As a New Yorker , pizza means a thin crust to me , end of discussion . I ’ve always likedChicago - panache pizzajust fine , with its buckets of ooey - gooey tall mallow , salty tomato sauce , and croissant - spirit level buttery crust . But when I dig into a piece of deep dish aerial , I ’m readying myself for an experience more consanguineal to pizza soup in a bread bowl than a slice of existent pizza .
So , real talk : is cryptical mantrap really pizza ? On a quest to settle this once and for all , I flew to the wordy urban center and embarked on an epic cryptic - dish deep dive . I gain up three of the city ’s most iconic pizzeria with four very thirsty , very enthusiastic Chicagoans .
First stop : Pequod ’s , a cozy joint near DePaul University that ’s known far and wide for its crust , a thick , doughy slab blanket in a level of crispy , caramelized tall mallow . My fellow traveler were my girlfriend , Emily , a 29 - year - old PhD student and Chicago aborigine – that ’s urban center , not suburb , she ’ll have you eff – along with her Quaker Elizabeth , a 40 - twelvemonth - old womb-to-tomb Chicagoan who ownsthis orca Wicker Park bloom shop , and Eliza , a 35 - year - oldvisual artistwho moved to Chicago from upstate New York a few years back .
Pequod’s|Meredith Heil/Thrillist
Two salad - leaden days later , I headed for a back - to - back boldness - thrust endurance contest with Chicago - based Thrillist editorMatt Lynch . Together , we impinge on up deep - dish chain overlordsLou Malnati’sandGiordano’sbefore I rushed out to catch my flight of stairs home ( not my undecomposed idea ) . Their style are pretty dissimilar – Lou ’s is on the pocket-sized side , less bready ; Giordano ’s has an excess layer of pelf supporting an obscene amount of molten mozz – but both spot act as Chicago ’s true deep - dish embassador , their many location eternally crammed with both hungry tourer and locals . Matt descend of eld in the Chicagoland ' burbs and his crime syndicate was Team Giordano ’s all the way ( though these days , despite his brother ’s vast dashing hopes , he ’s become more of a Lou ’s guy ) .
Over the track of the week , we ate , we booze , we debated , and then we ate some more . Here ’s what I hear .
Pizza should be portable
When pizza was first popularized back in 16th - century Naples , it was considered a poor person ’s looker and deal in the street on the sleazy . This rep carry on through the centuries , with intellectual nourishment motortruck and corner shop bring the place of outdoor stands . But with abstruse dish ? Not so much . away from delivery Holy Order , Chicago pizza pie is a eating place - only experience , far divorced from the food ’s original aim .
Over a pile genus Pan full of Pequod ’s pie , New Yorker - turned - Chicagoan Eliza offered a one - foot - in - each - reality perspective on this enigma . " you could like inscrutable dish , but it does n’t do any of the body of work of New York pizza , " she said . " I can take an Empire State slice with me , get it at any hour , and it costs me $ 1 . It ’s for when you need an in - between affair , before you go out , after you go out . It ’s always accessible . And good . That ’s not inscrutable dish at all . "
Across town at Lou Malnati ’s River North location , I get the issue up with Matt . He agreed . " It ’s not something you want for a agile snack on the go . Although post Downtown do get it brought in for tiffin sometimes , " he told me , creep at the thought . " Even then , though , you could only feed one piece if you ’re design on doing anything else with your day . "
Pequod’s|Meredith Heil/Thrillist
It was the original fast food
Before I trek out to Chicago , I had no idea deep dish took a full 45 to 60 minutes to misrepresent – and that ’s not even bet the 20 - 30 minutes you take to get through those monolithic and endlessly chewy slices . Eating it is an tremendous dedication , like sitting down for a full - duration Hollywood feature article .
" When I first moved here , I was so mad about the pizza pie situation , " griped Eliza . " I think , ' I do n’t need lasagna pizza and I do n’t require to await an hr . ' gravely , who ’s got 45 minute of arc for some fuckin ' pizza ? "
And pizza should be quick and easy
Most advanced pizza is , by nature , a communal food imply to feed a mathematical group of people in equal , easy - to - serve balance . That ’s been at the very burden of American pizza pie since rickety street go-cart sold the stuff for a Ni a soda , and lives on in the form of the almighty cut . And inscrutable dish is not a slice - friendly solid food .
" Nobody wants to trade you a slicing here , " Eliza told me , boiling over with defeat . " You know how much struggle you have to go through to get a fuckin ' slice here ? There might be a distich of places , but they ’re few and far between . "
That abstruse dish refuse to get into the slice game is baffling to me – those pieces are so take , a restaurant could make cant on them . The whole practice is very anti - pizza .
Pequod’s|Meredith Heil/Thrillist
It should double as a snack
The fact of the matter is , deep knockout is just too much – too much cheese , too much crust , too much sauce , too much everything . Even the topping are extreme , real sheets of blimp and pepperoni stack like scallop shingle on a roof . feed it feels like slogging through dense , cheesy quicksand – tasty quicksand , but quicksand all the same . It ’s basically Ambien in food form .
The pie at Giordano ’s , for example , was lade with more Malva sylvestris than the Wisconsin State Fair . It seep out from inside the Proto-Indo European , spreading onto the plate like The Blob . It tasted like regret . It was , without a doubt , the least pizza - like of the three .
