Pizz'amici [Meeting #136]

Pizz'amici

1215 W. Grand Ave (Map)
Chicago, IL 60642
(312) 285-2382

CPC invaded Pizz'amici on Sunday, March 16, 2025.

If you've paid any attention to pizza in Chicago over the last few years or the national conversation around what is now widely called "tavern cut" pizza, you're well aware of Pizz'amici and it's story. The owners started out making pizza at home in Ukrainian Village and giving it away via Instagram. Then, after building up a bit of a following, they opened Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream in Bridgeport. The Chicago Pizza Club went there in 2022 and we were not impressed (review here). In retrospect, it's pretty clear the flaws at that universally beloved spot can be chalked up to the fact they were winding down operations there as they shifted their focus to Kim's Uncle in Westmont. We went to Kim's Uncle in 2023 and we were wowed (review here) with one of the best tavern cut pizzerias around. But Kim's Uncle is far away so I accurately predicted at the time that none of us would go back because, as good as it was, there were much closer options nearby that were as good or better or maybe a little worse but not enough worse to justify the hike to Westmont.

[Update: After posting this I learned that the trio behind Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream and Kim's Uncle broke up. Two started Pizz'Amici and one stayed at Kim's Uncle. That could explain everything that follows pretty well].

And so it was very welcome news that the owners brought the mountain to Mohammed late last year and opened Pizz'amici in West Village. But while the location is convenient, getting in is not. These guys really should start a restaurant consulting business to help with marketing. If you want to make a reservation at Pizz'amici, you should plan on getting online at 12:01 AM 30 days in advance to make sure you get a table. Now I want to be clear here: There is not, nor has there ever been, a tavern cut pizza worth that kind of advance planning when you can walk into places like Pat's and Vito & Nick's pretty much any time you want and get a table.

But we were curious so we did it. The maximum table size is 4 people, but we expanded the meeting by overordering and taking home leftovers to a couple of people. It's also worth noting they do take walk-ins and on this chilly Sunday evening, the waits appeared to range from short to non-existent. They also do carry-out, but I wouldn't recommend that in the winter - this is super thin pizza that you want to eat fresh out of the oven.

Anyhow, on to the pizza. While part of the blame surely falls on our sky high expectations, the pizza was disappointing. There were two problems. First, these pizzas were all overcooked. I know lots of people who think of themselves as particularly pizza savvy like to order their thin crust pies well done. And it makes some sense because it ups the textural contrast. We didn't request them well done but we got pizzas that were cooked to well done and then left in the over another minute or two. It didn't affect anything close to every square, but we all got some unwelcome carbon flavor at times. Problem #2 was the toppings. They were all good but they were either unbalanced or, particularly when compared to Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream and Kim's Uncle, not generously applied.

The pizza we were most excited about and most disappointed in was the one with sausage and J.P. Graziano's giardiniera. We are blessed with great sausage in Chicago and this sausage is among the best. Truly extraordinary stuff. Graziano's giardiniera is a spectacular food. But it also has a real kick. Compare the picture of the Pizz'amici sausage and giardiniera above with the half sausage/half sausage and giardiniera from Kim's Uncle below:

So much more sausage at Kim's Uncle. At Pizz'amici, we couldn't even taste the delicious sausage unless we pulled it out of the pizza to confirm its greatness. So sad. And what happened to the generous sprinkle of parmesan like they had at Kim's Uncle?

It's really dark inside Pizz'amici so we cheated with a light to get a couple of the pics. Profound apologies to all who were affected, but know it's for the greater good.

The surprise unanimous best pizza of the evening was the artichoke and mushroom. Really good mushrooms, not as dry of a crust and all well-balanced. This was also the pizza the most visible burn issues but it didn't seem as bitter as the crust on the sausage pizza. Weird. 

Nope, we didn't order a second mushroom pizza. This is the one from Kim's Uncle. Look how many more mushrooms were on that pizza. There was more mushroom on the Kim's Uncle pizza than mushrooms and artichokes combined on the Pizz'amici pie.

The third pizza was pepperoni and garlic. It was good not great. The pepperoni was good but not as good (or plentiful) as the version we had at Kim's Uncle (see the first pic below).

