[Photograph: Nick Kindelsperger]

Avec

615 West Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60661 (map); 312-377-2002; avecrestaurant.com‎
Pizza Style: Wood-fired Flatbread
The Skinny: Very thin and light, .
Price: $16

I went to Avec because I was embarrassed. Please don't judge me, but the last time I checked out the West Loop staple was about seven years ago, two years before I even moved to Chicago. It wasn't like I was ignoring the Paul Kahan empire out of anger—between eating all the sandwiches at Publican Quality Meats and devouring the tacos at Big Star, I had plenty to eat. It's just that I didn't know what else there was to write about Avec.

While shame took seven years to bring me back, the pizza had me return in less than a week.

Normally, I'm leery of any place that decides to randomly drop one pizza on a menu, because the dough never gets the attention it deserves. But then again, most restaurants aren't Avec. Paul Kahan's classic West Loop restaurant has managed to stay relevant, and packed, since opening in 2003, mostly by serving Spanish-inspired small plates. Up until a few months ago, pizza wasn't even an option.

But there it was in the "Large Plates" section, one lonely wood-fired pizza ($16) only available with Publican Quality Meat's salumi toscano, marinated broccolini, Parmesan, and a gorgonzola crème fraîche. It makes sense. The wood-fired oven has been roaring since Avec first opened, and the cooks obviously know how to use it.

But is this really a pizza? You could make the case that it is more like a flatbread, since the crust is first cooked by itself, before it's flipped and topped. This also means that the ends aren't quite as puffy as they could be. But there is no faulting the result. Crisp and crackly, not to mention exceptionally thin, the crust somehow remains airy and light at the same time. Though only one of a number of plates my wife and I ordered, we were still able to devour this whole thing.

This also allows you to focus on the mix of funky salumi, crisp broccolini, and the tart crème fraîche. Though each component is flavorful, none of them is able to take over completely. It genuinely works, which is what you could also say about the pizza in general.

But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, because in some respects, Avec has been serving pizza since the very beginning. Though not technically called pizza, the "deluxe" focaccia ($15) has been a fixture on the menu for years, and it's close enough to warrant discussion here. Also cooked in the wood-fired oven, the very thin slab of focaccia is sliced in half crosswise and slathered with creamy taleggio cheese and ricotta. When the top is added back on, you're left with two crispy, crunchy layers with oozing cheese in the middle.

At first, it comes across as satisfying, if a little one note. But as you continue eating, it starts to open up in a remarkable way. A faint aroma of truffle oil slowly reveals itself. It haunts each bite, never overpowering the other components, nudging you to dig back in.

Of course, the thing about Avec is that just about every other dish on the menu is as astonishing as these two. But if you haven't been in a while, or have somehow managed to tire of the bacon-wrapped dates, use the pizza as an excuse to visit again.

About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is the editor of Serious Eats: Chicago. He loves tacos and spicy food. You can follow him as @nickdk on Twitter.

[Photographs: Roger Kamholz]

When Logan Square's Ciao Napoli Pizzeria closed last year, the restaurant group behind the neighboring Telegraph Wine Bar quickly snatched up the space. Since opening last November, their new restaurant and bar, Reno, has taken Chicago by storm (most recently landing on Eater's Pizzeria Heatmap). The osteria launched with morning, midday, and nighttime menus, offering up wood-fired bagels and pastries in the a.m., sandwiches at lunch, and an impressive array of pastas and wood-fired pizzas come dinner.

The tiled oven that anchors the low-key dining room is a Ciao leftover. You've got to wonder if its presence in the vacant space helped inspire Telegraph's executive chef, Johnny Anderes—who now heads Reno's kitchen, as well—to lead restaurant group's charge into pizza-making. What chef inherits that kind of hardware and doesn't figure out a way to put it to good use?

And Anderes has done just that. The style he's cultivated at Telegraph is one of rustic elegance; he's as confident in plating clean, modernist compositions as he is in building more hearty dishes. Now that he's working in the medium of pizza, he seems to be embracing more of the latter, with excellent results. The team manning the oven has been consistently hitting a nice, healthy char along the rim, bathing the pies in the smoky aroma of the wood-fired oven. Indeed, there's a lot to like here. I wouldn't go so far as to say they upset the pantheon of the city's finest pies, but factoring in their reasonable prices and the quality of ingredients, Reno certainly ranks as a go-to spot for pizza in Logan Square.

The Reno ($9), topped with mozzarella, fresh basil, and red sauce, is the restaurant's Margherita pie—my bellwether of choice when it comes to judging pizza quality. In this case, it signaled that Anderes has settled on a taut and elastic crust that transitions from chewy at the center, to crispy and flaky along the cornicione. At times that elasticity bordered on toughness, but for the most part I was digging how doughy and resilient the crust was—even with a well-done pie. The red sauce, while pleasantly rich, seemed short on punch and acidity. Its big, yet somewhat flat, flavor dominated, keeping the cheese from any memorable form self-expression.

The Paulina, shown half-covered with pepperoni by request.

The Paulina ($12) is a far more dynamic and balanced pie than the Reno. A bold and spicy pepperoni, sourced from Chicago's Paulina Meat Market, gives this pizza its name, but it's hardly the only star topping. A show-stopping jalapeño pesto emerges from the mozzarella and red sauce base. Frankly, I didn't expect the pesto—scattered in creamy, spicy little dollops—to work quite so splendidly as it did.

Checking the underside of Reno's pizza reveals a beautifully marbled pattern of char. Sure, that oven may be a hand-me-down, but Reno is rocking it with pride.

Reno

2607 North Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60647 (map)
773-697-4234, renochicago.com

[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]

Flour & Stone

355 East Ohio Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611 (map); 312-822-8998; flourandstone.com‎
Pizza Style: "Brooklyn Style"
Pizza Oven: Gas Oven
The Skinny: Light hand-tossed that needs more time in the oven.
Price: Margherita, $15.25; Classic, $15.75; Mushroom, $17.75

Oh, the weight of expectations. For the past six months, I've eagerly anticipated the opening of Flour & Stone, mostly due to the restaurant's claim that it would serve "Chicago's Brooklyn style pizza." Now, I know what you're going to say. What the hell is Brooklyn-style pizza?

Two things immediately popped into my brain. First come all memories of the pizza I ate while living in the Brooklyn—the pilgrimages to DiFara's and Totonno's, the simple and stunning toppings at Franny's, and my weekly pie at Lucali's. But just as quickly, there flashed images of Domino's "Brooklyn Style Pizza" and that commercial where some streetwise lady tells a cabbie to fold his pizza "like a man." My scars have yet to heal. So, on one hand we have some of the greatest pizza anywhere, and on the other we have...well, Domino's.

