Fascinating. I had never even heard of this double decker style before. Will have to remember to find one when I find myself in that direction.

midas wrote:

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 don't recall coming across the term "tavern-style" or the idea of that meaning thin-crust pizza cut into squares before LTH. I grew up in the north suburbs, we rarely ate out, can't remember ever going to a pizza place with my family as a child (but oh was it heaven when an older sibling in high school started working at Il Forno's in Ravinia), but we did have Tombstone and other frozen pizzas occasionally, and Mom cut them into squares. I just thought that's how everyone cut thin-crust pizza. For what it's worth, my parents didn't learn their square-cutting ways from growing up in the Chicago area; they were from downstate near St. Louis.

Well, square-cut is not really a Chicago-only thing. It's in St. Louis and Milwaukee, as well. I think of it as a general Midwestish thing, although it's not everywhere in the Midwest.

That explains that; thanks.

@Katie: I was just at Il-Forno (the 496 Old Elm Rd., Highland Park location) recently and their simple thin crust cheese and sausage is still excellent. If I lived up on the North Shore, I'd be there every Friday night. Good stuff.

Tavern-cut as a term is relatively recent to me and though I've accepted it, it's minimally more useful than saying thin crust (a term that refers to a host of pizza styles). From the cracker-crust at Candlelite to the thick, dry flavorless versions that abound to the more tender rendition at Vito & Nick's (made with milk!) to impossibly thin version at Pat's, there are way too many variations for it mean anything more than thin crust pizza cut in squares.

Binko wrote:

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.

It's not just based on my tastes. I get that, in terms of taste, for some people deep dish and stuffed are similar enough to be interchangeable when deciding what pizza to eat for dinner. I'm not going to try to tell anyone what their tastes should be. But given the clear differences between stuffed and deep dish and the fact that we actually have names that refer to each style, there's no reason for anyone aware of the difference to use the term deep dish to describe both. It would be like knowing there are chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies but insisting on referring to sugar cookies as chocolate chip cookies.

I'm not a fan of stuffed because, as has been mentioned, the upper "crust" is usually just raw, gloppy dough.
So I went on Google image search to see if I could find a nice pie with a fully cooked upper crust, and I found this...

Not a bad looking pie I thought, let's see where this place is...






Mike's Pizza Kitchen
Tongzilin Nan Lu #9 Unit 10,
Chengdu, China

Binko wrote:

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 forgot who wrote this, but I read that "tavern-cut" pizza orginated as an inexpensive bar snack to be shared by patrons as a way to induce them to buy more beer (hence the square cut, which made it easier to share like tapas or nachos).

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. 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.
=R=

zoid wrote:I'm not a fan of stuffed because, as has been mentioned, the upper "crust" is usually just raw, gloppy dough.

Do you really think you've had undercooked crust on top of a stuffed pizza? We're talking about a thin piece of dough that's in the oven for 35-40 minutes. I think it has to be cooked, but the "slimy" and "gloppy" texture (which has never bothered me; I rarely notice the top crust) comes from absorbing moisture from the cheese below and the sauce on top.

Yes, I really think the dough on the upper crust was uncooked.

Not a term I coined, but Tavern Style describes a particular very thin pizza specific to Chicago and surrounds that often sports house made sausage. I never understood it to describe the condition of pizza cut into squares any more than I thought NY-style meant no more and no less than pizza cut into sectors (the geometric description of a pie slice). The term's specific meaning is why it's helpful. "Square cut" or "party cut" describe the division of tavern style pies- but also many St Louis, Detroit, bakery and grandma pies, none of which are synonymous with square cut. Or, cutting a Pizza Hut pie into squares doesn't make it tavern style.

Time and complexity lead to all sorts of new shorthand from critics and observers to describe old things. One of the gifts of this forum is to isolate and identify an essential food tradition and hang a name on it that makes sense and sticks. 30s style burgers and Depression Dogs, aquarium smokers and secret menus. The novelty of the name doesn't delegitimize the concept. The "Detroit sound," "house music," "West Coast offense," "Spaghetti Westerns," "Chicago School," "Magical realism," Dutch masters": these are monikers that were imposed on real things whose practitioners and patrons did not use the terms when the phenomena emerged. So what.



.

JeffB wrote:Not a term I coined, but Tavern Style describes a particular very thin pizza specific to Chicago and surrounds that often sports house made sausage. I never understood it to describe the condition of pizza cut into squares any more than I thought NY-style meant no more and no less than pizza cut into sectors (the geometric description of a pie slice). The term's specific meaning is why it's helpful. "Square cut" or "party cut" describe the division of tavern style pies- but also many St Louis, Detroit, bakery and grandma pies, none of which are synonymous with square cut. Or, cutting a Pizza Hut pie into squares doesn't make it tavern style.