Speaking of not as plentiful, the pepperoni was also not nearly as plentiful or as nicely charred as the pepperoni at Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream:

At this point, we have a clear pattern and it's not a great one. And it's no wonder we walked out of the restaurant disappointed. We didn't realize it at the time, but the light hand with the toppings is particularly disappointing after realizing that all of the toppings are dollar more expensive at Pizz'amici than they are at Kim's Uncle. I'm sure rent is more expensive in the city, but they already charge $3 more for every base pizza, so when you get two toppings at Pizz'amici, you're paying $5 more for you pizza and getting less.

There were a couple of big wins. In a surprising twist, the two non-pizza items we got were outstanding - much better than the pizza.

I came into the restaurant thinking I should order the focaccia but I can't remember who told me to get it. I'm guessing I must have seen it on social media somewhere. I owe this forgotten individual a thank you because this was about as excited as I get about a piece of bread that isn't topped or stuffed with other foods. I don't know that I've ever had focaccia with a crisp top layer but this is a thing that should become a trend. Honorable mention to the excellent salty, oily butter provided.

No light was used for this pic. My editing job is an insult to these delicious meatballs.

Meatballs are reliably almost always good. Very few places make bad meatballs. Very few places make outstanding meatballs. These are truly outstanding. Sopping up the leftover sauce with the last piece of focaccia was the best bite of the night.

So, will I go back to Pizz'amici? Almost certainly yes. Kim's Uncle was too good for me to write this place off after one visit. But I'll order different pizzas next time, adjust my expectations on topping quantity, and hope that the crusts will be on par with the ones we had at Kim's Uncle. But will I book a table 30 days out to go back? Almost certainly not, which means my return is likely a ways away because this place remains super popular.

Kim's Uncle Pizza [Meeting #129]

Kim's Uncle Pizza

207 N Cass Ave (Map)
Westmont, IL 60559
(630) 963-1900

CPC invaded Kim's Uncle Pizza on Wednesday, March 29, 2023.

Back in the glory days of the Chicago Pizza Club, we met every couple of months. As people moved away, got busier with work and had children, meetings grew less and less frequent. But my friends we may have turned a corner! After meeting just one month ago, someone other than me pushed a meeting for the first time in at least a decade. Pizza Kate is back! Let's hope it continues. And with the induction of our two newest members AKA Kate's kids, I'm hopeful it will. (While this was the formal induction, Cora has been attending CPC meetings since August 2013 at Reno when she was 7 months old and Estela has been coming since she was 2 months old at Castel Gandolfo in July 2010).

Kim's Uncle Pizza inspired a lot of thoughts about so-called tavern pizza, many of which are barely related. So this review is going to long, disjointed and unedited. I apologize to nobody. 

But I don't want the most important thing to be buried. Kim's Uncle Pizza, a new pizzeria in Westmont, IL, is making truly outstanding old school Midwestern thin crust pizza. I can't say it's the best based on one visit, but I'm confident it's in the conversation. The rich tomato sauce is great, the toppings are top notch across the board and generously applied, and the crust, usually a weakness for the style, is one of the better ones around. That's really all that matters at the end of the day so feel free to stop reading here. Or skip to the end where the pictures and detailed descriptions are. Here come the many digressions.

Tavern cut pizza is having it's national moment and there's a lot of misinformation out there

1) Tavern cut is a recently made up name. I suppose some people might have used it a while ago, but it wasn't widespread at all. Until pizza obsessives made pizza the subject of a national food discourse, we just called it thin crust and it was cut in squares just because that's the way it's been done for decades. In Chicago and much of the Midwest, thin crust is tavern cut and tavern cut is thin crust.

2) Chicago is not the only place that has tavern cut pizza and there's no reason to think it was invented here. I've personally had tavern cut thin crust pizza from decades-old places in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri and Nebraska. And I know there are places as far east as western New York. That's a wide swath of the country. I'm about as big a Chicago partisan as there is and it's clear that calling this a uniquely Chicago style or even naming it after Chicago as some are doing, is absurd. 