Any doubts as to where on this spectrum Flour & Stone would fall were also heavily influenced by a manifesto of sorts on the restaurant's website: Crust, they declare, should be "perfectly crunchy on the outside, delightfully chewy on the inside—just like a good loaf of bread." This sounded exactly like the kind of pizza I love. I couldn't wait to check it out.

But I knew something was off the moment the Classic ($15.75) with pepperoni hit the table. Though the crust had some color, it was far more blonde than browned, and the whole pie had a soft, squishy look to it.

Flour & Stone claims that they "love bubbles in our crust," but a profile view of the pie proved otherwise. The ends had some rise to them, but they still looked way too dense and uniform, with none of the hole structure I was hoping for.

A peek underneath revealed a crust with almost no char. Instead, it was nearly white. Obviously, this pizza just needed some more time in the gas oven (which the restaurant claims hits 600°.). For a few minutes I sunk into something of a pizza depression, the kind of illness that afflicts me when my obscenely high expectations of a pizzeria are sent tumbling down. But I regrouped and pressed on. Perhaps Lucali's wasn't going to open in my city, but what did Flour & Stone have to offer?

As the Margherita ($15.25) soon revealed, Flour & Stone serves up satisfying thin-crust pizza in a neighborhood that has few other options. There's a little too much cheese, but at least its tangy and distinctive, playing well off the tart and acidic sauce. And while the ends are soft, the crust is fairly thin.

I wouldn't want to eat it often, but the aggressive and salty pepperoni on the Classic made for a satisfying couple of slices. Still, I wouldn't let this one sit around for too long, or it gets greasy. But hey—all the more reason to feast quickly.

Only the Mushroom ($17.75) failed to connect. I blame the watery and bland mushrooms, which even sharp red onion slices couldn't wake up.

Perhaps it was my fault. With the memories of my favorite Brooklyn pizzerias bouncing in my brain, I set Flour & Stone up to be something it clearly could never be. Luckily, without all my baggage, it fairs better. The residents of Streeterville obviously agree: It was packed to the breaking point on my visit, as customers crowded the area next to the register waiting for their pizzas. Plus, it will take time to figure out the oven before they can kick out a consistent product. I'll be back soon to check it out.

About the author:Nick Kindelsperger is the Editor of Serious Eats: Chicago.

Balsan

Waldorf Astoria Chicago, 11 East Walton Street, Chicago, IL 60611 (map); 312-646-1300; waldorfastoriachicagohotel.com
Pizza Style: Neapolitan-inspired
The Skinny: Very thin and blistered crust with flavorful toppings.
Price: $15

On my last pizza dispatch from Chicago, I took you inside John's Pizzeria, a decidedly old-school joint that serves extra-thin pizza in a room that looks suspiciously like an aging 1970's suburban living room (remember the buxom young brunettes?). So for this review I wanted to go as far in the other direction as I could, and locate the most lavish place imaginable to satisfy a pizza craving. I knew exactly where to go.

Welcome to the Waldorf Astoria, which stands 60-stories tall over the Gold Coast. (Up until a few months ago the hotel was called the Elysian.) Instead of a door on Rush St., the entrance is hidden somewhat in an elaborate courtyard, apparently to keep the riffraff from the Viagra Triangle (a very real place) from wandering around.

Of course, I'm not exactly the target demographic either, and while I never felt unwelcome, I was watched with an eagle eye. See what I mean? Still, the sparkling white and serene lobby comes as quite a shock, and you may wonder if there is even a restaurant around. But make your way to the elevator and hit number three, and you'll be dropped off at Balsan, one of the best, and most approachable, hotel restaurants in Chicago.

Balsan is mostly known for its excellent seafood, including some impeccably fresh oysters (which were criminally left off this list). Even though the menu is short, pizza doesn't appear to be high on its list of priorities. In fact, "pizza" is never even mentioned.

But look no further than the Wood Oven Fired Tarte Flambée ($15), Balsan's one and only choice. Sure, it's technically not a pizza (according to Wikipedia, it's an Alsatian dish), but it's certainly close enough for me. Considering it's been on the menu since Balsan opened, obviously other people agree.

Instead of playing it safe with some Neapolitan-esque creation, Balsan picked out four full-flavored toppings and tried to find some way to make them all get along. The result is a pizza that is at once unhinged, but never overbearing. Topped with bacon, red onion, crème fraîche, and Uplands Cheese (not to mention a sprinkling of chives), it should add up to an indulgent mess. Thankfully, each is applied so sparingly that none stands out too much.

Sure, the richness of the bacon is amplified by a drizzle of crème fraîche, but both are cut by the sharp red onions and the funky, salty cheese. I wouldn't call it light, but I still managed to devour five slices without too much effort.

It helps that the crust is thin, thin, thin—almost to the point where dips into the dreaded floppy category.

But it holds on, probably thanks to a healthy char from the wood-fired oven and a dusting of cornmeal on the bottom. (I should note that I remember the crust being crisper in the past.) Sure, I wish the ends were higher and interior showed more development, but like every other component, it's meant to barely be there.

Balsan is obviously not a pizza destination—no restaurant with only one option can really be. But for a place that does so many other things well, this pizza manages to impress. Plus, it's also the cheapest main course on the menu, which means you can waste whatever savings you have left on as many oysters as you'd can eat afford.

About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is the editor of Serious Eats: Chicago. He loves tacos and spicy food. You can follow him as @nickdk on Twitter.

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Great Lake in Chicago, undeniably one of the country's destination pizzerias (we've said as much in these posts), will be closing up shop at the end of January. Owners of the Andersonville restaurant, Nick Lessins and Lydia Esparza, have opted not to renew their lease according to Crain's Chicago Business. But before you unleash a string of self directed reprimands of "oh-my-god-why-haven't-I-been-there-yet," or "why-did-I-let-the-lines-keep-me-from-trying-to eat-there-more-often," let's get those heart palpitations in check.

By all initial accounts, it sounds like while operations will cease at the current location, operations will not cease overall. The reason given for the move is that the landlord had not made "necessary repairs and updates to the building." But according to the Chicago Business article, Lessins told the landlord that his plan is to move the restaurant. Phew!

