With a unique crust, taste and ingredients, craft beers served in only one other Chicago area location, and a wood-fired pizza oven made in Italy, Stix & Stones Kitchen & Craft in Burr Ridge is seeking to be a destination location for area diners.
Jeremy Samatas, who owns the restaurant in Burr Ridge’s Village Center with other family members, said they did not just want to create “another pizza place.”
The family, which also owns The Lucky Monk Burger, Pizza & Beer Co. in South Barrington, started examining pizza alternatives.
“With Lucky Monk, we’ve got the burgers down, we have our own brewery, but the pizza is not quite there yet,” said Samatas, an Oak Brook native and Hinsdale Central alumnus.
He said with an eye on better pizza for Lucky Monk, as well as another restaurant concept, family members became immersed in pizza research. They became excited about Neapolitan-style pizza, with its lighter dough and blending of fresh flavors.
“No other pizza is like that,” Samatas said. “We have had to do some educating of people about our offerings. What we are doing in Burr Ridge is an understated wood-fired pizza concept.”
During the family research, the Samatas became interested in a father and son in Naples, Italy, who make a unique pizza oven.
“The oven is shipped over on a boat,” Samatas said. “It is all wood and it gets up to 800 degrees.”
The thin-crust pizzas only need about 90 seconds of cooking time before being pulled from the oven, Samatas said.
The restaurant owner said Stix & Stones waits three or four days for dough to rise before using it. That way, the dough has completely expanded, he said.
“A lot of places use the dough the same day they make it … and you feel stuffed after eating it,” Samatas said. “That’s because that dough’s still expanding.”
He said it is a common occurrence for individuals to polish off a 12-inch Stix & Stones pizza themselves.
“That is because our dough is so light,” Samatas said. “We are super passionate about providing a classic pizza, a light pizza.”
Darren Madigan has ordered take-out from the Burr Ridge restaurant a few times and dined in.
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“It’s very good,” the Chicago resident said. “I’ve had a few different pizzas and I’ve liked them all. The taste is different, unique and light.”
Samatas said the blending of fresh flavors, such as mascarpone, fresh mozzarella, shaved onion, rosemary, grated Parmesan cheese, garlic and extra virgin olive oil (ingredients in the restaurant’s White Pizze) have been well-received by patrons since the eatery’s opening in June.
Seasonal changes will be made to the menu this month, Samatas said, with some soups being added for fall and some offerings’ ingredients changing. He said the menu will continue to change with the seasons to keep an interesting mix of offerings. He said many of the pending changes were generated by customers’ suggestions.
“We want to know what people think our menu is missing,” Samatas said, noting pastas offerings may be on the menu in the not-too-distant future.
The fast casual concept has orders brought to tables and served on plates. Regular silverware and napkins are provided. Samatas said the concept allows for a family to go out for a nice pizza dinner and still be done in 35 minutes.
He said the five family owners of the restaurant are in no hurry to branch out to other locations just yet. The Burr Ridge location could get sister facilities eventually, he said, but there is no timetable for such expansion. Samatas noted that Lucky Monk has been operating for four years and the owners are just now looking at starting a second location.
“We want to make sure we have the concept down. We want to be confident that we are doing works,” Samatas said. “I feel very comfortable with where we are now.”
Kevin Beese is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
The ingredients
Address: 505 Village Center Drive.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Mondays through Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays.
Phone: 630-861.0626
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: eatstixandstones.com