Renaldi's Pizza [Meeting #63]

Renaldi's Pizza (map)
2827 North Broadway
Chicago, IL 60657
773.248.2445

CPC invaded Renaldi's on 8/7/08.

I remember hearing from the NYC types that I went to college with that since the pizza in this cow-town was so bad, they had given up eating it. A few of the more resourceful ones, and by that I mean financially, were able to drive around to get out of Hyde Park and discovered Renaldi's pizzeria. They claimed this was as close to a true NYC slice as they could find in town. And for more authenticity, it was even on Broadway!!

10 years later, I finally got around to trying this place with CPC. I have had many pizzas in New York and a good number have been outstanding. I was hoping Renaldi's could stay in the same league as some of the better ones I had tried. Renaldi's is a small storefront along a busy and bustling section of Broadway. It has a few tables available for outdoor seating, but most of the seating is inside. When you first arrive, you notice a counter where you can order pizza by the slice. Past this is the seating for people that prefer to eat a whole pizza or Renaldi's non-pizza offerings.

I don't want to give too much away, but the highlight was sitting at the center circular table with a lazy Susan on it. The server came by and we quickly ordered the following 5 pies:

• Thin crust with zucchini and onions
• Thin with capicola
  
• Pan pizza with meatballs
• Stuffed pizza with sausage
• Sicilian Spingione with artichokes
  

The pies came out in a reverse order, with the thin crust pies coming last. The Sicilian Spingione pizza was cooked in a pan, but square-shaped. It was a little denser than their "fluffy" description, but I really had a hard time telling much of a difference between it and both the pan and stuffed. The pan pizza crust was lighter than most crusts and had a nice char on some pieces and just flat out burned areas on others. The stuffed was not truly stuffed. It had a very small cheese layer on top. What was readily apparent to us was that the sausage and capicola were poor products. I thought the meatball had the best flavor of our meat toppings and most people agreed. The anticipated NYC thin crust pizza was a huge disappointment. The crust was the best part, it had the same lightness as the other pies and had a nice texture. The sauce and toppings were so bland that I'll let the members post their thoughts on them. I just don't want to open up my thesaurus and look synonyms of bland and boring.

Dan pointed out that the sausage was undercooked throughout the pizza. We pointed this out to the server who said he could offer the table one free beer for our inconvenience. When we told him this was unacceptable, he went back to the manager who took it off our bill. Needless to say, there were leftovers and we left them there but took the bad taste in our mouths with us.

Petey gives Renaldi's a 3.2/10


Chand hangs on Dan's every word...


The Meatball pizza...


Piping hot...


Beware the sausage...


The Capicola up close...


Zuchinni Pizza...


El Presidente models his new t-shirt...


Where it went down...