While no further information surrounding the move is known at the moment, we will be looking into the details. I, for one, am staying 100% positive and foresee a better (maybe even slightly bigger) Great Lake in our future. Of course there is a part of me that doesn't think it's crazy to get one meal in at the founding location and buy that ticket to Chicago today. If you are of the same mind, remember that Great Lake is open Wednesdays through Saturdays. I have a feeling Great Lake is about to have some serious lines.

Great Lake

1477 W. Balmoral Avenue, Chicago IL 60640 (map)
773-334-9270

[Via Crain's Chicago Business]

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]

John's Pizzeria

2104 North Western Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647 (map); 773-384-1755; johnspizzachicago.com
Pizza Style: Chicago thin crust, Midwest-style
The Skinny: Extra thin and crispy pies in a one-of-kind place.
Price: $10 to $20 for 12" pizzas

John's Pizzeria in Bucktown does not serve destination worthy pizza, but in its own special way, the John's experience is worth the trip. I realize I'm already confusing everyone right up top, but nothing about John's makes that much sense anyway. It's one of those places I've visited a dozen times over the past five years, and I've honestly enjoyed every one. Yet, I still find it hard to recommend. You have to know what you're getting into before you go, because the restaurant's very good thin crust pizza is only one component. Though it doesn't come anywhere close to serving my favorite pizza in Chicago, John's is one of my absolute favorite places to eat pizza. Let me explain.

The back dining room looks like a suburban den from the 1970s. There's even a random stone wall with a fake fireplace, complete with all the tools necessary to tend the imaginary burning wood. Like all Italian-American restaurants from this era, posters line the wall, showcasing random scenes of Italy. But John's also has a strange infatuation with buxom young brunettes. No matter where you sit in the restaurant, one of these ladies will stare down at you while you eat.

Let's move on to the menu, shall we?

Because of its length, it took me about ten minutes to read through all of John's menu. I did so not because I was entranced by all the wonderful things to eat, but because of the unintentional hilarity contained within. For example, notice the tower of onion rings in the top right corner? It is real. Don't believe me?

Bam! 1/2 foot of onion rings ($5.25) on stand. I could have ordered order the foot of onion rings ($8.50), but I guessed, rightly, that they'd be frozen. But wait, there's more!

At some point in the past the Sun Times apparently visited John's and flipped out. I know this because at various points on the menu quotes from the paper appear declaring that a particular dish is the best in Chicago. By my count, John's excels at mostaccoli/spaghetti, baked ribs, and fried chicken.

Okay, one more. But it's a doozy. Prepare yourself to gaze upon greatest placemat in all of Chicago.

Gangsters! A guy with a bullet hole through his head! Word games! It's like John's settled on a design in the mid-70s and decided to print hundred of thousands of copies, thereby forcing itself to use the placemat until it ran out. So why is there a Facebook logo above the open door?

I'll stop there. I could go on (each pizza is served with a white doily around it), but I have to admit that I feel like I'm picking on the poor place. I'm not, or at least I'm not trying to. In all honesty, I adore this place. John's is one of my favorite retreats in the city, a place where I can go to escape the outside world, and, it must be said, enjoy some good pizza.

John's specializes in Chicago thin crust, otherwise known as Midwest-style, which features a uniformly thin crust that is cut into squares. Inferior versions have doughy, cracker-like crusts with cheese that slides off like a blanket. John's stands out by keeping the crust extra thin and by showing restraint with the toppings—no slippage here.

With these kinds of pies, I always automatically order fresh sausage. You can get that and more with the John's Special ($15.65), a combination of sausage, green pepper, onion, and mushrooms (though the latter item was removed because of objections from one of our guests). For some reason, I have a strange affection for this combination, even though I'd never think to pick out the ingredients individually. John's rendition mostly works, though the sausage is a bit of a letdown. The pieces are too small and are missing the heavy fennel kick of the best versions in town.

The pepperoni pizza ($11.15) was a surprise hit. Heavily salted, and very smoky, the crispy pepperoni provided an aggressive kick to each bite. Perhaps too much for some people, but I loved the over-the-top nature and had a hard time to keeping my hands of this pie.

Taking a recommendation from fellow Serious Eater Joe Roy, the pizzas were ordered extra crispy—a wise move. While missing any sort of char or serious coloring, the crust was crispy throughout.

Even the crustless center slice was thin and yet still strong enough to hold up—a minor miracle, of sorts.

I'll admit that the pizza geek in me dislikes that the dough is run through a sheeter, a device that flattens the dough, removing any sort of hole structure from the crust. And I should note that I still prefer the flakier thin crust pies at Pat's Pizza in Lincoln Park, and there's no doubt that the sausage and other ingredients are better at Vito & Nick's. For the total package of pizza and atmosphere, Maria's in Milwaukee is a crazier experience. John's exists in the strange middle ground between good and very good, where you don't want to damn it with faint praise but I also don't want to hype it.

I'll leave you with one last thing to think about. The sign on Western Avenue completely ignores the founding date, but it does find the need to highlight the exact year that it began delivery service (1957). It's also one I'd like to caution against. The idea of eating one of John's thin-crust pies anywhere else but John's seems wrong to me.

About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is the editor of Serious Eats: Chicago. He loves tacos and spicy food. You can follow him as @nickdk on Twitter.

[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]

Floriole Cafe & Bakery

1220 West Webster Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614 (map); 773-883-1313; floriole.com‎
Pizza style: Neo-Neapolitan
The skinny: Excellent little "pizzetta" with creative toppings.
Price: $11.99 to $13.99

Let's just jump right into the most important question concerning this review: Does Floriole Cafe & Bakery actually serve pizza? I realize this is a strange question for a review on Slice. Still, technically, I suppose the answer is no. Sure, there are small baked objects that the cafe calls pizzetta, which, despite their diminutive nature, both look and taste exactly like pizza. And if you read my picks for the best bites of 2011, you'll know that they also happen to be delicious. So, I'm going with it.

First and foremost, Floriole is a bakery. In fact, it just might be one of the best in the city. So it makes sense that at the soul of each pizzetta is a remarkable crust that is crackly on the outside, chewy underneath, and sturdy throughout. And if you adore the sort of developed bread-like crust pioneered at Great Lake, then you'll understand immediately why this means so much.

Take the basic tomato sauce and mozzarella pizzetta. Nothing here is particularly out of the ordinary. The sauce is sweet and acidic, while the mozzarella is tangy and slightly salty. And then you get to the crust. Crispy on the outside yet chewy within, it is everything you could want from a bakery of this caliber. It's so good, just about anything would taste great piled on.

