mix of cheeses is a little different. I think Buddy's normal blend is brick and white cheddar. I think it's brick for the main cheese and white cheddar around the edges.

There's a crazy long thread on pizzamaking.com about it. Look at the pictures under reply #569. That's a good picture of a Detroit style, as exemplified by Buddy's.

Binko wrote:

One of my favorite Chicago (tavern)-style variations is subbing Alfredo sauce for the pizza sauce and topping with artichoke hearts, mushrooms and black olives.

Ooo...where can I find that?

We've had luck just talking our way through an order:

"You have alfredo sauce?"

Yes

"Can we substitute Alfredo for pizza sauce?"

On the pizza?

"Yes"

Do you still want pizza sauce?

"No; we want to substitute Alfredo for pizza sauce...."

Someone in the place generally gets it.

Our local spot is Martino's on Peterson and they do a great version (no longer an unusual order there).

Binko wrote:

MarlaCollins'Husband wrote:I think it's not a minor nitpick and I don't think anyone can reasonably call stuffed a subset of deep dish.

It depends on how fine you want to be with your pizza taxonomy. I know the history of Uno's and Nancy's, but I'm charitable, as a lot (probably most) Chicagoans I know don't even know the difference between a Giordano's stuffed pizza and an Uno's deep dish. How many times have I heard someone recommend Giordano's for "Chicago deep dish" I can't even begin to tell you. So, rather than be nitpicky about it, I personally just divide them into classic Chicago single-crust deep dish, and Chicago stuffed, and put them both under a general deep dish category. I might even put Burt's and Pequod's in its own subset of deep dish instead of "pan pizza." Or perhaps we can reorganize everything under a broad "pan pizza" category.

There's no question there's not a perfect system for these or most rigid rules of food categorization. And you're right that a lot of people conflate the two. Hell, Giordano's has begun periodically referring to its stuffed pizza as deep dish. For me. a real test is whether one satisfies the craving for another. If I'm in the mood for deep dish, stuffed isn't going to scratch that itch. And when I want the cheesy monstrosity that is stuffed pizza, as happened last week, there's no way a deep dish pie would have been sufficient. Looking at it from that perspective, I'm inclined to agree with you about Burt's and Pequod's.

MarlaCollins'Husband wrote:For me. a real test is whether one satisfies the craving for another. If I'm in the mood for deep dish, stuffed isn't going to scratch that itch. And when I want the cheesy monstrosity that is stuffed pizza, as happened last week, there's no way a deep dish pie would have been sufficient.

See, I think that's somewhat ... I'm looking for something along the lines of "tautological." If you make that distinction, as you do, then it matters. If you don't make that distinction, then deep dish or stuffed all satisfy the same craving. I myself had no idea there was a difference between deep dish and stuffed until I was well into college. For me, Malnati's and Giordano's and Uno's and Edwardo's were completely interchangeable. Even to this day, even though I know the difference, they're not all that different to me. About two times a year I want a big, thick honking pie, and whether it's Malnati's or Positano's stuffed (my local choice), I don't care. They satisfy exactly the same craving to me.

Try as I have, I've almost never been able to get past that undercooked, doughy, slimy layer of top crust on stuffed pizza so for me, it's never really been comparable to deep dish. One can be immensely satisfying. That other is most often barely edible. For that reason and maybe some others I haven't really analyzed yet, they've always been 2 separate things to me.

Great piece, Daniel.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Try as I have, I've almost never been able to get past that undercooked, doughy, slimy layer of top crust on stuffed pizza so for me, it's never really been comparable to deep dish.

I certainly respect that. But, like I said, not everyone notices, which is probably why questions like "what's the difference between stuffed pizza and deep dish?" come up. It should be pretty obvious from the name, but it's a source of confusion. I, for example, didn't notice the extra layer of dough until somebody pointed it out to me. Now, I notice the difference (and some other ones, like the crust itself being a bit different, and stuffed pizzas being much cheesier in general.)

Now, I completely agree that classic Chicago deep dish and stuffed pizzas are two different types of pizza. Of course they are (and I was the one to initially make the nitpick). It's just that my taxonomy places them under the same general category. When I'm in the mood for a "deep dish" any of Lou's, Positano's, or Burt's will work for me. I know, madness, right? The reason for my having a broad category for this is when talking to non-foodies, there is a lot of confusion, in my experience, with differentiating stuffed vs classic deep dish pizza. It just seems easier to me that when somebody asks about a deep dish recommendation, to assume they are using a general term and then break it down to see if they care about the distinction between stuffed and classic deep dish. I mean look at polls like this. Giordano's is on the list for "best deep dish." The comments include votes for Pequod's, which doesn't even call its pizza a "deep dish," but rather a pan. (Although I personally support putting it under the broad deep-dish category.) This reflects my experience when asking someone what their favorite deep dish is. Giordano's is a relatively common answer to that question, even though it's a stuffed pizza. I'd venture that most people don't care and it's all the same to them.

