Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza (opens in new tab)

The best way to make pizza better is to drink more.

I’ve eaten some fantastic artisan sourdough wonders here in London but nothing compares to being wasted as fuck and finding the one place that’s open at some ungodly hour after a heavy night of eating fuck all and getting your teeth into some greasy monster made of the worst possible ingredients.

Before Apple, Old Tymers [1] like me went to Cicero's in the early 1970s when it was still called Coppola's [2] [3], in its original location on Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road before that was called De Anza Blvd.

The pizza came on a typical aluminum pan, and you didn't get a plate for your slice. You would just put a napkin or two on the table. Messy but good!

The Cali Brothers Mill and Feed Store [4] was just around the corner on Stevens Creek. It had a drive-thru where you would drive inside the building to pick up your farm supplies. Different times!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare

[2] http://www.cicerospizza.com/CicerosMenu.pdf

[3] http://www.cicerospizza.com/pub_html/Restaurant%20Cicero's%2...

[4] https://historysanjose.pastperfectonline.com/photo/41B3BE66-...

> I think a pizza steel preheated in a kitchen oven at 500F gives you a perfectly good pizza, and the fact that you can slide out the oven rack and use gravity to launch the pizza off the peel makes it a total win.

For me, the pizza steel is also plenty good compared to the portable gas ovens. Some other tricks I use are adding diastatic malt powder to the dough, and par-baking the crust before adding the toppings, to let the middle get crisp.

A couple years ago, when I was on a pizza kick, the thing that worked best for me was to start cooking the dough on the stovetop on a very hot cast iron skillet. I would cook it long enough for the dough to start to change color and bubble a bit (45-60 seconds), and then make sure it was releasing from the pan. Then, I would sprinkle on oil, tomato sauce and toppings and move it from the skillet to the preheated stone, and leave it under the broiler for another couple minutes.

The initial cook on the pan got the crust going, and so the oven time was mostly focused on the toppings.

pizza ovens rely on a chain of different skills that all must be done well or the pizza comes out poorly. correctly making the dough, correctly topping it, getting it to slide off the peel correctly, putting it in the right place in the oven, rotating it correctly, and probably several things i'm missing. it leads to an enormous amount of frustration; i haven't gotten something i would consider "good" even once yet.

Native Chicagoan here as well. When I was growing up we called this "party" style pizza, while deep dish was just called pizza. After living in Austin for last 8 years, I still desperately miss good deep dish pizza, but thin crust is easy to find outside of Chicago...

Growing up in Springfield, IL (3 hours south of Chicago), most of the pizza served ourside of chains was the ultra thin crunchy square-cut pizza mentioned in the article (or NY-esque Neapolitan slices).

Vic's (rip) Sam's (rip) Gabatoni's Joe's JT Costello's (more recently)

all served delicious crunchy thin crust with heavily spiced sauce cut thin and usually sent out covered in paper. Any bar that didnt serve frozen pizzas served a variation of this thin crust pie.

Notably, Gallina's Pizza and Lucca Pizza were both Neapolitan style.

I use the oven method with a pizza steel exclusively but the recent spike in natural gas costs in SoCal had me cut back considerably on making pizzas. I was looking into alternatives like the Ooni and the Breville countertop pizza oven, but the reviews on the Breville aren’t inspiring. Kenji’s multi-day method for making his thin crusts seems absurd but after testing same-day and “cured” crusts, it’s worth it.

Mmm. Cicero’s is my favorite pizza spot atm. My kid recently started making pizzas w/ a cast iron skillet in oven at 550, not quite the crispy crust that Cicero’s has, but not entirely bad.

Good to hear about your take on the Ooni—-I think I had started buying into the hype and was starting to eye one in next year or two. Your comment gave a nice reminder to work through some other approaches first.

I know this isn't directly related, but what's your recommended baking for a deep dish pizza? I get Giordano's shipped a few times a year as there's nothing remotely close locally (also open to other shipping options!). I tend to burn the crust before the toppings are done.

> the early Apple people used to go for lunch at Cicero's Pizza

Didn’t know! We’d go there after little league and for Boy Scouts white elephant, the latter where, without exception, someone would pick a gorgeously-wrapped (once spray painted!) rock.

Most tavern style places in Chicago don’t really have a cracker crust. Rosatis thin crust (which isn’t very good) is the type most independent shops sell.

Pats in lake view has great cracker crust.

What do you mean by pizza steel?

I’m looking to get a cast iron pizza pan but would love to know there’s a better option.

I actually talked with Jim Ellison who is a historian of Columbus style pizza. He also confirmed the style started in taverns on the south side of Chicago and spread from there, including to Columbus where it took on its own regional differences (particularly swapping sausage for a ton of pepperoni, and using a different style of pan).

We had to cut some bits from the article for length.

