Stop #10 Gino's East

Gino’s East

2801 N. Lincoln Ave.

Chicago, IL 60657

Sadly, Gino’s East was the last stop on the Chicago Pizza Challenge, but we ended with some true-to-form Chicago-style deep dish. Gino’s started off really well, but unfortunately for them, their ratings fell as the meal went on. I’ll start off with the good stuff. We visited Gino’s Lincoln Park location at Diversey, Lincoln & Racine. This is a very small location, but has great atmosphere and a real “pizza joint” feel. Mary wasn’t a big fan of the plastic silverware, which really didn’t stand up to their hearty deep dish crust. Needless to say, getting a table for 7 on a Sunday evening was no easy feat for the Gino’s staff, but they did it and were very apologetic for our wait (which was only about 20 minutes). Once we were seated our drinks were served almost immediately; regrettably, things went downhill from here. The pizza was not really the culprit of this, but I do believe the remainder of our experience affected our scores. Once our pizza came, our waitress did not return to our table until (on about the fourth try) Mary was able to flag her down for some water. In response, Mary said “the waitress gets D- for making us dehydrated in this 90-degree restaurant!” When she returned with Mary’s water the rest of us had opportunity to ask for more water -- she cluelessly proceeded to refill the rest of our waters. That was only made worse by the fact that it was about 90-degrees in the place. In defense of Gino’s, the heat may have been due to circumstances out of their control, because it wasn’t that hot when we got there. But still, it’s too bad, because it magnified the poor service and thirst.

Service: 1.5

Atmosphere: 2.08

Value: 3.00

(These are some of the lowest scores we gave in this category)

I’ve never mentioned our little sub-challenge in which Mitch guesses the bill every time. He was right on the first stop, so we continued the game for the rest of the challenge -- and he was usually pretty close! His guess was right on the money this time too! “It ended how it started,” he said.

Now onto the pizza, which under normal circumstances, is probably pretty good. We ordered the following:

1 Deep Dish Pepperoni

1 Deep Dish Spinach

1 Deep Dish Supreme

1 Thin Barbecue Chicken

1 Antipasto Salad (this was our guest, Meg’s, order)

I think everyone enjoyed their preferred pizza on Sunday. I, personally, enjoyed the deep dish spinach -- it was very good and I liked the sauce! The barbecue chicken was also a hit among the female contingent. The supreme pizza was enjoyed as well -- they were very generous with toppings and cheese. Meg, our guest, is not big on deep dish pizza (give her a break, she’s from Kentucky) ordered a salad and gave it an average score of 4. Here’s how the pizza stacked up:

Crust: 2.83

Sauce: 3.33

Cheese: 3.42

Toppings: 3.17

Overall Quality: 3.08

Overall Taste: 3.00

Average: 2.82/5

I honestly think that had we come to Gino’s on a different night with a different waitress, it would have finished a little better than second to last (#9). Although we weren’t able to close the challenge on high note in terms of experience, Meg summed the whole thing up with her take on the night, “great food & great company!” I agree.

We’ll definitely miss the pizza challenge, but I will sum it all up for you in a subsequent post. I’ll list our top 10 and provide some additional commentary for some of our favorites.

Stop #9 La Madia

La Madia

59 West Grand Avenue

Chicago, IL 60654

www.dinelamadia.com

Most of the pizza club stopped in at La Madia in the River North neighborhood last Wednesday evening (we were missing a few due to business travel and obligations). This “Contemporary Pizzeria”-- as described on its website-- fits right into this neighborhood packed with trendy restaurants. The pizza here is thin crust with very clever topping combinations; I’ll tell you about a few in a bit. La Madia doesn’t look like your traditional pizzeria; it’s very modern decor, extensive wine list and posh clientele set it apart from anything I’ve ever seen. We sat up near the front of the restaurant-, in view of the sole television in the entire place-- this was due to the NHL finals, GO HAWKS!-- however, the tables in back are near the kitchen and you can sit back there and watch them make the pizza if you wish. To add to the unique features of this place, La Madia also offers cooking classes and wine classes. Definitely an interesting place -- I’m glad we included it on our list; Noelle is definitely “coming back!”