Yes, we're not "most people" here, and these sorts of distinctions are what makes the message board go 'round. I just chose to classify it originally as a "minor nitpick" because it is minor to most, and a reasonable argument can be made for calling stuffed a subset of deep dish (and, looking online, I'm hardly unique in that view.) Just all depends on how you want to order it.

As long as we're discussing Chicago-area pizza styles, perhaps we should include mention of the double-decker thin crust, described here by Daniel on Serious Eats Chicago, and perhaps invented in Mundelein? I've had several double-deckers at Bill's and a few at other places --- Bill's is not the only place in Lake County that serves it. I've never found it farther afield than that, though. I have a feeling it wouldn't meet Ronnie's standard for how cooked the top crust should be, but it's an interesting thin version of a stuffed pizza and offers plenty of cheese, for those (like me) who like that sort of thing.

Katie wrote:As long as we're discussing Chicago-area pizza styles, perhaps we should include mention of the double-decker thin crust, described here by Daniel on Serious Eats Chicago, and perhaps invented in Mundelein? I've had several double-deckers at Bill's and a few at other places --- Bill's is not the only place in Lake County that serves it. I've never found it farther afield than that, though. I have a feeling it wouldn't meet Ronnie's standard for how cooked the top crust should be, but it's an interesting thin version of a stuffed pizza and offers plenty of cheese, for those (like me) who like that sort of thing.

Papa's Pizza in Woodridge (mentioned earlier in the thread) definitely makes a double decker pizza and it is delicious. Whether the eponymous Bill actually invented the style remains to be determined.

Katie wrote:As long as we're discussing Chicago-area pizza styles, perhaps we should include mention of the double-decker thin crust, described here by Daniel on Serious Eats Chicago, and perhaps invented in Mundelein? I've had several double-deckers at Bill's and a few at other places --- Bill's is not the only place in Lake County that serves it. I've never found it farther afield than that, though. I have a feeling it wouldn't meet Ronnie's standard for how cooked the top crust should be, but it's an interesting thin version of a stuffed pizza and offers plenty of cheese, for those (like me) who like that sort of thing.

When I was a teen, 40 or so years ago, there was a place we used to order pizza from in Northbrook, I cannot think which one, but maybe it was @ Willow and Techny, and we'd get a double decker pizza. It was an Oscar Madison kinda thing where they essentially baked two pizzas and then combined them, cheese to cheese. Ring a bell anyone? JoelF, BR?

BTW, as long as I'm now on this thread, can I mention my disdain for the term "tavern pizza." I was arguing this with MikeG recently. He said well the originators of these places were all taverns. I disagree. For one thing, places like Vito and Nicks are NOT taverns, in the sense of what a Chicago tavern is, and I mean that both in a legal sense and in a sense of what people knew as a tavern. Second, and perhaps related, but serving beer with pizza, has never made these places "taverns." All these places serving thin, square cut pizza, are restaurants first and foremost. I find it rather incredulous that "taverns" starting offering a certain kind of pizza to their customers and then various Italian restaurants started selling THAT kind of pizza to their customers. Does that make sense? I know we need a name to specify thin-square cut pizza from deep-dish, but it should not be "tavern."

Vital Information wrote:

Katie wrote:As long as we're discussing Chicago-area pizza styles, perhaps we should include mention of the double-decker thin crust, described here by Daniel on Serious Eats Chicago, and perhaps invented in Mundelein? I've had several double-deckers at Bill's and a few at other places --- Bill's is not the only place in Lake County that serves it. I've never found it farther afield than that, though. I have a feeling it wouldn't meet Ronnie's standard for how cooked the top crust should be, but it's an interesting thin version of a stuffed pizza and offers plenty of cheese, for those (like me) who like that sort of thing.

When I was a teen, 40 or so years ago, there was a place we used to order pizza from in Northbrook, I cannot think which one, but maybe it was @ Willow and Techny, and we'd get a double decker pizza. It was an Oscar Madison kinda thing where they essentially baked two pizzas and then combined them, cheese to cheese. Ring a bell anyone? JoelF, BR?

BTW, as long as I'm now on this thread, can I mention my disdain for the term "tavern pizza." I was arguing this with MikeG recently. He said well the originators of these places were all taverns. I disagree. For one thing, places like Vito and Nicks are NOT taverns, in the sense of what a Chicago tavern is, and I mean that both in a legal sense and in a sense of what people knew as a tavern. Second, and perhaps related, but serving beer with pizza, has never made these places "taverns." All these places serving thin, square cut pizza, are restaurants first and foremost. I find it rather incredulous that "taverns" starting offering a certain kind of pizza to their customers and then various Italian restaurants started selling THAT kind of pizza to their customers. Does that make sense? I know we need a name to specify thin-square cut pizza from deep-dish, but it should not be "tavern."