They’re different. Columbus pizzas aren’t as dry in the crusts. Chicago tavern cut crusty edges crumble in one’s mouth. I prefer Columbus’ style, and I think it would do well in Chicago.

I didn't grow up in Chicago but in my experience visiting relatives in the southwest suburbs the thin-crust pizza I ate there (usually Aurelio's) was pretty distinct from other kinds I've eaten in the Great Lakes states. The description other commenters have given of a "cracker" crust is apt. A pizza parlor where I worked in Michigan, for example, had thin pies cut "party-style" but with a much chewier crust.

When I first moved Chicago, I found it weird to run into natives that considered tavern style pizza as also Chicago’s style. In Iowa we just generally consider that the Midwest style pizza but that’s definitely the style preferred by locals for many decades.

Chicago is the Big Apple of the Midwest so I guess they think everything originated from there. But I’m pretty sure tavern style either came from back east, or where I’m from along the Mississippi River.

There are stylistic differences on these tavern thin crust styles across the upper midwest region. When I hear "chicago thin crust" I don't expect it to be 1:1 equivalent w/ columbus style pizza, st louis style pizza, etc. I assume Kenji knows this as well, as for instance I know he's talked about st louis style in the past.

Granted the non-paywall link hasn't loaded for me yet, so for all I know he claims the entire broad-country style was invented in Chicago. In which case, yes I agree with you.

My father was addicted to Totino’s frozen pizza. Originally from Minneapolis in 1950, it was a thin crispy cracker-crust pizza sold widely thru the Midwest. I don’t where it started but it has since spread widely.

"Ultra-crispy" is definitely the style at Fox's, on the southwest side, which I grew up with. And Fox's isn't famous; it's just neighborhood Chicago pizza.

Giardiniera is definitely a modern innovation, though; growing up, I'd be surprised to see anything other than green peppers on a pizza.

Giardineria is the world's most underrated condiment. It belongs at the top of list next to kimchi and sauerkraut.

Yes! Thank you. Banana peppers are about as giardiniera as it gets most places.

Though I will debate you on the sausage location.

I was always a huge fan of Serious Eats, but Kenji's head-mounted camera setup makes most of his videos unwatchable for me.

He has a kids book about pizza (Every Night is Pizza Night), so I suspect he did some serious research for that.

Can't argue that Harold is the OG. It would be nice if he'd release a new edition of On Food and Cooking though. But as I understand it, it still holds up really well after all this time.

Alton Brown is certainly another name I'd add to the mix. Good Eats was brilliant, and his I'm Only Here For The Food / More Food books are really good.

I actually talked to Harold a couple times when he came to Google. He is a very, very nice person; very down-to-earth.

I grew up in Beverly and didn't have deep dish pizza once until I moved out of my parents house. The style of pizza Kenji is writing about here is "Chicago pizza" for me.

Hardly.

I'll put the thin crust of Home Run Inn up against any Chicago deep dish soup any day ... :)

I'm being intentionally provocative, but people really underestimate how many things need to work together to get GOOD pizza, even if you get the ingredients right--that's why I love articles like this from J. Kenji López-Alt.

00 pizza flour is great for Neapolitan pizza baked at very high temps. At lower temps it doesn’t brown or char very well because it’s unmalted. It’s not a good choice for most American pizza styles.

It seems so odd to me that I can't ever find 00 flour in any of the grocery stores around me (in Chicago). Every neopolitan pizza recipe I read stresses use of 00 flour, but I have to buy it from King Arthur's site. Do people not know how easy it is to make pizza at home?

I think it has become a bit line brew where people thought American versions were bad until they started to dig into it more and the craft scene started to take off. Similar with pizza. You have regional styles that no one really wrote about but in more modern times people are looking under more rocks. Locals always loved it hence why d sad one of these joints have been open so long. And a craft scene around those styles grows from it.

In short the upper middle class got tired ordering Pizza Hut and has co-opted the working class styles (New Haven, Detroit, tavern style, etc).

Yes, I use his recipe for Detroit style pizza quite regularly and it’s great! His in-depth articles and the rationale behind what he tests and tries really help explain the process for home cooks. Excited to try this new tavern style pizza recipe.

I’d say the biggest difference is there’s no loyalty to Italian styles. It’s very much made in a way with local ingredients that make sense to the people who make it.

Bread flour instead of 00. Different crusts and shapes. Different cheese (dry instead of fresh mozzarella. Cow instead of Buffalo. Alternative cheeses like Wisconsin Brick cheese in Detroit style) and sauces.

I love a great Neapolitan or Roman style too. But I’m grateful for the distinct regional styles here and arguing about what’s better rather than what’s more authentic.

Emmett's

I mean it's basically akin to nachos at this point and who doesn't love loaded nachos?

+1. Recently tried some recipes from his cookbook The Wok. +=1