For starters, our service was very good. They took our name and promised to seat us right away as soon as everyone arrived. Then when we decided we needed to be near the TV for the Hawks game: no problem. We waited 5 more minutes and were seated with a perfect view of the television. It was a contemporary spot, so definitely not your typical pizzeria. Kyle summed it up with: “This is the kind of pizza I want when I’m going out after work or on a date (perfect for tonight). If looking for pizza and a beer, look elsewhere.” To clarify, Kyle was not on a date, he was out after work -- but I bet you’ll be seeing him sometime soon with his main squeeze enjoying La Madia!

Service: 3.90/5

Atmosphere: 3.80/5

Value: 3.40/5

Here’s what we ordered:

House-Made fennel sausage, sweet onions, tomato sauce with mozzarella cheese

Coach Farm goat cheese, melted leeks, garlic & pancetta

Abalone Mushrooms and smoked mozzarella, finished with truffle oil

Cracked organic egg, San Daniele prosciutto, Caciocavallo cheese & black pepper

As you can see, this is not the expected pepperoni and sausage type of place; however, they do offer a margherita pizza as well one with “triple pepperoni,” and the sausage pizza that we ordered was pretty close to traditional as well -- so if you’re picky, but dying to try La Madia, you’ll certainly be able to find something that you like. Fortunately for those that were able to make it to La Madia, our picky eaters were missing so we were able to go a little further outside of the box and try some different menu items. Each pizza definitely is what it says it is, meaning if there is an ingredient you’re not sure you like, don’t order the pizza-- you will taste it. Personally, the goat cheese pizza with pancetta took the cake for me (and Kyle too). Elizabeth said, “the mushroom pizza with truffle oil grows on you; the only pizza I would describe as ‘woodsy,’ in a good way.” And, finally, “ever had a craving for breakfast for dinner? Try the egg and prosciutto pizza -- hit the spot!” I’m with Dan, we’ve all eaten breakfast for dinner at one point or another, and this was it to a “t”!

Here are the scores for La Madia:

Crust: 4.10

Sauce: 2.80

Toppings: 4.20

Cheese: 3.30

Overall Quality: 3.70

Overall Taste: 3.80

Average Score: 3.67/5

Coming in right behind Bricks in 6th place, La Madia had a pretty good showing. We’ve definitely been visiting a lot of the top places late in the challenge. Just to comment on some of the scores to add more to the pizza experience at La Madia: Sauce was rated rather low due to the lack of sauce. Some pizzas had no sauce as all, while those that did, did not have enough for many of our tastes. The crust, on the other hand, was excellent (4.10/5) -- thin and crispy.

One stop left for the Chicago Pizza Challenge and we’ll give you our top 10 rankings! Stay tuned ...

Stop #8 Spacca Napoli Pizzeria

Spacca Napoli Pizzeria

1769 West Sunnyside Ave.

Chicago, IL 60640

On Sunday night the Pizza Club headed north to the Ravenswood hot spot, Spacca Napoli. This southern Italian-inspired pizzeria serves Neapolitan style pizza—a thin, chewy crust with traditional toppings. Well, the folks over at Spacca Napoli will be happy to know that their inspiration translated well into everything about the restaurant from the ambiance to the wine list. The restaurant had, in my opinion, a very authentic Southern Italian feel. Elizabeth loved the “refreshing atmosphere and taste.” Of course the pizza lived up to it as well, but we’ll get to that later. Spacca Napoli wound up taking up the third spot (by a very slim margin) in our rankings so far.

We all enjoyed the fare and we had a pretty hard time choosing which pizzas to order. The variety and originality of the topping combinations was a pleasing feature. Here’s what we ordered:

Capricciosa (on special that evening!) – Cooked Prosciutto, artichokes, black olives & mushrooms.