Time and complexity lead to all sorts of new shorthand from critics and observers to describe old things. One of the gifts of this forum is to isolate and identify an essential food tradition and hang a name on it that makes sense and sticks. 30s style burgers and Depression Dogs, aquarium smokers and secret menus. The novelty of the name doesn't delegitimize the concept. The "Detroit sound," "house music," "West Coast offense," "Spaghetti Westerns," "Chicago School," "Magical realism," Dutch masters": these are monikers that were imposed on real things whose practitioners and patrons did not use the terms when the phenomena emerged. So what.

I think the idea that it's Chicago-specific is simply incorrect (unless your use of "Chicago and surrounds" refers to the entire Midwest). Milwaukee, the Twin Cities, and Indianapolis are a few places where thin crust pizza traditionally is the same as Chicago's. For specific examples, see Maria's and Zaffiro's in Milwaukee, La Casa Pizzaria in Omaha, Red's Savoy in St. Paul, and Maria's in Indianapolis. Any one of those places would fit in perfectly in the Chicago thin crust tradition and all of them have excellent sausage (most are housemade). It's not novelty of the term that delegitimizes the application of "tavern-style" to Chicago; it's the fact that the style has been established for decades in several cities.

I agree with you that new terms can be used to describe old things but it doesn't fall on any one person to impose the terms; there has to be some kind of widespread acceptance. Tavern-style, tavern-cut, tavern-whatever haven't been accepted in the Chicago-specific way you're suggesting. Not among pizzerias (when's the last time you saw "tavern-style" on a menu), not among the general public, and not among the pizza obsessed who populate websites like Slice (RIP) or pizzamaking.com.

MarlaCollins'Husband wrote:

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. 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.
=R=

Do you really think you've had undercooked crust on top of a stuffed pizza? We're talking about a thin piece of dough that's in the oven for 35-40 minutes. I think it has to be cooked, but the "slimy" and "gloppy" texture (which has never bothered me; I rarely notice the top crust) comes from absorbing moisture from the cheese below and the sauce on top.

Probably not. It probably was cooked but being buried under tomato, rendered it unpalatable even after substantial oven time. I've definitely had stuffed pizzas I've enjoyed but they've been few and far between.

=R=

MarlaCollins'Husband wrote:

JeffB wrote:Not a term I coined, but Tavern Style describes a particular very thin pizza specific to Chicago and surrounds that often sports house made sausage. I never understood it to describe the condition of pizza cut into squares any more than I thought NY-style meant no more and no less than pizza cut into sectors (the geometric description of a pie slice). The term's specific meaning is why it's helpful. "Square cut" or "party cut" describe the division of tavern style pies- but also many St Louis, Detroit, bakery and grandma pies, none of which are synonymous with square cut. Or, cutting a Pizza Hut pie into squares doesn't make it tavern style.

Time and complexity lead to all sorts of new shorthand from critics and observers to describe old things. One of the gifts of this forum is to isolate and identify an essential food tradition and hang a name on it that makes sense and sticks. 30s style burgers and Depression Dogs, aquarium smokers and secret menus. The novelty of the name doesn't delegitimize the concept. The "Detroit sound," "house music," "West Coast offense," "Spaghetti Westerns," "Chicago School," "Magical realism," Dutch masters": these are monikers that were imposed on real things whose practitioners and patrons did not use the terms when the phenomena emerged. So what.

I think the idea that it's Chicago-specific is simply incorrect (unless your use of "Chicago and surrounds" refers to the entire Midwest). Milwaukee, the Twin Cities, and Indianapolis are a few places where thin crust pizza traditionally is the same as Chicago's. For specific examples, see Maria's and Zaffiro's in Milwaukee, La Casa Pizzaria in Omaha, Red's Savoy in St. Paul, and Maria's in Indianapolis. Any one of those places would fit in perfectly in the Chicago thin crust tradition and all of them have excellent sausage (most are housemade). It's not novelty of the term that delegitimizes the application of "tavern-style" to Chicago; it's the fact that the style has been established for decades in several cities.