3) There is no definitive version of the style. While most people who've spent a lot of time tasting different thin crust pizzas in Chicago (including me) agree that the best versions have a really thin cracker crust, the fact is that most places are closer to regular thickness thin crust and crumbly more than crackery. 

4) The reason texture is so critical in differentiating between pizzas in this style is that the crust exists to function as an edible plate and to add texture. Crisper crusts add more textural contrast.

5) One thing that these crusts don't do, even in the top places like Vito & Nick's and Pat's and Villa Nova and, yes, Kim's Uncle, is add much in terms of flavor. I'd happily eat the crust from George's or Labriola or Spacca Napoli as a plain piece of bread. The same cannot be said for any traditional Midwestern thin crust pizza. 

6) Since the flavor of the crust doesn't matter and every place uses relatively similar shredded low moisture mozzarella, the key to great thin crust pizza in this style is the sauce and the toppings. And in those two categories, there are a ton of thin crust places in Chicago that excel. There are plenty of mediocre places that are making fantastic Italian sausage and there are probably dozens of places that make a fantastic tomato sauce loaded with umami (either thanks to slow cooking sauce for hours longer than is standard on other styles of pizza and/or adding flavor boosters like tomato paste).

7) The idea that thin crust is the "real Chicago style pizza" and that deep dish is for tourists is unadulterated bullshit. There are certainly parts of the city, most notably the white portions of the south side, where this style has been the local go-to for decades. But deep dish and some of it's offshoots have been wildly popular for decades in neighborhoods far off the tourist beat. Uno's and Due's and Gino's East thrived in downtown long before culinary exploration was a central part of tourism. Lou Malnati's, which is without question the most successful deep dish chain, started in Lincolnwood, was primarily a suburban mini-chain for more than 20 years (started in 1971 and by 1984 had five locations, just one of which was in the city). Today, Malnati's has dozens of locations all over the Chicago area and only a small handful are in areas tourists go to. Pequod's and Burt's both started in Morton Grove; Gulliver's (RIP) was in West Ridge; and while Pizano's opened downtown, it was on a stretch of State Street that was definitely not tourist central. And the hottest new places on the deep dish scene are nowhere near downtown or any other tourist destination. George's Deep Dish is in Edgewater, Milly's Pizza in the Pan is in Uptown; and Uncle Jerry's Pizza Company is in bumblefuck Cary, IL. Seriously, if you take nothing else from this post, make it this: if anyone tells you that deep dish pizza is only for tourists or something "real Chicagoans" rarely eat, know that you are talking to someone who genuinely has no clue what the fuck they're talking about.

8) Nobody knows the full history of thin crust pizza in Chicago and they probably never will. In today's pizza (and food) obsessed world, it's natural that the chroniclers out there want there to be neat narratives. The problem with that is that in many cases, including the world of Chicago thin crust, you're talking about something that developed entirely organically and without rules from longstanding traditions or culinary school and during a time when people ate food without feeling the need to pontificate or memorialize. The recent New York Times piece states as fact that "the cheap-to-produce, thirst-inducing style was invented to encourage customers to linger long enough to order another beer." It's a cute narrative but there's a reason why the Times doesn't offer a single shred of evidence to support the claim: there isn't any. 

Ultimately, none of this matters; what matters is whether the places making square cut thin crust pizza are making something delicious. And in the case of Kim's Uncle, they definitely are. And with that, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

The Review

Before Kim's Uncle, there was Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream. Before Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream, there was Eat Free Pizza. Here's the short history: A few friends started obsessively making pizza with the hope of one day opening a brick and mortar place. As they got good at it, they practiced pizza making and viral marketing by giving out free pizza via Instagram. This got them enough of a following they were able to open Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream in Bridgeport in March 2020. People raved about it. The Chicago Pizza Club finally made it there in July 2022. It was good but not great. The sauce was very good and the toppings they had were top notch, but the crust wasn't all that crisp and for the first time in a life that has had me eating sausage pizza in literally hundreds of places, I was at a place that ran out of sausage (and we were there before the dinner rush). At the time, they had just opened Kim's Uncle and a few months later announced they were closing Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream. I suspect (by which I mean I'm virtually certain) what happened is the owners shifted their focus to the new place and their workers weren't nearly as committed to quality and the product suffered as a result. Running two restaurants is exponentially harder than running one.