Salsiccia – Basil & Italian sausage

Diavola – Spicy salami, crushed red pepper & basil

Quattro Formaggi (White Pizza) – Bufalo mozzarella, gorgonzola, ementhal & fontina

**All Pizzas are served with red sauce unless otherwise noted.

Here’s how Spacca Napoli ranked among the group:

Service: 4.08

Atmosphere: 4.25

Value: 3.63

Crust: 4.33

Sauce: 3.75

Toppings: 4.21

Cheese: 3.67

Overall Quality: 4.21

Overall Taste: 4.25

Overall Score: 4.04/5

Overall, we enjoyed all of the pizzas and I’m sure each of us had a different favorite. Kyle thought the crust was “delicious, but the toppings did not go far enough to the edges.” (As you can see in some of the photos) Kyle was the critic of the evening also mentioning, that although it’s the style “the toppings were a little sparse.” Everyone else had glowing reviews with Dan summing it up best by saying, “Good traditional Italian ‘za for a hot summer night. It’s light. It’s no Lou’s.” This fact allowed us all to have room for ice cream at the end of our meal, when we headed to Anthony’s on Southport for some frozen yogurt—also delicious!

Stop #7 Vito & Nick's

Vito & Nick’s

8433 South Pulaski

Chicago, IL

We visited Vito & Nick’s on Sunday evening and it was a hit with our group! Coming in at #3 so far, the lone South Side pizzeria on our list fared pretty well. Vito & Nick’s is known for its paper thin, thin crust pizza. This pizza place brought us back to our childhoods -- the only thing missing, according to Dan, was a little league baseball team. It’s true, Vito & Nick’s does not present a lot of glamour, but it does remind a child of the 80sof the pizza parties we frequented as kids. The pizza -- not to mention the prices-- reminded me of that as well. It was good, but I think these high scores were more from some kind of nostalgia effect rather than actual fabulous pizza. Reflecting back on our experience on the long drive home, we came to the conclusion that Vito & Nick’s pizza tasted really good, but we did not leave convinced we couldn’t find thin crust pizza as good (or similar in style) elsewhere. On that note, for all you City dwellers: Vito & Nick’s is not easily accessible, although Noelle enjoyed her experience so much she said “I’ll bus it here!”. (Long bus ride too.) Overall, we enjoyed our experience at Vito & Nick’s and as Elizabeth said, “$1 Old Style Light drafts. There’s no need to say anything more.”

Since it was thin crust, we ordered a lot of pizza:

1 House Special (Sausage, onion, mushroom & green pepper) -- we also added pepperoni to 1/2 of this one

1 Pepperoni

1 Cheese

1 Pepperoni, olives and giardiniera

1 Tomato, basil and garlic (Margherita)

They were all pretty delicious and we ate almost all of it! I’m not going to review each pizza since we ordered so many and we ordered pretty traditional toppings. The toppings were good; I didn’t feel we were shorted on anything and they were high in quality. The crowd favorite was probably the House Special or the Margherita -- both completely gone.

Here are the scores for Vito & Nick’s:

Service: 4.13

-- Our waitress was great, and there was a mix up in the kitchen that equalled free french fries for our table! (Gotta love it when you get free food!)

Atmosphere: 3.56

Value: 4.94

-- This was by far the cheapest place we’ve been. Maybe leaving the north side more often would be easier on our wallets ...

Crust: 4.50

Sauce: 3.81

Toppings: 3.94

Cheese: 3.25

Overall Quality: 3.94

Overall Taste: 4.00

Average Score: 4.01/5.0

Guy Fieri of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (http://www.foodnetwork.com/diners-drive-ins-anddives/index.html) went to Vito & Nick’s, so we had to try it. We don’t regret it. It wasn’t the most unique thin crust pizza you could find (that award still goes to Bricks), but it brought many of us, Mary specifically, “back to [our] days in STL.” It’s not your typical Chicago-style pizza -- but in many of our opinions, it was “the best of both worlds.” With Kevin having said that, he was obviously referring the cheap beer and the delicious thin crust pizza. For others, especially those of us who have to leave this fabulous City soon [Mitch and I :( ], it was awesome thin crust pizza in Chicago (with great friends).

