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I really didn’t enjoy Chicago pizza when I visited, as with many things in the US it’s quantity over quantity and the cheese is not as good as you find in Europ

I really didn’t enjoy Chicago pizza when I visited, as with many things in the US it’s quantity over quantity and the cheese is not as good as you find in Europe

tptacek 8mo ago
Without even touching this "cheese is not as good as you find in Europe", if you had deep-dish pizza you should know that's tourist pizza. I grew up with cracker-thin pizza from Fox's, cut into squares; the real Chicago pizza.
- kasey_junk 8mo ago
  Someone really needs to do a numerical study and food history on deep dish. There is a giordanos (one of the big local deep dish chains) around the corner from my house and I would estimate no more than 1 in 3 pizzas coming out of that place is deep dish. And I can’t remember a single time I’ve been with a group of Chicagoans and they’ve decided to order deep dish with the exception after drinking at Pequods. As someone who was raised elsewhere but has lived in Chicago a long time I’m fascinated how deep dish became externally associated with Chicago while internally it’s so poorly received. It would be like going to Southern California and finding out no one eats fish tacos. Conversely Chicago hot dogs and (until recently) Italian beef are legitimately different and better in Chicago, widely acclaimed locally, but largely ignored outside of the city. So weird.
  - Larrikin 8mo ago
    I too would like this study because thin crust is objectively worse than all the other popular styles of pizza in the US and it always felt like there was something else going on when I would see it at events, never at parties or on tables. Deep dish is unique and has a legitimate claim to being one of the better forms of pizza. Nothing about cracker crust thin crust can compete with NY style, Italian styles, or any of the other styles of pizza. It basically competes with the rectangle pizzas from school lunches and is cut and served similarly. The thin crust is better crowd came across to me when I lived there as a few different groups. Gaslighting food b/vloggers on the internet looking for something to write about because so much has already been said about the actual best food in the city, the same as the ones that say Cheesesteaks are worse than Brocolli Rabes in Philadelphia for example. Or the recent trend of saying that American cheese is not the worst cheese created because it melts, which all deli cheeses also do. Smash burgers at home are better simply because you can use a different type of cheese. Suburbanites trying to show they were better than people actually from Chicago and tourists. Event planners who were cheaping out because they could order 3 crappy thin crust pizzas for the price of one deep dish pizza. Thin crust was basically the only type of pizza you would see at tech events unless the company was trying to show off how much money they had. Deep dish is heavy so it was not always a go to food when I was hanging out in Chicago, but when people wanted pizza nobody I met from Chicago ever said "No don't get deep dish, get thin crust" Personally I view Chicago dogs as the ultimate form of the hot dog and think they are pretty good. But a sausage with just mustard is still better. I usually would only get them when I was showing someone around from out of town. Italian beefs are just a wet worse version of a cheesesteak. They aren't bad and people who never spent time in Philly might enjoy them, but they were just another confirmation point to me that sandwiches aren't that good in Chicago. Actual Chicagoan's opinions weren't always better though. I wasted so much time going to different Harold's Chicken Shacks before realizing that it wasn't true that some are better than others, people just cover the bland chicken in the sugar sauce.
    - kasey_junk 8mo ago
      I have spent a lot of time in Philly (and more importantly Delaware which has better Philly cheese sandwiches) and I will never agree a Philly cheesesteak is better than a beef. That said I don’t think Chicago is a particularly good pizza town. Tavern style is fine but I agree the idea that it in someways redeems the Chicago pizza scene is also not true. But the best pizza in NYC is not a slice either so perhaps it’s just the nature of pizza that regional variations only detract from the form. But a Neapolitan style pizza, with good ingredients, from a proper oven and an operator who can really do it is much harder to execute.
      - Larrikin 8mo ago
        I agree not all cheesesteaks are created equal. When I lived there, there was still the corner $5 cheesesteak that wasn't that good but was only $5. But Joe's to me ruled supreme over everyone else. I've been back with people who thought they were just fine but not great from a place like Jim's, but then understood the hype after going to Joe's. It was such a good call for him to drop the racist name after the previous guy died. I still would take a corner cheesesteak over an Italian beef. I always thought that if there was an evil pizza genie, if I could only ever eat one type of pizza but could eat pizza only when I was in the mood, I would choose deep dish. If I had to eat pizza everyday I would choose a NY style. If I could choose any style at anytime when I wanted to eat pizza, I would choose Detroit. And if I had to live overseas, I would choose an Italian style because there is a conglomerate that strictly regulates it with a bunch of rules and most other takes on pizza have been pretty bad. Devilcraft has been the only pizza place I've been in Tokyo that has a decent non Italian style.
        kasey_junk 8mo ago
        I thought Joes closed?
        Larrikin 8mo ago
        They shut down the original location in one of the most inconvenient places in the city to get to and now operate in one of the more popular neighborhoods in the city. I felt lucky that I just happened to go a few weeks before they announced the closure.