I agree with you that new terms can be used to describe old things but it doesn't fall on any one person to impose the terms; there has to be some kind of widespread acceptance. Tavern-style, tavern-cut, tavern-whatever haven't been accepted in the Chicago-specific way you're suggesting. Not among pizzerias (when's the last time you saw "tavern-style" on a menu), not among the general public, and not among the pizza obsessed who populate websites like Slice (RIP) or pizzamaking.com.

I guess I'm confused about what we are talking about then, a problem I've had with this thread and discussions about pizza taxonomy in general. I thought you were suggesting that the term isn't very descriptive because anything thin cut in squares could be "tavern style." Now I think the suggestion is that thin crust pizza all around the Midwest is the same, or maybe less sweepingly that there are some old examples of what we have been calling "tavern style" here on LTH (but we shouldn't call it that because it wasn't a historical term). As to the latter point, it seems like "tavern style" would be a fine way to identify the pies you mention and distinguish them from lesser Midwestern dreck. Like Pizza Hut, of Wichita (as opposed to La Casa, of Omaha). Southeast Wisconsin I'll give you, but that seems like not much of an exception but rather part of a continuum. Otherwise, what LTH and now carpetbagging food writers have taken to calling "tavern style" is not what I've had in the Midwest, beyond Chicago and WI, but I've been unlucky -- particularly when it comes to the sausage. Also, I'm not sure the logic works. There have long been Chicago style hot dog places in Iowa, Indiana, Las Vegas, Phoenix and the Gulf Coast of Florida. This is because Chicago is Paris to some (Iowans) and because Chicagoans go out to pasture in warm climes, but bring their neon relish. I don't think we'll stop calling them Chicago style. But my comparison is not perfect. "Chicago-style hot dog" means something - but of course it sometimes means different things. See "Depression Dog," a term that seems strikingly similar to "Tavern Style Pizza" and perhaps also should not be used. I have a hard time grasping the point, when we are both able to discuss the same basic type of pizza simply by calling it "tavern style," of suggesting that the term should not be used because it is not historically accepted. It works. I'm happy to use other shorthand, whatever it is. But it appears there is no historical way to describe this regional gem. Let's change that.

So there are Chicago traditions when it comes to pizza. Some of them only go back a few decades (stuffed) or WWII (deep dish) but they should be respected. I agree with that. Fine. There's also a tradition of very thin pie, often with fresh fennel sausage served often at convivial places with liquor licenses, worn wooden bars, and classic neon 1950's signage. That tradition might not be limited to Chicago (but might be limited to the Midwest?), but we should resepect it as a Chicago institution anyway (I think), because that's what real Chicagoans eat. But it should not be called "tavern style," ever, because that's something used or even coined by the nemeses of this thread - the unnamed out of town foodies who only fawn over an older VPN tradition or the a la mode non-tradition, exemplified by Great Lake, not that either of those are unworthy but the other real Chicago (or Midwest) stuff deserves some fawning too. (I respectfully disagree that only real Chicagoans can "get it" when it comes to local pizza styles. The Lord offers his pizza love to all who seek it, in my experience. That's why the hottest pizza place in NY right now is a deep dish place started by Chicago dudes -- but its presence in NY does not dilute its Chicagoness, right?) In the end, we seem to agree that this thin, sausage - focused midwestern square cut pie is a "thing," there's an ideal or an archetype if you will. What shall we call it? Maybe we can have a contest, or a poll, and the Trib and/or Sun Times can report, with the effect of declaring once and for all what the hell this pizza is called.

Well, I'm just glad we've finally ended the debate.

Summary: All good pizza is good.

And to state the obvious, above screed was tongue in cheek.

Ya'll need to hash this out over a Barnaby's sausage and come to an understanding.

MarlaCollins'Husband wrote:It's not just based on my tastes. I get that, in terms of taste, for some people deep dish and stuffed are similar enough to be interchangeable when deciding what pizza to eat for dinner. I'm not going to try to tell anyone what their tastes should be. But given the clear differences between stuffed and deep dish and the fact that we actually have names that refer to each style, there's no reason for anyone aware of the difference to use the term deep dish to describe both. It would be like knowing there are chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies but insisting on referring to sugar cookies as chocolate chip cookies.

I suppose we'll just disagree. If I'm talking to you, someone I know who makes the distinction, then I'll use "deep dish" and "stuffed" in the narrow sense. If I'm talking to somebody I don't know, I won't assume they know the difference, so if they call Giordano's a "deep dish," I'll let it slide (except here, where we geek out about those food things nobody cares about.) Or if they ask me for "deep dish" recommendations, I'll either ask what their favorite deep dishes are (to see if they make the distinction) or simply ask if they are making a distinction between deep dish and stuffed and pan. (And most people will probably just roll their eyes at me and have not a clue WTF I'm talking about.) Even though I know the difference, I prefer to think of it as a subcategory of deep dish. That's how I classify it. To most people, in my experience, even among Chicagoans, "deep dish" just means a big honkin' pizza that's made in a deep pan. But, then again, I'm pretty "open tent" about food definitions. Your mileage obviously varies.