And Floriole likes to experiment. The exact topping combinations change constantly, but each manages to surprise. That's definitely true of the bacon, potatoes, chives, thyme, and crème fraîche. The potatoes are sliced extra thin, so they add some heft, but manage to avoid weighing the whole thing down. Once again, fresh herbs lend their fragrance. Obviously, with both bacon and crème fraîche, this is hardly light. Luckily, everything is applied with genuine baker's care.

That said, the kale and bacon pizza might go too far. Though completely covered in kale, this is one savory and fatty pie. Perhaps to make up for all those greens, it tastes like it had been drenched in oil before dished out. Of course, compared to an overloaded slice of stuffed crust, this would barely register. But it takes the focus away from the crunchy bacon and plentiful kale. I mean, I still ate the whole thing, but compared to the restraint of the first two pizzetta, it was a little disappointing.

Though I'm calling this pizza, I definitely would avoid describing Floriole as a pizzeria. Instead, this is a charming little cafe, which features a huge menu of other items, including some excellent sandwiches and pastries. Pizza purists also have reason to be concerned: the pizzetta are cooked ahead of time, stashed behind a glass case, and rewarmed in a toaster oven to order. But when you're dealing with bread this good, it almost doesn't seem to matter.

About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is the editor of Serious Eats: Chicago. He loves tacos and spicy food. You can follow him as @nickdk on Twitter.

[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]

Panino's Pizzeria

3702 North Broadway, Chicago, IL 60613 (map); 773-472-6200; paninospizzachicago.com‎
Pizza style: Neapolitan-style
The skinny: Top notch neighborhood pizzeria
Price: $14 to $17

I was lost, confused, and more than a little perturbed. The sign above my head said Panino's Pizzeria, so why was I in a small room with standard thin crust slices hanging out under heat lamps? This is the place that Steve Dolinksy recently declared the best Neapolitan pizzeria in all of Chicago—better than Spacca Napoli and even Pizzeria da Nella? I couldn't even see the item on the massive, 100-plus item menu. Now, there were a handful of other pizza styles—including Chicago-style stuffed crust, thin crust, and something called "in Da pan"—but nothing even mentioning Neapolitan. Was this a cruel joke?

Turns out I was in the wrong place. Though the name is the same, I was in Panino's take-out storefront, which is different from the sit-down restaurant located around the corner on Waveland (which, I should point out, has "Pizzeria Artigianale Napoletana" in massive letters, with "Panino's" sidelined in small letters at the top right). I'm an idiot. Moving on.

But even looking at this (much) shorter menu did nothing to calm my apprehensions. Here's a question for you: have you ever eaten exceptional Neapolitan pizza from a restaurant with a "full slab of ribs" listed on the menu? Anything is possible, and I certainly have nothing against ribs, but it's just been my general observation that the best Neapolitan pizza comes from places with owners who are clearly obsessed. Strict VPN observance means less to me than seeing someone with a crazed look in his or her eye handling the dough.

As you can tell, my high pizza expectations were tromping all over this place before I ever took a bite, and I didn't like it. Have you ever ruined a pizza experience before taking a bite? With comparisons to other Neapolitan pizzerias running through my head, I was trying to make Panino's something it was not. And when my pies arrived looking more blonde than blistered, my mind got angry and turned against this pizza in a completely inexcusable way: "Not only is this not the best," I thought, "This is some of the worst pizza I've ever eaten ever!" (I think there was a maniacal laugh in there, too.)

Of course, that's not the truth. Because this is good pizza, even if I have a hard time calling it exceptional. Panino's take on the Margherita, The Regina ($13), features a bright and acidic sauce, along with salty and creamy fresh mozzarella.

That brings us to the crust. Thought it had few of the black marks I expected, it has real structure and chew. Perhaps it has too much heft. It's sturdier than most Neapolitan pizzerias I've tried, maintaining crispness even in the middle.

I can see how a few more seconds in the oven would lend a little more char, but that seems like it would also overcook the dough in the process.

The other pie didn't hold up as well. The Barese ($15), one of the pizzeria's white pies, should have balanced the fat and spice of fresh Italian sausage, the bitterness of broccoli rabe, and the creaminess of fresh mozzarella. But too much of the latter ingredient, along with indistinctive sausage, led to an average bite. Not bad by any means, but missing the careful eye that a place like Pizzeria da Nella shows.

Interestingly, once I gave up any thoughts of comparing this to other pizzerias around town, I finally started to enjoy it. Once I got past some of the issues, I realized that Panino's is actually a pretty stellar neighborhood pizza joint, one that I'd love to have within walking distance of my place. My advice? Keep expectations in check, enjoy the affordable wine, and leave pleasantly surprised.

[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]

Armitage Pizzeria is—how should I put this?—unassuming. The two-month-old shop can be politely described as spare, with no decor to speak of and only a handful of high-top tables. Usually, there's only one guy working, which means he has to handle of all ordering and pizza making duties. Of course, I wouldn't be writing this post if there weren't a "but" thrown in for dramatic effect, and for this piece I actually have two. Here's the first: But that solitary guy in question turns out to be James Spillane, who you may recognize as a former partner in another East Coast-influenced and very popular local pizzeria, Coalfire.

Why he'd want to open a bare bones pizza joint, especially one where he has to do most the work himself, is kind of confusing, though his unpretentious intentions are easy to taste in the pizza. And here's the second one: But since he grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, his default pizza style happens to be East Coast-style thin crust, which is as straightforward as the shop. This is everyday pizza that is affordable ($11 for a plain cheese pizza), satisfying, and about as far away from "artisanal" as you can get.

Don't look for fresh mozzarella here, just shredded hard mozzarella, which still lends a real tang to each bite, even though it is lightly applied. The sauce is bright red, slightly sweet, and tart. The crust, when it's on, has a crisp and chewy bite with nice char marks on the bottom. No cracker crust here.

The crust fluctuates between nearly nonexistent to puffy and airy, sometimes on the same pie. Though humble, everything is here you'd want in a New York slice—sauce, cheese, and dough combined in an absurdly thin layer, yet all accounted for. In fact, this is the best approximation of a New York slice I've tasted in Chicago, handily beating Santullo's.

Of course, if you hate this style, or just love delving into the ridiculous New York vs. Chicago pizza debate, you could try a pie here, shrug your shoulders, and wonder what the commotion is all about. On the other hand, for homesick East Coasters, or people who just happen to love this style like myself, this can seem like a bigger deal than appears rational. If you've been craving this sort of simple, no-fuss option, one that you'll need to eat as quickly as possible, Armitage Pizzeria feels downright special.