The raves about the new place couldn't be ignored and when the aforementioned Times piece sang the Kim's Uncle's praises, Kate proposed a meeting and I, of course, jumped at the idea. And so it was that on Saturday, March 18, we headed to Westmont for an impromptu CPC meeting. What's that, you say? I've already said the meeting was on March 29? You are correct, dear reader. Let me tell you a story about some genuinely fucked up customer service. It's not mentioned anywhere on Kim's Uncle's website, but the way to get their pizza is to call the day you want to go and place an order for a time slot that night. I repeat: this information is not on their website. It's also not on their Instagram. They are fully aware of their reputation and fully aware they were featured in the New York Times. They have to know people are going to make the drive from Chicago. Westmost is a long way away. 45 minutes or more each way from anywhere east of Western Avenue. When we got there at 5:45, we were told we wouldn't be able to get a pizza until 8:15. I'd gotten over it, but writing this now has me enraged again. There's no excuse for that. This is a company that was built on social media. They know how to get the word out. 

Anyhow, because Westmont is also home to Katy's Dumplings, we still had a wildly successful evening. And because we were eager to try the pizza and now knew the rules, we made the decision to go back just a week and a half later. I called multiple times early that afternoon until someone picked up a little after 3:00.

My persistence paid off and, pizza friends, I'm happy to report that despite all the frustration, with our first bites of pizza at Kim's Uncle, we knew we made the right decision. Side note: it's a good thing we were a small group as the restaurant only has two four-person booths inside that are on opposite sides of the restaurant and one table outside.

There were just five participants in this meeting, one of whom only got leftovers. But the reviews were universal: Kim's Uncle Pizza is absolutely fantastic. If it weren't for a couple of twists like a sprinkle of fresh parm and a couple of toppings like Mike's hot honey, you'd swear you were eating pizza from people who have been doing it right for decades.   

At the Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream meeting, we had a spicy sopressata, garlic and Mike's hot honey pizza. I said in that review that it was my first time having that combo and that I absolutely loved it. Same ingredients but on a perfectly cooked pizza with a quality cracker crust and it was, not surprisingly, even better this time around.

One bite into the sausage on the half sausage/half sausage and giardiniera pizza and I was blown away. Chicago is blessed with a litany of pizzerias with fantastic sausage and this stuff is on par with the absolute best of the bunch. An absolute flavor explosion of fennelly and peppery pork. Normally I'm not a fan of giardiniera on high quality pizza because I worry it will overwhelm everything but the sausage and the intense tomato sauce were able to handle the JP Graziano's giardiniera with no problems. I'm not sure which half of this pie I liked better but both were stellar.

Like the other two pizzas, the mushroom pie was loaded with quality toppings and cooked perfectly. There was a bit too much oregano for my tastes, but I'm not sure if they added too much or if it was the regular amount in the sauce and it came through a lot more because of the less flavorful toppings. Either way, I think this was just a one-off heavy hand. To be clear, this quibble is not a major one. I would have happily eaten the entire pizza.

So there you have it: Kim's Uncle is officially one of the best places in Chicagoland for the kind of old school thin crust pizza people in the know have been raving about for years and the coasts are just learning to appreciate. Every pizza fan in Chicago should try it at least once. Whether it's worth a return drive way the hell out to Westmont is something I've been thinking about a lot for the last week. Let me put it this way: Katy's is my favorite Chinese restaurant in Chicagoland and I only get there about once a year. So it's not a knock on Kim's Uncle if I never go back; it's just the practical reality that there are so many great places for pizza that are so much more conveniently located, that I might not and it definitely won't be in my regular rotation. That being said, I'm very much liking the idea of getting some Dan Dan Noodles and cold Szechuan noodles at Katy's and following it up with a pizza or two from Kim's Uncle and having one amazing two-part meal in Westmont followed by a few meals of leftovers in Chicago. But it won't happen any time soon and it definitely won't happen until they implement a reasonable system for placing orders.