Mustard on deep dish? Bizarre. Does it work? Apparently, yes, according to the good folks at Portillo’s and Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria, who are teaming up for a new crosstown collaboration: The Chicago Dog Deep Dish.
“At least we didn’t put ketchup on a Chicago-style hot dog!” said Katie Maldonado, a Lou Malnati’s representative. “We knew this would raise eyebrows, but we were committed to staying authentic to the Chicago dog experience and that means mustard.”
The pizza will be available for 30 days (or while supplies last) at Lou Malnati’s full-service restaurants in the Chicagoland area, Milwaukee and Arizona, and can be ordered for dine-in, carryout or delivery. The pizza, which is only available in the small deep-dish size, will not be available at carryout-only locations.
To kick off the launch and to celebrate National Hot Dog Day, Lou Malnati’s will operate a pop-up hot dog stand outside their Gold Coast Chicago location on July 16 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., giving away free slices while supplies last.
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Maldonado said Lou Malnati’s culinary team worked closely with Portillo’s to perfect the recipe, going through multiple iterations to capture the flavors of a classic Chicago-style dog while making sure it made sense as a pizza.
True to a deep dish pizza, the reverse layering of the dish starts with a bed of mozzarella cheese, canned plum tomatoes, diced fresh tomatoes, topped with Portillo’s hot dogs sliced into coins, white onions, pickles, sport peppers and celery salt. After it’s baked, the pizza is topped with bright green relish and a generous drizzle of yellow mustard.
“Even when we started talking about it — yes, it was a crazy idea, but it weirdly works. We are well aware it shouldn’t, but it shockingly does,” laughed Portillo’s representative Sara Wirth, who said the mashup came together pretty effortlessly, despite its wackiness. “At Lou Malnati’s they use the good tomatoes on their pizza and we use fresh tomatoes on our hot dogs. That’s an easy inversion. But then the mustard — we don’t dunk it in mustard. It’s just that nice, tangy, almost salty addition.”
To bring it home, they incorporated poppy seeds into the crust to mirror a proper Chicago dog bun.
Wirth said it didn’t take more than a couple of months to nail down the pizza. And before launching, Lou Malnati’s and Portillo’s conducted focus groups with whom they referred to as “Chicago deep dish enthusiasts” to get some honest feedback. The response was overwhelmingly positive once people tasted it, Wirth said.
Portillo’s and Lou Malnati’s first partnered together in 2022 for an Italian Beef Deep Dish pizza through Taste of Chicago, which expanded in-store. But the Chicago Dog Deep Dish is Lou Malnati’s first time selling a Portillo’s collaboration in its restaurants.
Lou Malnati’s, multiple locations, loumalnatis.com
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