As I mentioned above, the majority of the business is take-out, and most days you'll only find Spillane behind the counter getting things done. Luckily, he's also a good natured guy, so even if you show up with only a credit card at this cash-only place (like me), he'll suggest you just pay him back tomorrow (there also happens to be an ATM two doors down). Each pie only takes a few minutes to make, so you can show up, place your order, and watch as he works the dough with this hands, tops it, and slides it in the oven. And then, within 10 minutes or so of when you arrived, you're walking out with a box of piping hot pizza.

It's not the most consistent place I've been, and as I've tried to convey, this isn't the spot to look for an earth-shattering experience. Though I loved the regular cheese, the mushroom and hot calabrese salami pizza wasn't as successful. Still, if that's what you like, go for it. Just make sure to eat it quickly while the pizza is still warm. Hell, fold up a slice in half and eat it while walking. There's no reason to judge. This is pizza without pretensions, and Chicago is better off with it.

Armitage Pizzeria

711 W Armitage Ave, Chicago 60614 (map)
312-867-9111

About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is the editor of Serious Eats: Chicago. He loves tacos and spicy food. You can follow him as @nickdk on Twitter.

[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]

Pizzeria de Nella

1443 West Fullerton Avenue Chicago, IL 60614 (map); 773-281-6600; pizzeriadanella.com
Pizza style: Neapolitan-style
The skinny: Solid and satisfying pies from Chicago's queen of thin crust.
Price: $11.99 to $13.99

Nella Grassano is both Chicago's most famous pizzaiola and disappearing act. She is known for introducing our city to the pleasures of light and airy Neapolitan-style crusts, which she started dishing out at Spacca Napoli back in 2006. To understand why this was such a big deal, you need to realize that this was before Chicago's modern pizza era (see: Great Lake) when deep dish was still king. Sadly, she seems to leave places almost as fast as it takes for one of her pies to cook. Sure, Pizzeria da Nella in Lincoln Park has her name on the sign, which you might think would prevent a similar defection, but remember that didn't stop her from leaving the Scott Harris-backed Nella Pizzeria Napoletana.

But since she left that latter joint, much has changed in the pizza landscape, and as I walked into Pizzeria da Nella for the first time, I wondered whether having her in the kitchen really meant as much as everyone claimed. Nick Lessins (Great Lake) is more obsessive with his crusts, Chris Pandel (Balena) is more creative with toppings, and Jared Van Camp (Nellcôte) has taken the concept of handmade pizza to a whole new extreme by milling his own flour. What does Nella have to offer in this day and age?

Well, on my first visit, the answer was not a whole lot. Sure, it had only been open for a week at that point, but while the pies looked good, each seemed to be missing something distinctive to help them stand out from other Neapolitan joints around. And nothing about the bare-bones, Ikea-decorated interior gave me much confidence that things would improve.

A few months later, Pizzeria da Nella is now serving pies with attitude and care, upping the game of Neapolitan pies in Chicago. To put it another way: Nella is back all right, and her pizzas are better than ever. The crusts, arriving beautifully marked from the 900-degree wood-fired oven and strong enough to hold up to the toppings, are crispier and chewier than I ever remember at Spacca Napoli or Nella Pizzeria Napoletana.

Here's an underskirt shot for you, too.

The difference is immediately apparent on the Margherita ($11.99), which features a nicely raised cornicione with an open and airy interior. The lightly applied sauce is acidic and ever so slightly sweet, while the just melted mozzarella has the requisite tang needed to even things out.

When it comes to toppings, the ingredients aren't applied with the same kind of exacting care as at Balena or Great Lake, but they are flavorful, judiciously layered, and, most importantly, get the job done. That's especially true of the tonno e cipolla, where tuna, black olives, and caramelized onions combine to make a bite where the light, briny, and sweet toppings battle the smoky char of the crust.

The diavola ($13.99), tests the limits of this balance, as a generous amount of spicy salami ensures each bite is robust and meaty. This is also the only pie I'd describe as oily, but thanks to my ravenous hunger, I devoured this one the fastest, stopping only to admire the red pepper flake induced glow after each slice.

After plowing through a whole pizza, the last thing you'd think I'd want to do is eat more of that dough, but the nutella pizza spoke to me in a language only us addicts can hear. According to the waiter, pizza dough is stretched to shape and tossed in the oven without any toppings. After it puffs up for a few seconds, it is removed, and the top part is cut off. Then nutella is spread on the bottom piece, before the top half is placed back on. Finished off in the oven, and then sprinkled with powdered sugar, the result is creamy and sweet nutella between two crispy light layers. Fantastic stuff.

All this said, the pizzas have the same faults that Nella's pies always do, preventing them from reaching the sort of insane heights of similar looking pizza, like Motorino in New York. The ends could be higher, and the dough could use more salt. But nit-picking seems wrong as each shows an improvement over her last stint. Here's hoping she can stick around long enough to improve even more. Regardless, Pizzeria da Nella seems poised to take over the top spot for best Neapolitan-style pizza in Chicago.

About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is the editor of Serious Eats: Chicago. He loves tacos and spicy food. You can follow him as @nickdk on Twitter.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Top This: Capriole Goat Cheese (à la Bar Toma)

[Photographs: Roger Kamholz]

After Tony Mantuano first dreamt up the cavernous, multifaceted Italian-dining emporium that ultimately became Chicago's Bar Toma, the job soon fell to longtime Spiaggia sous chef Erik Freeberg (now Bar Toma's Chef di Cucina) to perfect the dough that would form the basis of every pizza turned out at the restaurant. On a busy day, Freeberg says, that can easily mean 500 pies.

In the lead-up to Bar Toma's opening, late last year, Freeberg spent weeks testing out doughs until he landed on one that delivered the taut, crispy, Roman-style crust he was after. He would whip up batches with his home mixer, carefully noting the ingredients and their proportions, then cook them in Spiaggia's ovens (Bar Toma's wood-fired brick oven hadn't been constructed yet). Freeberg and Mantuano collaborated on the nearly 20-pizza menu, which runs the gamut from familiar Margherita to more seductive pies like the Merguez, topped with spiced lamb sausage, and Mantuano's namesake pizza, which includes rapini, guanciale, mozzarella, and chiles. But what caught my eye on this menu of stunners was the Capriole Goat Cheese—a combination of creamy Indiana-made goat cheese, toasted hazelnuts, melted leeks, fragrant thyme, jammy dates, and rich Acetaia San Giacomo balsamico.

