

Their tomato sauce was a little saltier than the rest, and the flavours were very rich. This was my first introduction to Chicago-style pizza and it set the bar pretty high.
#Chicago deep dish pizza in chicago plus
The result was a hit and today there are 14 Giordano’s in downtown Chicago, plus another 30 locations spread out across the Chicago suburbs and Florida. Discouraged by the lack of ‘authentic pizza’ in the city, they opened the first Giordano’s in 1974, where they introduced their mother’s stuffed pizza recipe (FYI stuffed pizza is even deeper than deep-dish pizza). Giordano’s was started by Efren and Joseph Boglio, two brothers who emigrated from Argentina. Their crust is a little thinner than your average deep-dish pizza, but it’s also extra buttery and flaky – that’s a good thing! Because of this I found that I could eat more of it without getting too stuffed. The pizzas at Lou Malnati are special in their own way. In 1971, he took all his pizza knowledge and decided to open a restaurant under his own name. Lou Malnati’s is a respected name in Chicago and it also has a long history when it comes to pizza in the city. Lou got his start in the 1940’s working with his dad in Chicago’s first pizzeria. This makes the dough yellower and it also has a slightly different flavour, which to me was a welcome change after eating pizza every single day. Their website states that the pizza is made with a “secret, golden crust” but it seems to be common knowledge that the secret to their recipe is cornmeal. What I liked about Gino’s East Side is that they make their pizza slightly different from the rest. The place became a hit with locals and visitors, and it’s still around today.
#Chicago deep dish pizza in chicago drivers
The restaurant was started by 2 taxi drivers who were tired of dealing with traffic and decided to open a pizzeria with a friend.

Gino’s East Side has been around since 1966. With one week in the Windy City I managed to eat at 5 different establishments. Here’s a little recap: Gino’s East Side (This is actually done so that the cheese won’t burn seeing as deep-dish pizza requires a longer baking time.) The result looks less like a pizza and more like a pie, but it’s so delicious that I’m sure Italians are wishing they had come up with it.īecause so many different pizzerias claim to make the “best deep-dish pizza in all of Chicago”, I decided to go in search of the best myself. It has a really thick crust that can sometimes be up to 3 inches high! The pizza is baked in a steel pan and the toppings are usually assembled upside-down starting with cheese, followed by pepperoni or sausage, and then topped off with crushed tomatoes. Once we were back in North America, I knew it was only a matter of time before he planned a trip to Chicago, and because I like to eat, I tagged along.ĭeep-dish pizza is not your average slice of pizza. So during one of our weekends in Korea, he decided to drag me about 1 hour and a half into Seoul so that we could go eat at one of the only deep-dish pizzerias in the whole country… The boy’s not even from Chicago (he’s from British Columbia!), but he somehow has a big love for all things from the Windy City. I had just started dating Sam and I quickly learned that there were two things he really loved: the Blackhawks and deep-dish pizza. So after a couple of not-so-good attempts, we finally came up with a formula that resembles our original crust very closely, and one that enables us to make any kind of pizza and even GF calzoni! It makes us extremely proud to hear customers say that the flavor is identical to our classic pies, and to see their happy faces after they've enjoyed great tasting pizza again.Īnd we didn't stop there: We also make our own GF focaccia rolls so you can have a delicious garlic bread, gourmet sandwich or a panino.I first tried Chicago deep-dish pizza in South Korea. Take it out of the equation and you end up with a crumbly, heavy and not so yummy piece of bread. It was when we decided to take it a step further and develop our own recipe, which is easier said than done: Gluten is extremely important in baking, as it gives yeast-raised dough the strength to trap the fermentation CO2, resulting in a sponge-like crumb. After trying many of the commercially available dough and pre-made crusts, we realized that none came close to the flavor or texture of our pizza, and that was a dealbreaker. Back in 2011, several of our customers told us that due to gluten sensitivity, they could no longer eat their favorite Chicago-style pizza, so we started looking for a solution that would allow them to continue enjoying our pies.
