Pizzeria Via Stato [Meeting #92]

Pizzeria Via Stato
620 N. State Street (GoogleMaps)
Chicago, IL
(312) 337-6634

CPC invaded Pizzeria Via Stato on 3/2/10.

Ten Pizza Clubbers turned out for an early meeting tonight at Pizzeria Via Stato in downtown Chicago. By some counts we had 10 2/3 people, but we round fractions and fetuses down in these parts.

Pizzeria Via Stato is part of the Lettuce Entertain You family of restaurants, perhaps Chicago's most successful restaurant company. A couple of years ago, the Lettuce people took the bar area of Osteria Via Stato, one of their Italian restaurants, and converted it into a separate pizzeria. Reservations are accepted at lunch but not dinner, so the CPC met earlier than normal, with most members showing up on time at 6:45 tonight. AJ was late and the loss was most definitely his as he did not get to experience the breadth of pizzas the rest of us did.

There are 11 pizzas on the menu, but one of those pies is barely filling enough for a dinner. We decided to get all 11 for the ten of us plus two extras. I knew from experience that the sausage and Margherita are both excellent so we ordered an extra one of each.

There are 6 red pizzas on the menu:

Classico Cheese (mozzarella, tomato sauce)
Margherita (San Marzano tomatoes, hand-pulled mozzarella, basil)
Vegetable (green pepper, vidalia onion, mushroom, mozzarella, basil)
Sausage (housemade sausage, mozzarella, tomato sauce)
Pepperoni (crispy pepperoni, mozzarella, tomato sauce)
Mushroom (mushroom, vidalia onion, mozzarella, tomato sauce)

There are 4 white pies:

Peppered Bacon (caramelized torpedo onion, hand-pulled mozzarella, Slagel farm egg)
Potato (organic fingerling potatoes, pancetta, smoked mozzarella)
Roasted Fennel (fennel, radicchio, hand-pulled mozzarella, parmigiano reggiano)
Four Cheese (hand-pulled mozzarella, young pecorino, goat cheese parmigiano)

And there's a rotating monthly special. Up this month is the Roasted Mushroom, which features oyster mushrooms, goat cheese, leeks and rosemary.

There were a couple of themes to all of the pizzas. First, there is the incredibly thin, crisp crust. This is thin even by Chicago cracker crust standards. The only place I can think of that comes close to this is Candlelite. But while Candlelite's crust is largely devoid of flavor, the nicely blistered crusts at Pizzeria Via Stato have a nice fresh bread flavor to them. The second, more important theme that was consistent across all the pizzas was the high quality ingredients.

I tried to survey the Club to see which were the favorites, but virtually every pie had a vocal supporter. Well, nobody thought the Vegetable pizza was the best, but that's to be expected. Personally, I thought the March Special stood out a bit. The sweet leeks, meaty roasted mushrooms and creamy goat cheese were perfectly matched. This pizza should be added to the regular menu immediately.

Another favorite for me was the peppered bacon. While every piece (these pies, which the restaurant calls "Tavern Pizzas," are cut into squares) is not blessed with egg, they all have the sweet onions, fresh mozzarella and bacon. As with the March Special, this pie had a fantastic blend of sweet and salty. In fact, those two pizzas were so good that we decided to replace our extra Margherita with one of them. After some discussion, we picked the Peppered Bacon. We must have confused our very attentive server because we got the Roasted Mushroom instead. Nobody minded one bit.

On the flip side, I was not a fan of the Roasted Fennel pie. The hand-pulled mozzarella was excellent as were two of the toppings - the fennel and the parmigiano reggiano. But the radicchio was too bitter for my taste. That said, at least one person identified it as one of their favorites.

I'm not going to go into detail about all 11 pizzas. Hopefully, other CPCers will chime in with detailed descriptions of their favorites and most hated. While we might not have achieved unanimity as to our favorite pies, we were in complete agreement that Pizzeria Via Stato puts out some delicious pizza.

Petey Pizza gives Pizzeria Via Stato an 8.175/10.

I Monelli Trattoria Pizzeria [Meeting #78]

I Monelli Trattoria Pizzeria [GoogleMaps]
5019 N. Western Ave.
Chicago, IL 60625
773-561-8499

CPC invaded I Monelli Trattoria Pizzeria on 4/16/09.

Review submitted by Andrew

With another tax day safely behind us (and with hopefully all members in good standing with the IRS) the Chicago Pizza Club decided to hit up the North Side to try out I Monelli Trattoria Pizzeria. This neighborhood pizzeria is located in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood not too far from the Western Ave. Brown line stop.

Opened in April of 2008 by Marco Schiavoni (owner of the Pizza Metro restaurants in the East Village area) and chef Giovanni Carzedda (formerly of Pizza D.O.C. and Il Covo)—along with food importer Massimiliano Agostini—I Monelli (which roughly translates to "Those Rascals") serves up contemporary Roman-style pizza along with such other Italian fare as antipasti, salads, pasta, and paninis. But, as always, we came for the pizza... but oh, did I mention that the restaurant is BYOB? Fortunately some members of the CPC remembered to raid their liquor supplies before heading down.

The Roman-style pizza at I Monelli features a thick (thicker than a normal pie, but not as thick as a pan or a Sicillian-style pizza) hand-tossed crust, topped with olive oil before being cooked in a 400 degree pizza oven. Pizzas are square cut and topped with a sauce made from imported Italian tomatoes. There are are nine different topping combinations to choose from on the menu, and of course you can always build your own pie with the standard toppings.

The rectangular pies at I Monelli come in three sizes; 5", 9" (a half sheet) and 18" (a full sheet). On our trip the Chicago Pizza Club ordered five of their specialty pizzas and one custom pie:

• Potate é Rosmarino (Potato & Rosemary)
• Capricciosa (Artichoke, Ham & Black Olives)
• Margherita (Fresh Tomato & Basil)
• Rucola (Cherry Tomatoes and Arugula on White Pizza Dough)
• Romana (Ham, Onions & Oregano)
• Sausage, Garlic & Sauteed Mushrooms

All pizzas were ordered in the "half" size, which the waitress told us normally feeds about two people. The Pizza Club had 12 members tonight (with one late comer) and probably could've stood to order one more pie to share amongst us. Tthe pizzas came out promptly, I forget exactly how long, but I don't believe we waited more than 15 minutes after ordering.

The pizzas all shared the same signature crust along with a minimal amount of sauce with the Romana and Capricciosa pizzas having a little bit more. When the sauce did stand out though it made quite a difference. Toppings for the most part were all pretty generous (especially with the arugula), I felt that the Romana could've used more oregano since it was hardly noticeable on the pizza at all and since it was listed as one if the toppings it seemed like it should've stood out more.

Among the favorites were the Sausage, Mushroom and Garlic pizza, the Potato & Rosemary and the Margherita which had a bit more cheese than the others pizzas and was topped with very fresh basil. The mozzerella on the Margherita also stood out from the other pizzas tonight.

All in all, a solid outing. All of the pizzas were consistent. Unlike some other restaurants that the Chicago Pizza Club has been to lately, I Monelli knows what they do well and sticks to that style of pizza.

Chicago Pizza Club gives I Monelli a 5.62