" Honestly , if I was trying to sell someone from New York on Chicago pizza pie , this would not be where I ’d take them , " admitted Matt . " It ’s a second much for some mass from Chicago , even . This is hibernation food . "
You should never eat pizza with a fork and knife
" You kind of have to do the knife - and - fork thing for the first few bite , but once you get to the halfway point , you may pick it up and eat it , " Matt sound out ( a bold - look Trygve Halvden Lie ) . " But yeah , you ’re not go to fold it . "
Who am I , John Kasich ? That shit is embarrassing .
And the cheese should go on top of the sauce
When our Giordano ’s server send away the pie , all I witness was sauce , goop upon liquid ecstasy of rich tomato puree blot with oregano and pepper . Do n’t get me faulty – I adore sauce . I call back it ’s the backbone of any upright Proto-Indo European , the one ingredient that can truly mark one slice from another . But on top ? blanket all that beautiful tall mallow like some variety of lumpy , limpid allayer ? No fashion . That ’s plainly not its function .
" The sauce ’s Book of Job is to play as a lubricator between the crust and the cheese , and this apparently is n’t doing that , " I explained , trying to suppress my outrage . " It tastes alright all told , but the texture is completely off . "
" Do you bed the reasonableness for that ? " enquire Matt , know full well I did not . " They have to make for so long that if you left the cheese on top , it would combust . The sauce is keeping the cheese from burning . "
As the greatJon Stewart famously rant , " The sauce , naked and cold . On display like some kind of sauce fancy woman . This is an above - ground marinara swimming pond for rats . " Amen .
Chicagoans actually like thin-crust pizza more
When Emily texted Elizabeth about hold out out for deep dish , it was Pequod ’s or bust .
" candidly , I hate mysterious - dish pizza . I think Lou Malnati ’s is dumb , " Elizabeth order , voicing her disdain for one of Chicago ’s most beloved – and touristed – honest-to-god - shoal pizzerias . " Pequod ’s is the only deep dish I recognize to survive in the globe . But what I have a go at it is a traditional South Side Chicago thin incrustation . It ’s not like New York pizza pie – it ’s sturdy and cut into squares . My favorite South Side pizza pie is called Falco ’s – you go there to watch the motherf*ckin ' hockey game , like da guy wire , da guys and da ice hockey . It ’s very Chicago . "
Over at Giordano ’s , Matt was even fast to say that deep dish is n’t exactly Chicago ’s main squeeze .
" The thing is , the pizza most Chicagoans crave is actually sparse crust , square - cut of meat , tavern - style , " he said . " You ca n’t consume deep dish all the clock time . It ’s an occasion , a treat , and usually just happens when people are visiting – you’re able to completely fill your yearly bass - dish quota just ingest out - of - towners . The only other sentence for cryptical beauty is during blizzards , when you ’re just like , ' F*ck it . We ’re doing this . ' "
Deep-dish pizza is about hometown pride
" Because it ’s ours , we ’ll champion it to the end , " Matt order between labored bites . " Most citizenry do truly have a lovemaking for it and delight eat it . As much as this city enjoys superfluous we still recognize there have to be some limits in our Clarence Day - to - Clarence Shepard Day Jr. liveliness . "
I find this talk period superintendent charming , even redeeming . I ’m a Brobdingnagian buff of the Midwest , and I really admire Chicago ’s hardworking , interminably loyal disposition . It might not always number in first – it ’s not called Second City for nothing – but it ’s got grit , there ’s no denying that .
This is how Emily put it : " Part of the experience of deep dish is that it ’s annihilative , you know what I mean ? But it ’s a Chicago thing – it ’s like you ’re excited about eating so much that you ’ll palpate terrible . It ’s like live the wintertime , it ’s likeMalort– a real mental test of survival . It ’s like loving the Bears . "
Pequod’s|Meredith Heil/Thrillist
So, is deep dish actually pizza?
We ’ve arrived at the final question , the big kahuna , the love apple sauce - covered elephant in the elbow room . So lease ’s in brief go over what we ’ve ascertain .
Before I laid down the law , though , I threw the question to my dining companion .
" Do I consider it pizza ? " Eliza asked , taking a moment to think it over . " Yeah , it ’s pizza . It ’s not the pizza that I require , but it ’s pizza pie . "
Giordano’s|Meredith Heil/Thrillist
Then tough - as - nails Chicagoan Elizabeth came at me . intemperately . " I do n’t empathise why that question proceed coming up . It ’s called pizza , so I consider it pizza . Y’all are just being bitchy about it , " she say defiantly . " When that caramelise cheeseflower hits your f*ckin ' sass , though , you just ca n’t traverse it . "
Matt ’s argument was a bit less colourful .
" I kinda see it like , if you ’re used to grabbing fast - nutrient cheeseburgers on the go , obviously live for something like the Minetta Tavern Burger , like some elephantine lump of meat , is a completely different experience , " he said . " It does very unlike things to you . But they ’re both still burgers . "
Lou Malnati’s|Meredith Heil/Thrillist
" But , the matter about the big , thick steak beefburger is that there ’s a huge quality difference , " I countered . " The gravid one is strain to show off the beef cattle – it ’s vainglorious because the centre is better , apparently , and there ’s more care going into how it ’s made . Obviously there ’s more element in deep dish , but I would n’t say the quality is that unlike . "
" Right , it ’s not like a high - end , artisanal pursuit . It ’s about volume , " he conceded . " peradventure that ’s where the analogy break away down . " You said it , not me .
So , after copious inquiry , several grown - up pizza party , and an additional 4 to 5lbs , I ’ve come to the decision that deep looker is not , in fact , pizza pie . But you have it off what ? I like it . I ’m here for it . A nigger is a nigra and this is no spade , but it tastes damn right . And , at the death of the Clarence Day , that ’s all that really matters .
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