Stop #6 Ian's Pizza

Ian’s Pizza

3462 North Clark Street

Chicago, IL 60657

www.ianspizza.com

So, last Sunday the pizza club hit up Ian’s Pizza in Wrigleyville. Ian’s sells pizza by the slice and whole pizzas. It was similar to Art of Pizza in regard to its order-at-the-counter style. I will stop the comparisons there. Now, Ian’s definitely fits the bill of its Wrigleyville location -- it’s the perfect stop after a Cubs game (and hours at the bars in the area). It’s not really an ideal dine-in setting, but the atmosphere is perfect to give you a true taste of Chicago (post Cubs, Blackhawks or any other Chicago sporting event). And you know Chicago sports fans: win or lose, they’re out for a good time. We’re good sports, the belligerent drunk people coming in and out while we were there did not phase us; however, the atmosphere rating at Ian’s was hurt by the fact that there were multiple solicitors in and out of the restaurant while we were there, and not one employee asked them to leave. All in all, you could say that we enjoyed our experience at Ian’s -- the “service” rating was boosted by the fact that employees happily put our beer in their cooler for us!

Service: 3.67

Atmosphere: 2.25

Value: 3.83

We’ll give Ian’s props for their creative pizza combos -- they managed to put pretty much every drunk food you can think of on a pizza (it doesn’t get much better than that when you’re drunk!). I will say, that it is unlikely I would go near any of these combinations sober (taco pizza, burrito pizza, tortellini pizza, etc.), but I can definitely see that many of

them would be a drunk person’s dream come true. And as I mentioned, they pour in and out of this place by the dozen. We actually witnessed people eating some of these very combinations. Ian’s is known for it’s Mac & Cheese Pizza, and we were starving when we arrived, so I’ll admit it, we ordered a slice for the table to try while we waited for our pizzas. “Carbs+Carbs. How can you go wrong?” Mary says; and honestly, it wasn’t bad. Being the health nut among this group, I will not let my opinion over power the rest of the group -- everyone really thought this Mac&Cheese combination was pretty good.

Ian’s pizza was, as Dan put it, “good, but not great.” I, personally, really liked the crust -- kind of blend between a Neapolitan-style pizza, but HUGE, fold ‘em in half New York-style slices.

“Although most of the patrons could not, the thin crust stood up well!”

-- Kevin Smith

Our order: Barbecue Chicken Pizza w/pineapple

Pesto Tomato w/spinach and portabello mushrooms

Sausage, green peppers and onion (with pepperoni on half)

I’ll get the bad news over with. Although I complimented Ian’s on their creative pizza combos, their pesto tomato pizza was not so good -- stick to what you’re good at people (read: junk food). The pesto sauce was not very flavorful, and the pizza itself was just kind of bland. I’m not really sure what we were thinking ordering that after the girl in the Cubs t-shirt stumbled into our table mumbling expletive after expletive about how good her tortellini pizza and ordering her friend to try a bite as she shoved it down her throat. Well that’s enough of that -- we recommend that you stick to good ‘ol originals or junk food on pizza when you go to Ian’s.

We also ordered a bbq chicken pizza with pineapple. Now this was a delicious salty-sweet combination. My disappointment here was the fact that they used canned pineapple on the pizza. In the dead of a Chicago winter, I may have given it a pass, but pineapple is in season and fresh pineapple would have given this slice that something extra. Overall, pretty good.

Finally, the traditional sausage, green pepper and onion (w/pepperoni on half) was good , but nothing to write home about. We’ve obviously had better, but it was still pretty good. These sentiments were echoed around the table.

Here are the scores for Ian’s:

Crust: 3.67

Sauce: 3.00

Toppings: 3.25

Cheese: 3.42

Overall Quality: 3.33

Overall Taste: 3.42

Average: 3.31/5

Ian’s pizza is good, but know what you’re getting yourself into. This is a great place to come after an afternoon at Wrigley. It’s also probably a great place to stop in during the off-season. If you head up there on a Cubs game day, you’ve been warned. I’m not saying it’s not fun -- I’m just sayin’.

