Chicago - Giordano's Pizza

We heard many good things about the food in Chicago, and a lot of it was going to be for things that we could not try. The one food festival was at a different time of year, we did not have a lot of money, and it was going to be a fairly brief trip. However, we knew Chicago had it's own style of pizza and hot dogs, and those were priorities, so for those we asked around.

There were three places that came up over and over again. One sounded like Luminati's, which didn't sound right. It was only in researching this article that I realized it was Lou Malnati's. So, when we found a pizza cookbook, and looked in the section in the back and the other two were there, Lou Malnati's totally may have been there and I missed it.

Uno's was mentioned, and was in the book, as was Giordano's, but the biggest factor in us choosing Giordano's was that there was one near our hotel, and so we could have the taxi from Lincoln Park take us to pizza, then walk back, and that just worked.

I have no doubt that any of the other places had really good pizza, and given a chance would be happy to try them, but choosing based on proximity did not hurt us in anyway, because Giordano's was delicious.

It was pretty crowded. We got there and there was a 45-minute wait for a table. They had us put in our pizza order anyway, so that made things more efficient. We gave our order and then waited in the bard, where we could see into the area where they were working the dough.

We ended up choosing the medium pizza with two fillings: Canadian bacon for my sisters and black olives for me. (I feel like sausage would have been more Chicago, but what can you do?)

We got our table in the upper area. The walls were covered with old newspaper pages, giving a sense of history. The first Giordano's was opened in Chicago in 1974,  but the pizza recipe has been in development going back 200 years.

We ordered our beverages, and they arrived, followed soon after by our pizza. It was sliced into eight pieces. The server gave us each one, then left the plate on a stand in the middle of the table. The height was easy for serving, but not an issue for impeding conversation. Still, I think it's real purpose is to show off the pizza. Well, it was impressive.

I like thin crust pizza and thick crust pizza, and American and Italian pizza, but this is it's own thing. It really celebrates the cheese. It was savory and filling. We each had two pieces and were done. No appetizers or desserts were necessary, though their dessert menu was intriguing.

The staff was reasonably attentive, though again, they were pretty busy. The Bears had a home game that day, so that may have led to some increased business, but I suspect they are always pretty popular.

We thought that it would be nice to get back, or to try one of the other recommended places, but there just wasn't time. We are at least glad we got what we did - no regrets about that.

http://giordanos.com/

http://www.loumalnatis.com/

http://761.unotogo.com/zgrid/proc/site/sitep.jsp