Chef Freeberg was nice enough to walk me through how this pie is made. Turns out, for all its complex flavors and range of textures, Bar Toma's Capriole Goat Cheese pizza is actually pretty straightforward to make at home. The trick is just knowing when in the process to add certain toppings. Oh, and getting your hands on some really good balsamic.

What You'll Need (for one pizza)

• 1 portion of dough
• 100 percent extra virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Capriole goat cheese
• Leeks, melted
• Medjool dates, pitted
• Hazelnuts, de-skinned, toasted, and rough-chopped
• Dried thyme
• Pecorino Romano, grated
• Parsley
• Acetaia San Giacomo 8-year balsamic vinegar

Bar Toma

110 East Pearson Street, Chicago, IL 60611 (map)
312-266-3110; bartomachicago.com

About the author: Roger got his start writing about Chicago bars and restaurants for Chicagoist. Now you can follow Roger as he rips a path through his city's food- and drinkscape with his Serious Eats: Chicago columns Knockout Noodles and The Vegetarian Option, and through his coverage of the local cocktail scene for Serious Drinks.

[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]

Balena might be the only restaurant on earth with (a) a fully functional wood-fired oven and (b) pizza on its menu, but refuses to cook (b) in (a). I certainly can't think of another example in Chicago where a chef would go out of his or her way to shun a freshly built brick oven in favor of the consistent (if still very high) temperatures in a conventional oven. But this does help explain what kind of pizza Balena serves. So put away any dreams of a blistered Neapolitan-style crust; that's not the kind of pizza you can find here. Okay, all gone? Instead, the crust has all the qualities of Neo-Neapolitan: a very high cornicione, impressive structure development, and a texture that balances between a crisp exterior and chewy insides. Basically, this is good bread.

Inside Balena

Before now, I had associated this style with pizzerias known for obsessive behavior. In fact, if you squint your eyes, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a pie from Great Lake. Thing is, everything else about the place is drastically different. Whereas Great Lake does business in a tiny shop in Andersonville with usually no more than three people in the kitchen, Balena is an absolutely gargantuan, Italian-inspired restaurant formed from the partnership of chef Chris Pandel and his team at The Bristol with the Boka Restaurant Group (Girl & The Goat, GT Fish & Oyster). This place wants to serve as many people as possible. So, can Balena serve an artisanal-style pizza for the masses?

For the time being, Great Lake has nothing to worry about; its intense attention to detail can't be duplicated. But I hope the comparison shows how much thought has gone into Balena's pizza program, especially since it's just one part of a much larger menu. Though consistency has been an issue on the two occasions I went, that's to be expected when you're serving as many pies as this restaurants does in one night.

Whenever the crust is the star, the pizzas are superb. That's especially true of the mortadella, pistachio, red onion, mozzarella pizza ($14), where thin and creamy slices of mortadella are offset by the crunchy pop of pistachios. Though the crust gets very thin in the middle, a light hand with the toppings ensures that it stays crisp throughout. But it's the cornicione that is the real story here. On this pie, the end measured two to three inches tall, and yet it was more crackly than crusty. These aren't crusts you let sit around, especially since each is drizzled with oil and dusted with a hard cheese.

Even though the sturdy crusts could stand up to an avalanche of ingredients, Pandel exhibits real restraint, and instead focuses on combining just a few very flavorful ingredients. Even a pizza as hefty-sounding as Spicy Sausage, Red Onion, Tomato, Mozzarella ($14) comes with only a few hunks of the fatty sausage thrown in per slice. Yet, I never felt like he was being stingy.

Pandel also loves to work with in-season produce. A bracing rhubarb pizza has already come and gone (without me getting a picture of it, sadly) as has a very good buffalo mozzarella and broccoli rabe and pancetta pizza ($16).

But the fresh produce isn't just tossed on the pies randomly. Each component is carefully cut and positioned, so that the slices never get too watery or weighed down. Sometimes the crusts don't rise as much as I'd like, but hopefully this can be sorted out.

Balena has one inexcusable quirk that threw me off each time: the tomato sauce is cooked. It could just be that it tastes cooked because of the longer time spent in the oven, but the red sauce has a distinct sweet and condensed profile that is one step away from tomato paste. What's especially frustrating is that each red pie could benefit from the tang of freshly crushed tomatoes. When there are other ingredients at play, the sauce isn't as noticeable, and, obviously, this isn't an issue on the generally excellent white pies, like the mortadella one. But on a pizza like the Mozzarella, Basil, Tomato ($10), the sweetness is hard to shake.

There is a saving grace, of sorts. Each pizza I ordered came with a side dish of chili oil, which helped perk up the flavors of each without scorching my tongue.

Beyond that, you're only left with deep, existential questions like, "Should I be eating pizza at a restaurant with spicy grilled 'Korean cut' short ribs" on the menu?" And that's not the only menu item hoping to lure you away. Prawns with roasted grapes. Tuscan kale with sardines. I haven't even gotten to the remarkable pasta section. Is it right that other options besides the pizza sound equally, if not more enticing? Is it possible to enjoy pizza from a place that just happens to do a lot of things well, including a whole roasted fish with a peanut gremolata, which as it so happens, does spend some time in that wood burning oven?

I feel like this is a question that is going to come up more often as more and more chefs take a crack at making pizza. Regardless, it's hard to shake the fact that Balena and Nellcôte are doing some serious work pushing the pizza scene forward in Chicago.

Balena

1633 North Halsted Street, Chicago, IL 60614 (map)
312-867-3888
balenachicago.com‎

About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is the editor of Serious Eats: Chicago. He loves tacos and spicy food. You can follow him as @nickdk on Twitter.

Note from Ed: Slice'rs have gotten to know our man in Chicago Dan Zemans for the lastfour years. Our community could always depend on Dan for forthright assessments of pizza driven by his unabashed passion for the subject. He'll be moving on from his pizza-writing duties, but no worries. He's not disappearing. AHTers will still be inhaling his take on burgers, and we're happy about that. Thanks for all the slices you ate on our behalf, Dan. We appreciate it. —Ed Levine

[Photographs: Daniel Zemans unless otherwise indicated]

Nellcôte

833 W Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60607 (map); 312-432-0500; nellcoterestaurant.com Pizza Style: Neapolitan-ish Oven Type: Wood burning The Skinny: This Chicago hot spot is aiming high with in-house flour milling and top notch, housemade charcuterie toppings. Price: Pizzas range from $10 to $12

I began my time with Slice four years ago this week with a review of Uno's, one of the oldest pizzerias in Chicago and the birthplace of deep dish pizza. Even though thin crust pizzas were and are more numerous in town, deep dish is what made Chicago a globally important pizza city. But over the past few years, other than the ongoing expansion of Lou Malnati's (reviewed here), there haven't been a lot of new developments in that scene. And there has been even less movement in the realm of traditional Chicago/Midwestern thin crust. Instead, like the rest of the country in these pizza-crazed times, the real growth has been tilted heavily towards higher end pizza, with each new restaurant offering some kind of twist in an effort to stand out from the crowd. Given that trend, it's only appropriate that I finish my run on Slice with a review of Nellcôte, one of the newest kids on the block and purportedly the only restaurant in the country that mills all of its own flour in-house.

