Lucky Vito's trumps Candlelite

A confession: you know how sometimes you'll see an article with an attention-grabbing headline that, upon reading the article, turns out to be a bit misleading? Well, the sensationalistic headline-writing part of me won out here--I'm not actually claiming to have found a pizza better than Candlelite's. Heck, I've never even been to Candlelite. (Yet.)

My wife and I had decided to trek up to the northern reaches of the city to try out Candlelite's Tuesday 2-for-1 special. Unfortunately, work dragged on as it does all too often, and we realized we just weren't up to the 30-minute drive. Fortunately, we also realized we had a reliably good carryout pizza option within a 10-minute drive, and so we decided to order from Lucky Vito's instead. (And thus I justify the subject line.)

Lucky Vito's is a small place located between Bucktown and Logan Square on Milwaukee. It's primarily a takeout place, and though they do have a handful of tables, the four people I saw dining in tonight were by far the most I've seen. While they lack 2-for-1 specials, they make up for it with a series of specials on weeknights (listed on their menu as 2-topping pizzas, though you'll still get a comparable discount if you order more or fewer toppings on the same-sized pie). Tonight it was the 14" thin crust with sausage, onion, and jalapeno:



The cheese and sauce are quite tasty, and there's enough on the pizza to thoroughly enjoy without being overwhelming. The toppings are just dang good, especially the homemade sausage, which we've had on every pizza we've ordered from there. The crust, while thin, definitely isn't "cracker-thin", and it could certainly be crispier on the bottom (perhaps we need to try ordering the next one extra-crisp). The outside crust does have a nice crunch, though. For the record, we have tried their pan pizza once, but it's pretty much the same pizza with a somewhat thicker crust. I'd definitely advise sticking with the thin crust.

If I haven't quite achieved an adequate description of the Lucky Vito's thin crust, check out a cross-section:



It's one of those pizzas that causes a real disconnect between the belly and the palate: while my stomach was telling me it was stuffed, my palate insisted it hadn't had enough and demanded I eat one more piece. Okay, two more. Fortunately for my stomach, it wasn't the 20" that was on special tonight....

-PT

Lucky Vito's Pizzeria
2171 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 292-0101

I've been meaning to try that place (having a number of their menus by now), and it does look pretty good, but I will just point out that it's fairly inapt to compare that to Candlelite because it's clearly a bread-type crust very different from Candlelite's cracker-thin one. (But "Lucky Vito's Trumps Bacino's Thin Crust" wouldn't have had the same ring around here, I understand.)

Of course, I would never condone such sensationalism myself...

Mike G wrote:I've been meaning to try that place (having a number of their menus by now), and it does look pretty good, but I will just point out that it's fairly inapt to compare that to Candlelite because it's clearly a bread-type crust very different from Candlelite's cracker-thin one.

Perhaps this place, LV's, doesn't roll the dough out as thinly as Candlelite (I've been to neither) and/or makes a (larger?) rim, but from the looks of it to me, LV's crust is not of the bready sort but rather of the Chicago, short-dough sort. To me, it's less the form of crust than the character of the dough that defines the major divide in pizza styles. Though you may well be right that within the realm of Chicago style short-dough thin crust, LV and Candlelite are relatively very different, from my perspective they seem to belong to the same species.

Antonius

Thanks for the post, PT.

Regarding jalapenos on pizzas: I've become a big fan of jalapenos on thin crust pizzas, but I've found very few places that use fresh jalapenos as opposed to jarred or pickled ones. Does Luck Vito's use fresh peppers?

I find that the flavor of a fresh pepper matches the cheese and the sauce much better than a harsher pickled pepper. Candlelite uses fresh peppers, but my local delivery choice, Limbo's, unfortunately uses pickled peppers.

Candlelite pizza with mushroom, onion, jalapeno. Extra-crispy:


Best,
Michael

Limbo's
4929 W Irving Park
Chicago 60641
773-481-0500

Candlelite
7452 N Western
773-465-0087

They probably are both short doughs (harder to tell with something like Candlelite-- try it and you tell me), but one is rolled very thin and cooks to a single cracker-like crust (probably with higher heat, too), the other is thicker and has a discernable exterior and interior which, like bread, has a crust and a spongier middle. (If you're saying that proper Italian bread-- and by extension a bread-like New York-style pizza crust-- never has oil or shortening in it, I'd say that's the ideal but of course, for reasons of lasting longer on a grocery shelf, many so-called Italian breads in the area do, in fact, include shortening.)

Just based on observation of how much the family will eat of one versus the other, consistently over time, there's clearly much more "bread" filling you up with one versus the other.