I'm pretty sure that both Leona's and Ranalli's offered the double decker pizzas. I don't remember a north-suburuban place doing this.

I agree with the term "tavern-style" being a misnomer. In fact, if you have tavern license in the city of Chicago it does not allow you to sell food, so the term could not be more incorrect (at least in the current configuration).

=R=

Vital Information wrote:Does that make sense? I know we need a name to specify thin-square cut pizza from deep-dish, but it should not be "tavern."

Meh. I'm a descriptivist. It's a fairly well-understood, and reasonably established term, so "tavern style" is fine with me, although I'm just as likely to call it Chicago-style thin crust. Whether they actually originated in taverns or not is immaterial to me, as long as people understand what is meant and communication is facilitated. "Tavern style" is not likely to be confused with anything else in the Chicago area, so there's no need to come up with a different word or phrase as there already is a perfectly good one that people understand.

ETA: And Vito and Nick's was originally called "Vito's Tavern." (Though not in the current location.) I also found a reference to Blackie's Tavern at 2102 W. Ogden serving pizza and lunch from 1959. And remember the Billy Goat Tavern also serves food (and has for a long time.) I don't recall it being that unusual for taverns to have some sort of food available. Most of the Polish taverns my parents would hang out with would at least have open-faced sandwiches and stuff to snack on. Now, whether pizza was common in taverns, that I don't know. Not to my knowledge. But I don't see the problem with calling it "tavern style" or "tavern cut" (for the squares), even if it does end up being a false connection. The name does not have to reflect the literal origin.

This may sound odd (probably because I actually am odd), but I never heard of "tavern style" pizza growing up here in Chicago. I just thought that's how we eat pizza here- cut into squares, with homemade Italian sausage. I never knew it even had a name. For my family and friends, it was all about Q's in Hillside or Villa Nova in Stickney. Yes, Q's has a lounge but Q's was always first and foremost a thin crust pizza restaurant, with some other Italian offerings. And Villa Nova in Stickney is still just a tiny neighborhood pizza place- no bar what-so-ever. Both places date back as thin crust pizza places many, many decades. The first time I think I ever heard of Chicago thin crust described as tavern style pizza was a few years ago on Slice Serious Eats, and that was an article composed by someone from NYC. And I know I'm not alone on this, either. I know if you were to ask literally everybody in both my professional and personal life, they would all tell you the same thing- that they never heard of our pizza being described as tavern style pizza.

And like I said in an earlier post, I'm as blue collar as they come, and I work a very blue collar job, too. Same goes for my friends and family. The monthly trip downtown to Pizzeria Due for deep dish pizza was always the big treat growing up, but our weekly Friday pizza was always either Q's or Villa Nova.

Again- great article by Dan Zemans. Deep dish pizza doesn't get bashed here very much, but on other sites (i.e. Serious Eats Chicago, other Chicago food magazines, and other food elitists) deep dish pizza gets ridiculed all the time. I've lost count how many times over the years I've read articles from various food writers ridiculing deep dish pizza. It's about time someone stepped up and defended deep dish pizza and its' place in American culture.

deepdish wrote:This may sound odd (probably because I actually am odd), but I never heard of "tavern style" pizza growing up here in Chicago.

No, that's right. We just called it "pizza" growing up. It was cut into squares, and I had never thought anything of it until perhaps college, when my out-of-state classmates made me realize how unusual this was outside the Midwest. This "tavern style" business is a relative newcomer to my vocabulary, and I assume it's a neologism, but it carries meaning today that many understand, so I use it. It's not a universal term, but it seems to be the term the Chicago pizza-eating community has more-or-less settled on, so that's fine with me.

I never heard it before encountering it here on LTH.

Tavern style is a good shorthand for a very specific type of pizza and distinguishes it from other thin crust styles. Also, see V&N's, Candelite, Fox's Beverly PUB, and Marie's, all of which resemble, or are, taverns. Marie's is also a package store, of course. I understood that the pies started as freebie food at bars, which was a very common thing back in the heyday of Chicago pubs, taverns and beer halls, so it might also be historically accurate. (Perhaps not unlike Buffalo Wings, clearly a tavern food with a somewhat well-documented history.)

Speaking of the style, a very, very good version comes from the original La Gondola on Ashland (well, original after moving into the stripmall across from the true original stand-alone building). Extra thin with sausage is a very balanced pie with excellent cheese, good sauce and top-notch house sausage. My kids have settled on it through trial and error. We are just beyond the delivery range of both Marie's and Candelite (though we drop in often enough), and no one digs D'Ag's sugary sauce much. Not a big fan of many other things on the La Gondola menu, but I do like the option of stracciatella soup and tripe Florentine. I really love that the family has kept the latter chestnut on the menu after all these years, and it's quite good. Forget about the newer, more expensive, and inferior Belmont location in the old Brickhouse/Feed the Beast space. It's been a big disappointment for me in my intermittent quest to replace Stefani's.

zoid wrote:I never heard it before encountering it here on LTH.

