A look at non-native slices around Chicago:
For a city that prides itself on a pizza style with an inch-high stack of cheese and sausage, it’s curious that almost every pizza joint that has opened in the last decade, it seems, doesn’t specialize in the Chicago deep dish variety. I think it’s because the marquee names Uno’s and Lou Malnati’s have essentially cornered that market, so newpizza entrepreneurs are free to explore other styles. Here are three non-native pizzas, dissected.
Homeslice Wheel House
938 W. Webster Ave., 312-789-4600
Price: $3 pepperoni slice (individual slices Monday through Friday lunch only)
Good if you like: Crust with the bready smell of a bakery in the morning.
Cornmeal dusted underside, stone-baked into sturdy but bendable crust. Physically resembles a Pizza Hut slice, only chubbier. Golden puffed end crust like a breadstick that’s chewy outside and soft inside. Marinaralike tomato sauce, subtle Italian spicing.
See all this pepperoni done pretty for the camera? My pizza, tasted anonymously, had 30 percent less.
Underside crust as thick as: 10 playing cards
Slices
Inside NYC Bagel Deli, 515 N. Dearborn St., 312-923-9999
Price: $4.44 for plain slice, 44 cents for additional topping
Good if you like: Cheese festivals.
Take a Financial Times newspaper. Fold in half, then again corner to corner. This is the size of one slice (it’s gargantuan). Necessitates two paper plates underneath.
Gooey cheese blanket covers scant tomato sauce. Entirely pliable; intended for folded one-handed consumption. End crust provides crunchy contrast. Pepperoni and cheese leach orange oil that rolls down your wrist. This is coveted in some New York pizza circles.
Underside crust as thick as: 5 playing cards.
Armitage Pizzeria
711 W. Armitage Ave., 312-867-9111; closed Monday
Price: $15 (whole sausage pizza, 14 inches)
Good if you like: Balance and simplicity.
Understated, no-nonsense New York-style pie (Massachusetts native and owner James Spillane prefers “East Coast-style”).
End crust beautifully chewy and crisp. Underside surface dark, dimpled, textually satisfying. Perfect ratio of toppings. Minimal sausage. Not too much cheese to be heavy. Light slather of sweet tomato sauce.
Underside crust as thick as: 7 playing cards
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This story was originally published Aug. 1, 2013