MarlaCollins'Husband wrote:Not among pizzerias (when's the last time you saw "tavern-style" on a menu), not among the general public, and not among the pizza obsessed who populate websites like Slice (RIP) or pizzamaking.com.

It's used on pizzamaking.com, and Flo & Santos calls their pizza tavern style." No, it's not an iconic Chicago place, but the term has obviously made in-roads, and it's a perfectly good term. Yes, most Chicago pizza places are just going to call it "pizza" or "thin crust pizza," just like places that serve wings in Buffalo don't call it "Buffalo wings," but it's a useful shorthand, in my opinion, for the type of thin crust served in the Midwest. I suppose we could just call it "Midwestern square-cut thin crust," but it just doesn't roll off the tongue as well.

All (or virtually all) Chicago thin crust pizza is of a uniform thickness with no perimeter crust (unlike East Coast-style or chain restaurant pizza, for that matter). Is this due to the dough being rolled-out in a sheeter rather than hand-tossed or stretched? I noticed that V&N uses a sheeter on an episode of "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" and I wonder if this is standard practice for Chicago thin crust or whether some purveyers of the style work the dough by hand.

Jon Porter of Chicago Pizza Tours claims that the "tavern-cut" thin crust pizza orignated as a free snack at South Side bars. This sounds apocryphal and almost stereotypically Chicagoan (a bunch of "Superfans"-type guys snacking on free pizza squares and drinking Old Style). http://www.wbez.org/chicago-still-deep- ... dit-109417

ld111134 wrote:All (or virtually all) Chicago thin crust pizza is of a uniform thickness with no perimeter crust (unlike East Coast-style or chain restaurant pizza, for that matter). Is this due to the dough being rolled-out in a sheeter rather than hand-tossed or stretched? I noticed that V&N uses a sheeter on an episode of "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" and I wonder if this is standard practice for Chicago thin crust or whether some purveyers of the style work the dough by hand.

GNR Marie's, the standard bearer for crispy thin crust pizza on the north side, does not use a sheeter but they do roll out the dough using a big honkin aluminum rolling pin.

I've been eating pizza in Chicago for more than fifty years and have never heard the term tavern cut used. Now admittedly my tavern-hopping career often put me in a position where I didn't hear or see a lot of things, so I may have just missed it.

stevez wrote:

ld111134 wrote:All (or virtually all) Chicago thin crust pizza is of a uniform thickness with no perimeter crust (unlike East Coast-style or chain restaurant pizza, for that matter). Is this due to the dough being rolled-out in a sheeter rather than hand-tossed or stretched? I noticed that V&N uses a sheeter on an episode of "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" and I wonder if this is standard practice for Chicago thin crust or whether some purveyers of the style work the dough by hand.

GNR Marie's, the standard bearer for crispy thin crust pizza on the north side, does not use a sheeter but they do roll out the dough using a big honkin aluminum rolling pin.

Wouldn't that produce a crust similar to that made by a sheeter (versus hand-stretched dough)?

ld111134 wrote:

stevez wrote:

ld111134 wrote:All (or virtually all) Chicago thin crust pizza is of a uniform thickness with no perimeter crust (unlike East Coast-style or chain restaurant pizza, for that matter). Is this due to the dough being rolled-out in a sheeter rather than hand-tossed or stretched? I noticed that V&N uses a sheeter on an episode of "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" and I wonder if this is standard practice for Chicago thin crust or whether some purveyers of the style work the dough by hand.

GNR Marie's, the standard bearer for crispy thin crust pizza on the north side, does not use a sheeter but they do roll out the dough using a big honkin aluminum rolling pin.

Wouldn't that produce a crust similar to that made by a sheeter (versus hand-stretched dough)?

