The best places to eat pizza in Chicago

Pizza addict Tamara Hinson eats as much deep-dish Chicago pizza as possible

Do you want a slice of the action? (Gino’s)

Until I went to Chicago I mistakenly believed that nobody loved pizza more than me. During university, I worked at pizzerias not because I needed cash but because it gave me easy access to my favourite food fix. I met my husband over a mutual appreciation (he was a fellow student, working part-time as a pizza delivery driver). I even dressed as a pizza slice for a fancy dress party.

But Chicagoans really, really love pizza. Take Steve Dolinsky, former food reporter and founder of Pizza City USA tours. Dolinsky talks about how pizzas should be “textural experiences” and about OBR (optimum bite ratio). He can discuss pizza’s structural integrity for hours, and is a tireless campaigner for the abolition of “crust orphans” – the edges often callously tossed aside.

He’s also on a mission to bust the myth that Chicago pizza means deep dish pizza. There are 10 types, including stuffed (which involves a second layer of dough), and Detroit style, a square-shaped pizza with, in Dolinsky’s words, “a gorgeous mahogany undercarriage, as burnished as a Coach bag”. And tavern-style, which Dolinsky describes as the original Chicago-style pizza – a tray-baked creation first served, in small squares, to punters in Chicago’s taverns in an effort to stop them leaving when hunger pangs kicked in.

And finally, there’s deep dish. According to Dolinsky, a true deep dish features a wall of slightly oilier dough built up at the sides, and a middle that is thinner than the edge. “It’s a misconception that dough should be really thick,” he adds.

Steve Dolinsky, Chicago’s most enthusiastic pizza fan (Tamara Hinson)

Dolinsky takes me to taste my first Chicago deep dish at Labriola, an Italian restaurant where we’re served by a slick-haired local straight out of Goodfellas. Owner Rich Labriola’s grandparents were Italian immigrants, and as a child, he spent hours in his father’s pizza restaurant, before training as a baker. The restaurant’s famous for its deep dish pizzas and puffy, olive oil-drenched crusts.

“Most deep dishes are soggy, but Labriola completely re-engineered them,” explains Dolinsky. “The dough contains cornflower, and it’s put in a cornmeal-lined pan, for texture and flavour.”

The chef at Bebu (Steve Dolinsky/PizzaCity)

Our next stop is Bebu, owned by husband and wife Zach and Rachel Smith and opened in 2017. Their speciality is thin crusts, many of which have a twist. The Garden State, for example, has a vodka sauce.

Earlier, Dolinsky bemoaned Chicagoans who refuse to try new types of pizza, describing this affliction as Pigue (Pizza I Grew Up Eating) syndrome. But Bebu’s success is proof there’s a cure. “In Chicago, the pizza landscape is changing all the time,” Dolinsky points out.

I take some time out at the US Pizza Museum, opened last year by graphic designer Kendall Bruns, who fell in love with pizza during childhood holidays to New York. “I wanted to know why pizza was different in other places,” he recalls.

Inside, exhibits explore how Italian immigrants introduced pizzas to America, and focus on the different varieties in Chicago. And then there’s the memorabilia, including a rare McDonald’s pizza box (apparently McDonald’s tried, unsuccessfully, to bag a slice of the pizza market in the 1990s) and pizza-themed vinyl (my favourite being “Music to eat pizza by”).

US Pizza Museum memorabilia (Tamara Hinson)

There’s a pizza-shaped cuckoo clock, pizza-adorned cross-stitching and exhibits illustrating how pop culture embraced pizza from the 1950s: pizza-clutching Spiderman figurines, a poster showing a pizza-shaped-Garbage Pail Kid beneath the words “eat my face” and a plastic Noid – the little-known mascot used by Domino’s in the 1980s.

The most bizarre item is a Video Pizza DVD featuring images of pizza and the soothing sound of sizzling. It’s one of Bruns’ favourite items. “It’s like one of those video fireplaces,” he says. “But it’s pizza.”

Pepperoni pizza at Pat’s (Steve Dolinsky/Pizza City)

There’s also a selection of menus from Chicago’s oldest restaurants, when large pizzas cost two dollars. “Pizza arrived with Italian immigrants but dedicated pizzerias only started opening in the early 20th century,” explains Bruns, who believes a restaurant called Granatos was the first pizzeria in Chicago, although Uno Pizzeria and Grill was the first to serve deep dishes, in 1943.

The latter still operates today, although its stiffest competition now includes restaurants shaped by its original employees. One of the first chefs at Gino’s East, Chicago’s second-oldest pizza chain, was Alice May Redmond, a former Uno chef. Gino East’s flagship restaurant on East Superior Street isn’t for the faint-hearted. It’s famous for its deep dishes – chalkboards encourage diners to go “deep AF”. Inside, walls feature pizza-themed murals, including Einstein chowing down on pizza. A wall of fame has signed pictures of celebrities who’ve stopped by, including Barack Obama, Justin Bieber and Simon Cowell.

Gino’s walls are adorned with pizza-themed pictures

Apparently, the biggest selling point is the crust. “We’ve always used the same recipe, which uses cornmeal to create a golden crust,” explains Gino’s East’s marketing manager, Nosheen Khan.

And it works. It’s delicious and chewy, with enough stability to support the generously-applied toppings. Other ingredients are top secret, although Khan adds that Chicago’s position, on the edge of Lake Michigan, works in its favour. “People say the reason Chicago’s pizzas are so good is the water quality.”

Crusts are also a major selling point at Lou Malnati’s, a family-run pizzeria chain with branches throughout Chicago. It’s another business set up by a former employee of Uno. The late Lou Malnati opened his first restaurant on the city’s outskirts in 1971.

Gino’s uses cornmeal to create a golden crust (Gino’s) (Gino's)

“Our crusts are incredibly flaky,” says brand manager Meggie Lindberg. “Our cheese comes from the dairy we’ve always used, and we get our tomatoes from California. Every year we send a team to taste them, and as soon as we get the green light, they’re picked. Within six hours, we’ve canned enough for all our restaurants.”

As I waddle out, I feel conflicted. Every pizza I’ve tried has been deliciously different, from the wonderfully light thin crusts to the sauce-saturated deep dishes, which I previously considered too heavy. But perhaps loving too many types of pizza isn’t a bad thing. At the US Pizza Museum, Bruns refuses to name his favourite pizza restaurant. “My aim is to celebrate all kinds of pizza,” he said. A worthy mantra indeed.

Travel essentials

Getting there

Norwegian flies from London Gatwick to Chicago from £230 return.

Staying there

Doubles at the Hotel EMC2 from £194, room only.

More information

For more information about visiting Chicago, visit choosechicago.com