SaltCreekSmoker wrote:I'm only familiar with the Aurelio's in LaGrange. I haven't been there lately, but I actually like being in the restaurant, although I don't care for the pizza. At all. I don't like the cheese they use. But the rest of the menu is OK and the atmosphere of the restaurant is fine.
I grew up at the Villa Park location - baby photo was on the wall until they closed and moved, played Gauntlet and Simpsons cabinets with my crew until the buttons broke a la Stranger Things - and even there with Joe Aurelio frequently QCing, the order was always "light cheese, extra sauce" (with the sauce applied in thin stripes over the cheese) or a spinach calzone, which used a different cheese, or at least a vegetal barrier to the pool of oil on first bite.
This is probably the first "we order it
our way at restaurants" proto-foodie instructions that led to all sorts of subsequent obnoxiousness. Aurelio's: extra sauce / light cheese or spinach calzone, or
fuhgeddaboddit. Also, you can order any topping as a side, so you can get a mound of crispy chopped bacon (or finely diced green pepper and onions) if you want it, a sort of tsukemen-pizza experience.
Having had a surprisingly good experience at the one downtown on Roosevelt recently, and seeing this potential new opening up nort', I'm thinking the nostalgia is swinging back around and that more will be able to enjoy the sweet oddity of Aurelio's sauce, the Russell's of its category, the
Sven & Ole's of the South and West 'burbs. If only I could get my hands on a McDLT.