So whatever the "major divide" in pizza styles may be (surely there's more than just one), in Chicago where most of the thin pizzas are the breadier Lucky Vito type, the cracker-crust thins (Candlelite, Pat's, Vito & Nick's, etc.) stand out as a group of their own.

antonius wrote: it's less the form of crust than the character of the dough that defines the major divide in pizza styles

I am not sure I entirely agree with this, but it does make a wonderful quote.

Mike G and Antonius, I think you're both right--LV's crust without a doubt falls squarely in the domain of Chicago-style thin crust (and what is to my possibly misguided understanding "short-dough"), while certainly thicker and "breadier" than the thinnest, cracker-crust pizzas around. And just to be clear, I use "breadier" in the sense that Mike G used it in his second follow-up, with no implications of similarity to actual bread dough.

Since I'm attempting to be clear here, I should re-emphasize that the Candlelite theme to my post has nothing to do with an attempted comparison between actual pizzas, but rather the original inspiration for the pizza-obsessed spell we found ourselves under last night. If anyone reading this doesn't understand quite what I mean, check out the pictures in this thread and see if you don't develop a pizza jones of your own.

-PT

eatchicago wrote:Regarding jalapenos on pizzas: I've become a big fan of jalapenos on thin crust pizzas, but I've found very few places that use fresh jalapenos as opposed to jarred or pickled ones. Does Luck Vito's use fresh peppers?

I find that the flavor of a fresh pepper matches the cheese and the sauce much better than a harsher pickled pepper. Candlelite uses fresh peppers, but my local delivery choice, Limbo's, unfortunately uses pickled peppers.

EC, Lucky Vito's jalapenos definitely come from a jar. We thought they worked very well with our pizza, though I could certainly imagine fresh jalapenos being even better--the ones in your Candlelite picture look lovely....

-PT

PT Love wrote:-LV's crust without a doubt falls squarely in the domain of Chicago-style thin crust (and what is to my possibly misguided understanding "short-dough"), while certainly thicker and "breadier" than the thinnest, cracker-crust pizzas around. And just to be clear, I use "breadier" in the sense that Mike G used it in his second follow-up, with no implications of similarity to actual bread dough.

PT:

Well put. With regard to the difference of opinion between Mike G and me here, it is perhaps a matter of perspective. Different perspectives can lend different but still conceivably valid views of a subject. Be that as it may, for me, someone who grew up eating pizza of the traditional Neapolitan variety (simple bread dough) or of the varieties that include a touch of olive oil in the dough, the major divide is between those 'bready' pizzas and the -- to me foreign -- more pastry-like dough pizzas that have become so popular in Chicago.

From my perspective then, the one (and older) type of pizza is a form of basic bread and the best of it to me, the classic form, has no fat in the dough whatsoever. When one alters significantly the composition of the dough, one has altered the dish in a basic and important way. Details of how one shapes the dough or dresses the dough are obviously important but to my mind very much secondary to the central issue of the composition of the dough.

(Nota bene that I am pretty much avoiding any emphasis on relative value judgements -- there are different styles and there are people who like one or the other, some who like both. We all have our preferences. No need for gnashing of teeth in that regard.)

Ciao,
Antonius

PT Love wrote:

eatchicago wrote:Regarding jalapenos on pizzas: I've become a big fan of jalapenos on thin crust pizzas, but I've found very few places that use fresh jalapenos as opposed to jarred or pickled ones. Does Luck Vito's use fresh peppers?

I find that the flavor of a fresh pepper matches the cheese and the sauce much better than a harsher pickled pepper. Candlelite uses fresh peppers, but my local delivery choice, Limbo's, unfortunately uses pickled peppers.

EC, Lucky Vito's jalapenos definitely come from a jar. We thought they worked very well with our pizza, though I could certainly imagine fresh jalapenos being even better--the ones in your Candlelite picture look lovely....

-PT

I love eating the pickled, jarred jalepenos on the side with my pizza. But it never really occurred to me to order them ON the pizza! However, after seeing that Candlelite pie, I think I would prefer the fresh jalepenos over the pickled ones ON the pizza itself. I'd probably still eat the pickled ones on the side, though.

Now located at 1950 N Kimball Ave, LV's is turning out some of the blandest pizza -- from top to bottom -- that I can remember ever having. The sauce is mainly sweet and devoid of any richness or herbaceousness. The toppings, while abundant, are bland af. The crust is certainly crispy -- and thin in both substance and in flavor. Yikes. It's like eating a deionized saltine . . . minus the salt. In its current state, I can't imagine this pizza trumping anything that didn't come out of the freezer section at the grocery store.

=R=

1950 N Kimball Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 570-9296