The Beer Temple (pizza by Middlebrow) [Meeting #142]

The Beer Temple (pizza by Middlebrow)

3173 N. Elston Ave (Map)
Chicago, IL 60618
(773) 754-0907

CPC invaded Bungalow by The Beer Temple to eat pizza by Middle Brow on Tuesday, January 20, 2026.

Borrowed from The Beer Temple's website

For years, The Beer Temple has probably been the second best beer bar in Chicago (behind Hopleaf obviously). And for most of that time, they were a BYO Food establishment, which was great, especially with Carniceria Guanajuato across the street. But then, presumably realizing how much money they were leaving on the table, The Beer Temple started cooking and serving food. I never tried and don't think I know anyone who did. Apparently I wasn't the only one (or maybe they were just tired of the extra work), and The Beer Temple pivoted again, this time bringing in the bread geniuses at Middlebrow in to make pizza for the beer drinkers. Pizza and beer. What a concept!!!

Also borrowed from The Beer Temple's website

All 4 readers of this weblog (a number that includes members) surely remember our glowing praise about Middlebrow. TL;DR lots of places make two syles of pizza, but almost none do both well. Well, not only does Middlebrow make some of the best artisan thin crust pies in Chicago, they also make, only on Tuesdays, some of the best Chicago thin crust AKA tavern style pizza in town.

Well, the Chicago Pizza Club is here to report that Middlebrow has done it again. This is the best Detroit style pizza in Chicago by a decent margin. The sourdough crust, the umami-rich bright tomato sauce, and the quality toppings are all great - zero flaws to report. And yes, they use classic Detroit brick cheese along with mozzarella. Here's what we ate:

Unlike Chicago, where sausage reigns supreme, pepperoni is the topping of choice for Detroiters. The pepperoni pizza at Middlebrow/The Beer Temple would make any Detroiter happy. Actually it might make them a little sad because this crust is just a better piece of bread than the ones at the legendary Detroit spots.

Chicago meets Detroit. This one is topped with sausage on the whole thing and giardiniera on half. I'm not sure who's giardiniera they're using, but this is a very good clean rendition with a nice kick. 

The mushroom pizza comes with oyster mushrooms, caramelized onions, and mushroom cream. Delicious. Vegetarians are not an afterthought here.

The youngest Pizza Club member insisted on a cheese pizza so we added this towards the end. I was full but I forced myself to try half a slice in the name of science. I'm not going to lie and say it was better than the other pizzas, but it held it's own. 10/10 would eat again.

The End.

Bad Johnny's [Meeting #141]

Bad Johnny's

1612 Irving Park Road (inside The Long Room) (Map)
Chicago, IL 60613
(773) 665-8210

www.badjohnnys.com

CPC invaded Bad Johnny's on Wednesday, December 10, 2025.

The Chicago Pizza Club was supposed to meet at The Beer Temple to enjoy the delicious Detroit style pizzas from the pizza masters at Middlebrow. Sadly, turnout was super light so the truly committed among decided to save the heavier pies for another night. Instead, we headed to The Long Room, where Bad Johnny's has a permanent residency on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights.

Both of these pictures were found online. Thanks to whoever took them.

Bad Johnny's is probably better known for the portable wood-fired oven that shows up at events around town, but the pizzas they're making with gas at The Long Room hit the spot.

We got a salad. It comes with Red Leaf Lettuce, Radicchio, Sweet Red Apple, Watermelon Radish, Herbs, Toasted Pumpkin Seeds, and Honey-Cider Vinaigrette. It was tasty.

Up first was the Plain, which Johnny's says is an ode to the New York slice and its condiments. It has tomato sauce, fior di latte, fresh garlic, chili, fresh oregano, and 2-year aged Parmigiano Reggiano. This was a delicious pizza. 

The pepperoni was another really tasty pie despite it crossing the line from charred to burned in a couple of places. In addition to the swine, this one comes with tomato sauce, fior di latte, toasted arbol chiles and buckwheat honey.

The Brussels & 'Nduja comes with, you guessed it, Brussels sprouts and 'nduja (the latter made by Chicago Salumi) along with smoked gouda, ricotta, and lemon. It was pretty but it was also too salty and too smokey and woefully light on the 'nduja. We wouldn't recommend this one.

So there you have it - an excellent cheese pizza; a would-have-been-excellent-if-not-burned-but-still-excellent-in-the-non-burned-parts pepperoni pizza; and a bad Brussels sprouts pizza. Like Meatloaf says, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Throw in the general vibe of The Long Room and Bad Johnny's is a winner overall.

We skipped the drinking at The Long Room because we had to make our way over to Half Acre to try a few variants of Catching Hell. They do a shitty job keeping their menu up to date and there were only two benthics available and one of them (Marabi Benthic) wasn't good. But the 2x4 Benthic was delicious and the Double Bourbon Barrel Generational was very good so a good end to the Chicago Pizza Club meeting #141.

Will we get to #150 in 2026? Probably not but a boy can dream.