You know, that very well may be where I first heard it, but I've seen it all over the place since, so it's burrowed its way into the Chicago foodie lexicon.

Binko wrote:

zoid wrote:I never heard it before encountering it here on LTH.

You know, that very well may be where I first heard it, but I've seen it all over the place since, so it's burrowed its way into the Chicago foodie lexicon.

The term exists outside of LTH. It's an effective shorthand. The other Tavern pizza to me, as far as Wisconsin's concerned, was an old-school (waaay before Kraft and then Nestle) Tombstone in a toaster oven behind the bar in an actual tavern.

JeffB wrote:...
Speaking of the style, a very, very good version comes from the original La Gondola on Ashland (well, original after moving into the stripmall across from the true original stand-alone building). Extra thin with sausage is a very balanced pie with excellent cheese, good sauce and top-notch house sausage. ... Not a big fan of many other things on the La Gondola menu, but I do like the option of stracciatella soup and tripe Florentine. I really love that the family has kept the latter chestnut on the menu after all these years, and it's quite good. Forget about the newer, more expensive, and inferior Belmont location in the old Brickhouse/Feed the Beast space. It's been a big disappointment for me in my intermittent quest to replace Stefani's.

The Belmont location of La Gondola has closed for good, while the Ashland one remains open.

Just want to echo a lot of what's been said by others in the thread. Growing up on the SW side, Giordano's was "deep dish". Most of the locals I know refer to everything from Lou's to Giordano's as "deep dish". It was also something that I never had until college and was something special. I also never heard of "tavern cut" until a few years ago, probably on Wikipedia. You either had pizza or you had deep dish and pizza was always cut in squares unless you went to Pizza Hut.

spinynorman99 wrote:

Binko wrote:

zoid wrote:I never heard it before encountering it here on LTH.

You know, that very well may be where I first heard it, but I've seen it all over the place since, so it's burrowed its way into the Chicago foodie lexicon.

The term exists outside of LTH. It's an effective shorthand. The other Tavern pizza to me, as far as Wisconsin's concerned, was an old-school (waaay before Kraft and then Nestle) Tombstone in a toaster oven behind the bar in an actual tavern.

Funny enough, when I was searching for the term "tavern pizza," that's the earliest reference I could find for it in a Chicago publication. And it concerned Tombstone pizzas.

smorris76 wrote:Just want to echo a lot of what's been said by others in the thread. Growing up on the SW side, Giordano's was "deep dish". Most of the locals I know refer to everything from Lou's to Giordano's as "deep dish". It was also something that I never had until college and was something special.

Yeah, I grew up (and currently live) on the Southwest Side in Archer Heights, and the first "deep dish" I had was Giordano's, in high school, when they opened up the location (still there) just south of Archer and Pulaski. I can't think of any true non-stuffed Chicago deep dish anywhere near us. We have Positano's stuffed on 55th, west of Pulaski, and Angelo's Stuffed on 49th and Pulaski (which, I am embarrassed to say, even after spending a cumulative ~25 years in this community, I've never tried, but the Yelp reviews, at least, are positive. I really need to try it but, like I said, I enjoy deep dish or stuffed pizza only once or twice a year.), but no deep dish. I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but it just wasn't a thing in this neighborhood. We also called soda "soda," and not "pop."

Binko wrote:

zoid wrote:I never heard it before encountering it here on LTH.

You know, that very well may be where I first heard it, but I've seen it all over the place since, so it's burrowed its way into the Chicago foodie lexicon.

I don't remember seeing/using this term until a few years ago. It was just thin-crust pizza to me, but it's definitely burrowed itself into the lexicon when I'm talking food enthusiasts.

Binko wrote:Funny enough, when I was searching for the term "tavern pizza," that's the earliest reference I could find for it in a Chicago publication. And it concerned Tombstone pizzas.

Before I came to LTH, if you said the term 'tavern pizza', Tombstone would have been the first thing that came to mind.

I think I've also seen it called "party cut"

JoelF wrote:I think I've also seen it called "party cut"

I've seen it called "cut".

JoelF wrote:I think I've also seen it called "party cut"

We call that a bris

ronnie_suburban wrote:I'm pretty sure that both Leona's and Ranalli's offered the double decker pizzas. I don't remember a north-suburuban place doing this.

In addition to Bill's Pub in Mundelein, it's on the menu at Bill's Grayslake location, Emil's in Mundelein and Emil's Tavern in Grayslake, and Wayne's Pizza on Route 45 in Grayslake. I like the double-decker pizza at Bill's and Wayne's; haven't tried Emil's yet.