Stop #5 Lou Malnati's

Lou Malnati’s

Multiple Locations in Chicagoland

Our Location: 439 N. Wells

Chicago, IL 60610

Malnati is arguably one of the most famous names in Chicago Pizza -- as it should be. Lou Malnati’s is known for its deep dish pizza and claims to have “the best in World.” I can’t vouch for it being the best in the wo

rld (maybe someday, people), but it does rank highly among our group, many other Chicagoans and Chicago-style pizza fans, in general. I actually got a call from my dad during dinner, and he asked me to eat an extra piece for him! He is among those lovers of Lou Malnati’s pizza, and has been known to order Lou’s deep dish by mail (don’t worry, it comes frozen!).

We’ve got good news here; so, let’s get started. Malnati’s was unable to edge out the current leader, Pequod’s, but it came very close. Overall, Lou’s got a 4.23/5. (Just a reminder, Pequod’s came in with a 4.26/5.) Our Lou Malnati’s experience was pretty good. Aside from the obvious (pizza), our server was very friendly and our pizza was served for us again! Always a good feature. The River North location that we visited was perfect, close to the el, and as Noelle pointed out, has “a really cute patio out front!” With its very “Chicago” feel, we gave the atmosphere a 3.7 -- Lou is only being beaten in this category by his brother over at Pizano’s. There was something about that borderline cheesy, authentic Italian feel (for us anyway) ... We’ve found the value to be pretty even across all of our visits, but the beer at Lou Malnati’s was exceptionally cheap (in a good way)! Mary even made the comment, “The beer is cheap, but our waitress sure isn’t. She gets 20% for a job well done!” (For the record, we have tipped all of our servers 20%.) Here’s how Malnati’s stacked up in the th

ree general categories:

Service: 3.9/5

Atmosphere: 3.7/5

Value: 4.1/5

Lou Malnati’s is well known for its butter crust (it’s delicious); it is really crispy on the edges, and not too “bready” on the bottom. We ordered a Deep dish pizza with sausage, green peppers and onions. Another infamous Lou Malnati’s feature is sausage in every bite, and as

Kyle said, “always a winner here!” I, personally, thought the onions were a little too big. But other than that, I didn’t hear any complaints around the table! Now for the scores:

Crust: 4.4

Sauce: 3.9

Toppings: 4.4

Cheese: 4.3

Overall Quality: 4.4

Overall Taste: 4.5

Overall Score: 4.29/5

The thin crust pizza also ranked highly with the Pizza Club. We ordered the “Lou.” It had spinach,

mushrooms and tomatoes on it and it was very tasty! In Kyle’s opinion, it was a “distant second to Pequod’s thin veggie.” It was. It was still good though. To be perfectly honest with you, it is hard to find bad pizza in Chicago, but we are looking for the best, a

nd this was definitely not the best thin crust pizza we had. Take a look at the scores anyway:

Crust: 4.5

Sauce: 3.7

Toppings: 4.2

Cheese: 4.2

Overall Quality: 4.0

Overall Taste: 4.5

Overall Score: 4.18/5

Well, there’s no doubt about it: the Malnati family has made their mark on Chicago pizza, and Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria does not disappoint! If you’re looking for good pizza and something truly Chicago -- Lou Malnati’s is a great choice.

Big News

Well readers, I have some news: my husband and I will be relocating to Kansas City at the end of June. Don’t worry -- I couldn’t leave this blog behind, so with the gracious agreement of our fellow Pizza Challenge members we are going to complete the Challenge on an “accelerated program”. We did decide to cut the field from 12 down to 10 -- just make it a little more manageable to complete in 8 weeks. The good news for you is that we’ll have a challenge winner named by the 4th of July, so all of you can spend more time enjoying good pizza and less time searching for it.

I am going to have a hard time leaving the City, but we’ll be back to visit for sure. Who knows, maybe I'll even review some of the local pizza joints in Kansas City! (Sadly for them, us Chicagoans know we can't be beat.) I hear they have great Barbecue in Kansas City -- so, maybe I’ll put that to the challenge, just to be fair ...

Here’s to looking forward to more pizza in less time!