I really didn’t enjoy Chicago pizza when I visited, as with many things in the US it’s quantity over quantity and the cheese is not as good as you find in Europe

tptacek 8mo ago

Without even touching this "cheese is not as good as you find in Europe", if you had deep-dish pizza you should know that's tourist pizza. I grew up with cracker-thin pizza from Fox's, cut into squares; the real Chicago pizza.

kasey_junk 8mo ago
Someone really needs to do a numerical study and food history on deep dish. There is a giordanos (one of the big local deep dish chains) around the corner from my house and I would estimate no more than 1 in 3 pizzas coming out of that place is deep dish. And I can’t remember a single time I’ve been with a group of Chicagoans and they’ve decided to order deep dish with the exception after drinking at Pequods. As someone who was raised elsewhere but has lived in Chicago a long time I’m fascinated how deep dish became externally associated with Chicago while internally it’s so poorly received. It would be like going to Southern California and finding out no one eats fish tacos. Conversely Chicago hot dogs and (until recently) Italian beef are legitimately different and better in Chicago, widely acclaimed locally, but largely ignored outside of the city. So weird.
- Larrikin 8mo ago
  I too would like this study because thin crust is objectively worse than all the other popular styles of pizza in the US and it always felt like there was something else going on when I would see it at events, never at parties or on tables. Deep dish is unique and has a legitimate claim to being one of the better forms of pizza. Nothing about cracker crust thin crust can compete with NY style, Italian styles, or any of the other styles of pizza. It basically competes with the rectangle pizzas from school lunches and is cut and served similarly. The thin crust is better crowd came across to me when I lived there as a few different groups. Gaslighting food b/vloggers on the internet looking for something to write about because so much has already been said about the actual best food in the city, the same as the ones that say Cheesesteaks are worse than Brocolli Rabes in Philadelphia for example. Or the recent trend of saying that American cheese is not the worst cheese created because it melts, which all deli cheeses also do. Smash burgers at home are better simply because you can use a different type of cheese. Suburbanites trying to show they were better than people actually from Chicago and tourists. Event planners who were cheaping out because they could order 3 crappy thin crust pizzas for the price of one deep dish pizza. Thin crust was basically the only type of pizza you would see at tech events unless the company was trying to show off how much money they had. Deep dish is heavy so it was not always a go to food when I was hanging out in Chicago, but when people wanted pizza nobody I met from Chicago ever said "No don't get deep dish, get thin crust" Personally I view Chicago dogs as the ultimate form of the hot dog and think they are pretty good. But a sausage with just mustard is still better. I usually would only get them when I was showing someone around from out of town. Italian beefs are just a wet worse version of a cheesesteak. They aren't bad and people who never spent time in Philly might enjoy them, but they were just another confirmation point to me that sandwiches aren't that good in Chicago. Actual Chicagoan's opinions weren't always better though. I wasted so much time going to different Harold's Chicken Shacks before realizing that it wasn't true that some are better than others, people just cover the bland chicken in the sugar sauce.
  - kasey_junk 8mo ago
    I have spent a lot of time in Philly (and more importantly Delaware which has better Philly cheese sandwiches) and I will never agree a Philly cheesesteak is better than a beef. That said I don’t think Chicago is a particularly good pizza town. Tavern style is fine but I agree the idea that it in someways redeems the Chicago pizza scene is also not true. But the best pizza in NYC is not a slice either so perhaps it’s just the nature of pizza that regional variations only detract from the form. But a Neapolitan style pizza, with good ingredients, from a proper oven and an operator who can really do it is much harder to execute.
    - Larrikin 8mo ago
      I agree not all cheesesteaks are created equal. When I lived there, there was still the corner $5 cheesesteak that wasn't that good but was only $5. But Joe's to me ruled supreme over everyone else. I've been back with people who thought they were just fine but not great from a place like Jim's, but then understood the hype after going to Joe's. It was such a good call for him to drop the racist name after the previous guy died. I still would take a corner cheesesteak over an Italian beef. I always thought that if there was an evil pizza genie, if I could only ever eat one type of pizza but could eat pizza only when I was in the mood, I would choose deep dish. If I had to eat pizza everyday I would choose a NY style. If I could choose any style at anytime when I wanted to eat pizza, I would choose Detroit. And if I had to live overseas, I would choose an Italian style because there is a conglomerate that strictly regulates it with a bunch of rules and most other takes on pizza have been pretty bad. Devilcraft has been the only pizza place I've been in Tokyo that has a decent non Italian style.
      - kasey_junk 8mo ago
        I thought Joes closed?
        Larrikin 8mo ago
        They shut down the original location in one of the most inconvenient places in the city to get to and now operate in one of the more popular neighborhoods in the city. I felt lucky that I just happened to go a few weeks before they announced the closure.