Nellcôte, which opened three months ago, is the latest project from Chef Jared Van Camp, whose Old Town Social has deservedly gotten a lot of coverage on Serious Eats. Nellcôte, named after the French villa where the Rolling Stones lived while recording Exile on Main Street, does have a trendy see-and-be-seen vibe to it, but it's not enough to scare away people only interested in getting a great meal.

The heavily Mediterranean restaurant offers 9 pizzas, 3 red and 6 white, and they are the most popular items on the food portion of the menu. In fact, even though about 3/4 of the menu consists of food unfit for coverage on Slice, Chef de Cuisine Ray Stanis estimates that between 60 and 70% of guests try a pizza when they visit. One bite of the fennel sausage pizza ($11) and it's pretty clear why these pies remain a crowd favorite.

Few people in Chicago are in Jared Van Camp's league when it comes to making charcuterie, so it's no surprise that his fennel sausage is both delicious and unlike any I've had at a pizzeria (or anywhere else for that matter). Rather than stud the pork with fennel seeds, Van Camp relies on a combination of fennel pollen and ground fennel seed for an intense flavor that works particularly well given the use of small bits of sausage that are sprinkled across the face of the pizza. Thanks to a little added sugar, the sausage has a slightly sweet undertone that works well with the tangy tomato sauce.

Speaking of the sauce, it's a particularly vibrant, but basic, San Marzano version that left me wishing a lot more than a third of the pizzas were red. Finishing off the fennel sausage pie are meaty hunks of hen of the woods mushroom, Parmigiano, and mozzarella. Taken together, this is one really delicious, earthy pizza that has me looking forward to a return visit.

The mortadella pizza ($10) comes with pistachios, shaved red onions and ricotta, in addition to the housemade emulsified meat. Mortadella is a grossly underutilized pizza topping and I was excited to see what Van Camp did with his version of the lightly spiced treat. Perhaps I'm overly influenced by the the stellar mortadella pie at Great Lake where the meat is applied at the end of the cook, allowing it to melt into the rest of the pizza, but I was surprised to see it is cooked with the rest of the pie at Nellcôte. The crisp edges were wonderful, but the heat left the mortadella a shade too chewy for the pizza.

Very minor textural issues aside, this fragrant mortadella was so delicious that it had me wishing the Old Town Social Butcher Shoppe would start selling it, and made me a little sad that Van Camp only offers a handful of his housemade meat toppings on the pizzas at Nellcôte. In any event, the mortadella obviously worked well with the pistachios (the nuts are an ingredient in many versions), and the extra crunch was balanced nicely by the creamy globs of ricotta. Throw in the touch of sweetness from the red onions and this is one immensely satisfying combination of toppings.

[Photograph: Roger Kamholz]

As I previously mentioned, Nellcôte's claim to fame is that the flour is milled in the kitchen. What would possess the owners to make that kind of investment? Van Camp claims in this video that, as is the case with spices, freshly ground flour is far more flavorful than commercially available options. So he buys his Hard Red Winter Wheat from Breslin Farms in Ottawa, Illinois, a mere 80 miles from the restaurant, and grinds it into 00 flour in a specially built mill from Meadows Mills.

Unlike the white flour used in most pizzas, Van Camp explains that a lot of the bran makes it into the finished product at Nellcôte, giving the extra thin crust a brown tint and a flavor closer to whole wheat. Nellcôte also defies tradition by typically putting its flour to use the day it's ground, skipping the aging stage that some people who know a lot more about flour than me say is wrong. I won't pretend to know if the aging or the freshness of the grind make a lick of difference, particularly in a pizza crust that's going to be covered with a wide array of toppings. But I can report that the dough, made with a grape starter and fermented for 48 hours, 24 at room temperature and 24 in the refrigerator, cooks into a damned flavorful piece of bread.

I'm generally not a fan of anything resembling a whole wheat crust, but I thought the subdued earthiness stood out in a good way and paired nicely with the two vastly different pizzas I had on this visit. On the down side, the crusts were too dry, something particularly apparent on the pizza that didn't have the moistening advantage of sauce, and they were too far on the chewy end of the crisp/chewy spectrum. But the flavor is there, and given Van Camp's patience and willingness to utilize trial and error, as evidenced by his mastery of cured meats, I expect that Nellcôte is on the way to becoming a true pizza destination. After all, as this video shows, Van Camp didn't make his first pizza at Nellcôte until just over a week before the restaurant opened; he's still a baby in pizza-making years.

I can't imagine what burgeoning pizza madman out there is going to outdo Nellcôte milling its own flour, but I look forward to seeing the next leader in the ongoing game of one-upmanship in the world of Chicago pizza. I can only hope that whoever does come next follows in the footsteps of Jared Van Camp and his team and realizes that all of the showmanship is for naught if the pizza isn't delicious.

About the author: Daniel Zemans has written almost 170 full reviews and 16 Daily Slices for Slice and hopes readers found at least one or two of them useful.

[Photographs: Daniel Zemans]

Obbie's Pizza

6654 W Archer Avenue, Chicago, IL 60638 (map); 773-586-2828; no website Pizza Style: Thin and stuffed The Skinny: Thin crust was good, but should be ordered extra crispy; the stuffed was surprisingly bland but otherwise very staisfying Price: Large thin crust with one toppings is $14.85; medium stuffed with two toppings is $18.20 Notes: Carry-out and delivery only

I'm not ashamed to admit I've seen every episode of The Good Wife. Why does that matter? Well, the Chicago-based (though unfortunately filmed in New York) show made a valiant effort to connect to Chicago pizza in the last episode of the first season when the title character's husband was released from prison and selected Obbie's as his first meal as a free man. The show even got the pronunciation right (rhymes with hobbies), although the restaurant itself was embellished considerably, the true hole in the wall was depicted as an old-school Italian American restaurant, complete with dark wood walls and checkered tablecloths.