Sharpies Pizza & Cocktails [Meeting #140]

Sharpies Pizza & Cocktails

1721 N Elston Ave (Map)
Chicago, IL 60642
(312) 772-2368

CPC invaded Sharpies on Sunday, August 3, 2025.

Let's not bury the lede here. For the first time in more than 20 years, Conor Barnes attended an in-person Chicago Pizza Club meeting. She even changed her flight to make it work. That's dedication. Mikel, the gauntlet has been thrown. Kelly and Ryan Daily, what the hell?

Let's also not bury the second lede. Sharpies is probably making the second best Detroit style pizza in Chicago. And before anyone wants to say Paulie Gee's, that pizza is delicious but it isn't really Detroit style.

Cool vibes about at Sharpies. They even have some classic video games to play. 

We don't often get non-pizza food items at CPC meetings but these double crunch buffalo wings were very good.

There's no build your own option at Sharpie's, which actually makes ordering easy. The obvious first choice was the Sausage Singularity, which comes with fennel sausage, Calabrian chilis and ricotta along with tomato sauce and mozzarella. This pizza was delicious. Crisp, chewy, flavorful crust topped with good ingredients. 

For our second pizza, we let Conor choose and she'd come with instructions from her kids that we had to try the Sweet & Salty Space Candy, which comes with bacon, pineapple, goat cheese, pickled onions and sambal. The crust was a home run again but the bacon overwhelmed everything and the heat from the sambal was non-existent.

We decided to just get two pies, but our youngest member, 12-year-old Cora has simple tastes and conspired with Conor to order a Moon Walk “1969,” which is the cheese pie. It was actually a good idea because we were a hungry bunch. Another knockout crust with cheese and good sauce. Of course, it would have been better with some toppings, but what can you do?

Overall, like I said, I think this is the second best Detroit style pizza I've had in Chicago. And it's the best the CPC has had. What's #1? Stay tuned! 

Zarella Pizzeria & Taverna [Meeting #139]

Zarella Pizzeria & Taverna

531 N Wells St (Map)
Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 470-0250

CPC invaded Zarella on Tuesday, July 16, 2025.

Zarella doesn't need any more hype. Between the picture perfect pies and the Boka PR machine and the downtown location, it's packed every night and probably will be for a while. But the question we needed to answer is whether it should be. The shorter answer: Everything is delicious so sure, why not. The slightly longer answer: If you live downtown or have out of town guests staying in a downtown hotel who don't want to travel far, you can go here and have an excellent meal with great service. But, and maybe I was biased because I went in knowing this was a Boka restaurant and not the more appealing story of some longtime pizza obsessive finally getting to do their thing or a multi-generation family business, but there's something sterile about the whole experience that left me thinking there's a pretty good chance I won't go back. But but: I've already recommended this place to a couple of people. 

The three biggest pizza trends going these days have to be Midwestern thin aka Chicago thin aka tavern; so-called "artisanal pizza;" and Detroit style. One Detroit pizza goes a long way so it's not going to be as big of a profit center as the other two styles and Boka knows how to make money. And that, I suspect, is why they've skipped Detroit style and focused on the other two. 

This isn't the best artisanal pizza around - Great Lake (welcome back!), Middle Brow, and a few others are better. And it's not the best tavern style around - Pat's, Vito & Nick's, Villa Nova, and several others are better. But Zarella does a very good job of both and not a lot of places can make that claim. 

The "artisanal" pizza is a picture perfect pizza. Nice crisp and chewy crusts and good ingredients. Even the basic margherita, which we never get, was delicious. The prettier pizza is one of their signature pies - Soppressata & Mortadella with Calabrian chili honey and arugula. The crust might not have had the same depth of flavor of some of the best spots in town, but honestly, I'm probably overselling the "flaw." Really good stuff.

The tavern looks and tastes like Boka hired a consultant who read that NY Times article that made the rounds a couple years ago. But here's the thing - while a lot of the grand pronouncements in that article were bullshit. it got a lot right and this whole cold cured crust, sauce to the edges, and high quality ingredients is a great formula and Boka executes it well. They probably could have used more sauce, but that's more because they were generous with the toppings a little more sauce would have balanced things out a bit. The pics: Top pizza is pepperoni and mushroom, second pizza is sausage and mushroom, and the bottom one is pepperoni, garlic and onion. Everything about these pizzas was very good to great. 

A couple of notes on service. As mentioned earlier, this is a Boka Group restaurant and those mofos, whose many accolades include the 2019 James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur, know what they're doing. Service was great throughout. They did mess up one pizza (we didn't order the pepperoni and mushroom), let us keep the mistake, and promptly brought the right one. One cool feature is rather than cluttering up your table with your leftovers, they give you a claim check and then you pick up your pizza when you're on your way out of the restaurant. One thing to look out for. These have a little block on the table with a QR code to pay your bill. If you go that route, there's an extra $4 platform fee. Fuck that shit. Ask your server for a bill the old fashioned way and you don't have to pay the $4.