Yes. Crackery crisp and delicious.

ld111134 wrote:Jon Porter of Chicago Pizza Tours claims that the "tavern-cut" thin crust pizza orignated as a free snack at South Side bars. This sounds apocryphal and almost stereotypically Chicagoan (a bunch of "Superfans"-type guys snacking on free pizza squares and drinking Old Style). http://www.wbez.org/chicago-still-deep- ... dit-109417

Though I haven't heard it referred to by that name, I've been at bars in the north suburbs that don't have a food menu but do occasionally put out thin-crust pizza as a free bar snack for patrons -- cooked, I presume, on the same sort of Presto Pizzazz pizza cooker we use at home. There's one place here in Mundelein (or it could be in Ivanhoe next door; I can't remember the name) that routinely heats up pizzas and serves pieces free to guests. The square cut makes sense for that purpose.

I wanted to add that while it's very, very rare that I'll order one, I have had a few double decker pizzas at Bill's in Mundelein of course, but I also can recommend the one at Buffo's in Highwood. Buffo's does have their own unique recipe of thin Chicago pizza and the double decker is a solid version of that style. It's quite tasty, though I have maybe one a year. I usually just get the thin pizza there. Another place that does double decker (and boasts about it) in the area is Judy Pizza of Highland Park (used to be in Deerfield 20 years ago). I don't think I've ever had it there, but I am really tempted to grab one on my way home! Their recipe is pretty similar to Bill's and Wayne's and it's really good. 20 years ago I asked someone at Wayne's about this, and they said the recipe was sort of being used by different places.

Buffo's
431 Sheridan Rd
Highwood IL
847-432-0301

Judy's Pizza
1855 Deerfield Rd
Highland Park IL
847-579-8330
Pretty much carryout/delivery there are 2 tables for eating inside or of course... al Trunko.

zoid wrote:I'm not a fan of stuffed because, as has been mentioned, the upper "crust" is usually just raw, gloppy dough.
So I went on Google image search to see if I could find a nice pie with a fully cooked upper crust, and I found this...

MikesPizzaKitchen.jpg

Not a bad looking pie I thought, let's see where this place is...
Tongzilin Nan Lu #9 Unit 10,
Chengdu, China

Brilliant! Looks like they might add the tomato sauce after baking to avoid that flobbery top crust. Great idea... maybe Mike's Pizza Kitchen should start a franchise here.

Ram4 wrote:I wanted to add that while it's very, very rare that I'll order one, I have had a few double decker pizzas at Bill's in Mundelein of course, but I also can recommend the one at Buffo's in Highwood. Buffo's does have their own unique recipe of thin Chicago pizza and the double decker is a solid version of that style. It's quite tasty, though I have maybe one a year. I usually just get the thin pizza there. Another place that does double decker (and boasts about it) in the area is Judy Pizza of Highland Park (used to be in Deerfield 20 years ago). I don't think I've ever had it there, but I am really tempted to grab one on my way home! Their recipe is pretty similar to Bill's and Wayne's and it's really good. 20 years ago I asked someone at Wayne's about this, and they said the recipe was sort of being used by different places.

Buffo's
431 Sheridan Rd
Highwood IL
847-432-0301

Judy's Pizza
1855 Deerfield Rd
Highland Park IL
847-579-8330
Pretty much carryout/delivery there are 2 tables for eating inside or of course... al Trunko.

I was surprised to find, upon moving here some 29 years ago, there are two Del Carmen's (West and East) Pizza joints that are separately owned yet both offer a "double crust" pizza - something I hadn't seen growing up in Glendale Heights and then St. Charles. They are both excellent, thought the East location sauce is more sweet while the West location is more peppery.

In addition, The Pizza Factory (in South Shores) also offers a double crust that we usually order with extra sauce - also an excellent pie! Count me a fan of the "doubledecker" or "double crust" 'za!

Del Carmens West
1601 W Grand Ave
Decatur, IL 62522
217-428-7800

Del Carmen's East
221 N 22nd St
Decatur, IL 62521
217-428-5591

Pizza Factory
361 W First Drive
Decatur, IL 62521
http://www.decaturpizzafactory.com
217-428-4400

This is the age old lumper/splitter debate. Might as well ask biologists to define species.

As a Chicagoan I guess I am a lumper but I do prefer NY style. I don't get to Burts much but every year or two I require a Malnatis, preferably on a winter day where I have been outside all dat.

GNR Marie's, the standard bearer for crispy thin crust pizza on the north side, does not use a sheeter but they do roll out the dough using a big honkin aluminum rolling pin.[/quote]

Wouldn't that produce a crust similar to that made by a sheeter (versus hand-stretched dough)?[/quote]

Yes. Crackery crisp and delicious.[/quote]


When I made pizzas at Papa Dels in Champaign (a sui generis pie still close to my heart) we used a sheeter. How I have all my fingers is a mystery on the level of loaves and fishes.