The reason the Obbie's reference was striking is that the 35 year old restaurant is not all that well known outside of the Garfield Ridge neighborhood. Hell, Garfield Ridge isn't all that well known outside the neighborhood. Located on the southwest side, directly north and west of Midway airport, the heavily Eastern European area (with an increasing Latino population) isn't exactly on the beaten path for most people without personal ties to the area. But the locals swear by Obbie's, a carry-out and delivery only pizzeria that pumps thin crust and stuffed pizzas out of a 1947 Middleby Marshall oven at an impressive clip.

Typically, the older south side pizzerias specialize in thin crust pies and that's clearly the popular choice at Obbie's. I got one with sausage and because I arrived well before my designated time to pick up and the pizzas are constructed out in the open, I got to see the entire process. Once the dough ball goes through the sheeter a few times, it's adjusted into shape on the peel before getting completely covered in sauce all the way to the edge. The next step involves the cook reaching into a large tub of raw sausage, coming out with more than a handful, and then rapidly tearing off chunks and placing them all over the pizza. The last step sees the pizza covered with a massive pile of shredded mozzarella before it's placed inside the classic oven.

Remember when I said the sauce goes to the edge and the sausage is placed all over the pizza? It is impossible to take a bite of a thin crust pizza at Obbie's and not get a taste of every component. Other than a few deep dish pizzerias that offer a solid layer of sausage, I can't think of a place that puts more meat on their pizzas. If the sausage had been stellar, that would have made this a truly special pizza. The meat was good, and I appreciated the high fat content and the healthy dose of fennel, but there just wasn't enough other seasoning to balance it out.

In fact, good but not great really summed up the thin crust pizza for me. The sauce had a nice tang to it, but the cheese was bland. As for the crust, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Under no circumstances is this crust going to blow anyone away, but the crispy edges were a pleasure to eat. If I make it back to Obbie's, I'll definitely follow the lead of the clearly more experienced customers I heard ask for their pies to be made crispy.

I've never had a stuffed pizza I disliked and Obbie's kept that streak alive. There's something about the borderline insane amount of cheese and sauce that guarantees I'll be happy to eat it. That said, this pizza was desperate for some kind of seasoning. Typically the sauce on stuffed pizza features a significant amount of generic Italian seasoning mix that's heavy on the oregano. This sauce had nothing but tangy tomatoes, and the spinach and mushrooms I added for toppings didn't add enough flavor.

The lack of seasoning was problematic for the picturesque stuffed pizza, but that's actually an easily overcome problem for anyone with red pepper flakes and/or dried oregano at home, although I actually stumbled upon an even better solution. On the too rare occasion that I make it to that part of the city, it's pretty much guaranteed I'll stop in at Birrieria Zaragoza, which in addition to serving what I consider to be the best tacos in Chicago, also sells salsa de molcajete, a homemade thick and chunky salsa that makes for a spectacular addition to pizza.

I saw enough potential at Obbie's to understand why it's held in such high regard in the neighborhood, and I'd like to return to see how the thin crust works when ordered extra crispy. But given how rarely I make it to that part of the city and how close it is to Villa Nova (reviewed here), one of the truly outstanding options for thin crust pizza in town, I'm not sure I'll make it back to Obbie's. 'Tis the curse of selling a product that's just good in a city where so many options are great.

A friendly reminder that all pizza should make us jump for joy

About the author: Daniel Zemans is so devoted to Chicago that he covers pizza for Slice and burgers for A Hamburger Today. When he's not focusing on expanding his waistline, he works as a lawyer on behalf of employees and tenants.

[Photographs: Daniel Zemans]

Piero's Pizza

737 Broadview Avenue, Highland Park, IL 60035 (map); 847-433-7795; pieropizza.com Pizza Style: Extra thin, thin, Spessa (focaccia crust), pan, and stuffed The Skinny: Since 1980, Piero's Pizza has been satisfying pizza cravings in the northern suburb of Highland Park. Stick to the deep dish, but don't make a special trip. Price: Large thin crust with two toppings is $17.25; large stuffed with one topping is $21 Notes:Carry-out and delivery only; opens at 2:30 except on Friday when it opens for lunch at 11:30; second location in Northbrook

Highland Park seems to have everything people look for in a suburb. The schools are good, crime is low, there's easy access to a major city, the parks are nice, there's an active business community, and there's plenty of wealth to go around. And thanks to Ravinia it's even got one of the more enjoyable cultural institutions in the Chicago area. But while all of that is well and good, the more important quality of life question is whether there is good pizza there.

Well, the quick and easy answer is, yes, because it's one of many suburbs that is home to a Lou Malnati's. But because I've already reviewed that local delicacy, the question that I was left to answer was whether there is any great pizza exclusive to the area? I turned to the internets and came across Piero's Pizza, a local place just steps from Ravinia that has been around since 1980 and gets rave reviews from the Yelpers.

Piero's offers five different types of pizza: extra thin, thin, deep dish, stuffed, and something called Spessa, which the restaurant describes as a "fluffy bread crust similar to focaccia." Continuing with the theme of choices, the restaurant also gives customers 33 different toppings to consider.

The stuffed pizza, which I got with sausage, wasn't bad, but there wasn't a single element of it that stood out as good. The very tangy sauce was a good balance for the mountain of melted cheese, but it was overseasoned and the actual tomato flavor was pretty subdued. The cheese was fine, but curiously easy to bite through. The crust was nice and crisp, but didn't have a lot going for it in the flavor department. And the sausage, while flavorful, was put on the pizza with a shockingly light hand, though give how chewy the must-have-been-pre-frozen nuggets were, the stinginess wasn't a big deal.

The less I say about the thin crust pizza, the better. Half of it was topped with mushrooms and spinach, while the other half was just cheese. Other than the fact that the mushrooms were fresh, this was a really disappointing pizza. Because a delicious crust is not generally an expected characteristic of Midwestern thin crust tavern-cut pizza, I tend to be pretty forgiving when evaluating them. As long as the crust is thick, I'm happy to treat it like an edible plate whose only function is to add textural contrast. This soggy and largely flavorless crust was texturally indistinguishable from the cheese on top of it.

Since Piero D'Ascenzi opened the place in 1980, it has survived in the same location, apparently satisfying countless residents of the North Shore, remaining successful long after the founder sold the place to move onto other restaurant ventures in the area (including a pizzeria in Lake Forest called Ferentino's). But based on my visit, I can't understand why. Are there any fans of Piero's who will stand up and defend the place? Are there other pizzerias worth checking out in Highland Park?