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Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

nytimes.com

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Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#51

Post by rhino369 »

AlbertCory wrote: post #26

Native Chicagoan here. Not totally a snob, but getting there. I didn't usually encounter really crispy crust growing up, but I'm not saying it's wrong. He does a lot of things here I've never tried, but now I'm going to. I had an Ooni, and after 5 or 6 meh attempts, I sold it. I also exited the r/ooni subreddit. I'm also out of love with the Neapolitan style baked at 700F+. Come at me. I think a pizza steel preheated…

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.

Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#52

Post by AlbertCory »

karaterobot wrote: post #41
AlbertCory wrote: post #26

Native Chicagoan here. Not totally a snob, but getting there. I didn't usually encounter really crispy crust growing up, but I'm not saying it's wrong. He does a lot of things here I've never tried, but now I'm going to. I had an Ooni, and after 5 or 6 meh attempts, I sold it. I also exited the r/ooni subreddit. I'm also out of love with the Neapolitan style baked at 700F+. Come at me. I think a pizza steel preheated…

> 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, t…

Haven't tried either of those. Thanks

Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#53

Post by pessimizer »

wsatb wrote: post #18
fbdab103 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not even a native Chicagoan, though I lived there for many years, and I am personally offended anyone could have such a stance. I want each slice to be a meal.

Most Chicagoans I know do not eat deep dish often, nor do they even really like it. But...as someone else said, this isn't really the alternative. The crust is just plain wrong.

To be fair, an awful lot of upper-middle class esp. North Side Chicagoans aren't from Chicago. The inner suburbs are far more Chicago than a lot of neighborhoods in the city that are filled with various Midwestern emigrants (who didn't think they were good enough for NY, and didn't think they were good looking enough for California, so ended up in the second city.) The inner suburbs are filled with the descendants of white flight from the 50s-70s, who had been in the city for generations when most of its cultural touchstones were established.

I'm from Chicago and I like deep dish, but these big thin slices are also good. It's obvious what the default is: when I was a kid "pizza" meant Giordano's or Eduardo's or Lou Malnati's or The Medici, or Unos or Dues, etc. Thin crust was called "thin crust." This article uses the same convention.

edit: I think there was an exception for Reggio's. Maybe we thought of it as "pizza" because it's so dense and advertised as a "butter crust."

Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#54

Post by AlbertCory »

Stratoscope wrote: post #43
AlbertCory wrote: post #26

Native Chicagoan here. Not totally a snob, but getting there. I didn't usually encounter really crispy crust growing up, but I'm not saying it's wrong. He does a lot of things here I've never tried, but now I'm going to. I had an Ooni, and after 5 or 6 meh attempts, I sold it. I also exited the r/ooni subreddit. I'm also out of love with the Neapolitan style baked at 700F+. Come at me. I think a pizza steel preheated…

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 co…

Shameless self promotion:

Cali and Cicero's both mentioned in my book The Big Bucks.

Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#55

Post by Kon-Peki »

tptacek wrote: post #37
qbasic_forever wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Detroit style doesn't get enough love. I feel like it's the perfect balance of pillowy thick but not filling you up. Laying stripes of sauce on top gives you a different flavor in every bite too.

Kenji's Detroit-style is my go-to home pizza: https://www.seriouseats.com/detroit-style-pizza-recipe (It would be this Chicago recipe, but if you live in Chicago you're never more than 20 minutes out from someone delivering a better version of it than you can make).

That article mentions Pequod’s as a Chicago deep dish with the kind of burnt cheese crustiness of Detroit style. I absolutely agree. If you visit Chicago and think you are supposed to try deep dish to complete your tourist checklist, go over there - you will not be disappointed.

Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#56

Post by tptacek »

mhb wrote: post #45
cainxinth wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a story about Chicago’s much lesser known (and superior) style of pizza.

Looks like a pretty close facsimile with less effort could be made using a tortilla as the crust.

Kenji agrees.

https://www.seriouseats.com/extra-crispy-bar-style-tortilla-...

Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#57

Post by joshu »

AlbertCory wrote: post #26

Native Chicagoan here. Not totally a snob, but getting there. I didn't usually encounter really crispy crust growing up, but I'm not saying it's wrong. He does a lot of things here I've never tried, but now I'm going to. I had an Ooni, and after 5 or 6 meh attempts, I sold it. I also exited the r/ooni subreddit. I'm also out of love with the Neapolitan style baked at 700F+. Come at me. I think a pizza steel preheated…

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.

Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#58

Post by chitowneats »

antihero wrote: post #29
AlbertCory wrote: post #26

Native Chicagoan here. Not totally a snob, but getting there. I didn't usually encounter really crispy crust growing up, but I'm not saying it's wrong. He does a lot of things here I've never tried, but now I'm going to. I had an Ooni, and after 5 or 6 meh attempts, I sold it. I also exited the r/ooni subreddit. I'm also out of love with the Neapolitan style baked at 700F+. Come at me. I think a pizza steel preheated…

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.

Well put.

That being said, the Chicago version is still better.

NYC pizza is a bad joke. As long as you're only paying $1 it's not that bad for the price. That price point and the places that offered it are going extinct unfortunately. The "slice" is dead.

Imagine having to fold your "pizza" because it's just a nasty mess of sauce and cheese.

Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#59

Post by vidanay »

rhino369 wrote: post #51
AlbertCory wrote: post #26

Native Chicagoan here. Not totally a snob, but getting there. I didn't usually encounter really crispy crust growing up, but I'm not saying it's wrong. He does a lot of things here I've never tried, but now I'm going to. I had an Ooni, and after 5 or 6 meh attempts, I sold it. I also exited the r/ooni subreddit. I'm also out of love with the Neapolitan style baked at 700F+. Come at me. I think a pizza steel preheated…

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.

Vito and Nick's has the best crust IMO

Re: Kenji López-Alt spent 5 months studying Chicago thin-crust pizza

#60

Post by graupel »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #46
grogenaut wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this similar to St Louis 's square beyond compare thin pizza or pretty similar? Mmm imos

I’ve only had St Louis pizza in St Louis once, and the big difference is the cheese. I didn’t like it, but certainly a lot of people do like it or it wouldn’t survive as a style of pizza. Edit - Wikipedia says that St Louis pizza crust doesn’t have yeast in it. Chicago thin crust definitely uses yeast.

Provel isn't worthy of using the word "cheese" to describe it. (said lovingly as someone who worked in STL and was often handed pies of "office pizza" from Imo's.)
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