Palermo's [Meeting #71]

Palermo's [GoogleMaps]
4849 W. 95th Street
Oak Lawn, IL
708.425.6262

CPC invaded Palermo's on 12/11/08.

Palermo's is our first fan request Chicago Pizza Club Meeting. It was on our list of places to try, but since we received maybe 5 emails over the last few months suggesting we try their thin-crust pizza I moved it up on our priority list. It's been a long standing Italian restaurant in Oak Lawn for over 30 years. In that time, its thin-crust pizza has developed a following around the city as one of the best although a quick tour of less illustrious review sites reveals real "love it or hate it" opinions from other customers.

Palermo's and the nearby Italian restaurants on this stretch of 95th street all have a similar cavernous space divided into many small and cozy nooks. And they all know how to fill them up - they always seem to be operating at near maximum capacity even on a cold Thursday evening. After some drinks and chatting with one of the owners, we placed our order. We were given the options of having the pizza come out at the same time or staggered as they came out of the oven as well as a choice in our deep dish and stuffed crusts between regular, slightly burned, and slightly undercooked. We chose to have the pizzas delivered with regular crusts and asked for them to be brought out as soon as they were done baking.

We ordered:

• Thin crust with pepperoni and mushrooms
• Regular with pineapple and half canadian bacon
• Stuffed with spinach
• Deep dish with sausage and onions
  

The most striking thing about a pizza from Palermo's is the sauce. They use abundant amounts on their pizza and they have a very sweet sauce. You can pick up some basil and garlic in it, but it appears that it's otherwise a very smooth (texture-wise) paste-based sauce with a decidedly sweet start and finish. Overall, I think some of us found the sauce to complement the salty pepperoni quite well, but that when the pizza was topped with pineapple and Canadian bacon the whole pie became noticeably sweet. Similarly, the stuffed pizza had its sweetness tempered by what appeared to be generous sprinkles of Parmesan cheese over the sauce. Ultimately, I think our members and readers will judge Palermo's based on its sauce. It's entirely on one end of the sweet/savory scale so be warned if this will be a non-starter for you.

The toppings were perfunctory and abundant. They had a hard time standing out amidst the sauce on the pizza. I will note that it appears that the mushrooms were canned, although I personally didn't notice the canned mushroom brininess right away, and the spinach, while excellent, appeared to be frozen based on the color and way it was chopped. The cheese was the standard pizza mozzarella. I enjoyed it and found that they put on a good amount, except for the stuffed pizza which was tightly stuffed with lots of spinach. By choosing to sell four pizzas, they essentially choose to sell you four different crusts. The regular is that kind of in-between crust that you find in Chicago. I found ours to be soggy and collapsed. The thin crust is nearing the cracker thin crust of bar pizzas in Chicago and had a nice breadcrumb coating on its underside. This crust was certainly crispy and had a good crunch to it. The deep dish pizza crust was surprisingly light and crisp for a denser crust. Finally, the stuffed pizza crust did a good job of holding the heft of its contents and still being noticeable despite the avalanche of spinach. Word to the wise, they bring these pies out piping hot from the oven. Let them sit for a few minutes before digging in, maybe even longer for the stuffed pizza.

Tony and his staff made frequent stops at our table to make sure everyone was kosher. At the end of the meal, they gave us dessert wine and a platter consisting of creme brulee, tiramisu, and Nina's cake, a variation on the Italian cassata. Nina's cake was new for me, a cake with rice pudding as the filling. The pizzas came out in an appropriate time frame despite the heavy rush of diners and large volume of take-out and delivery orders. The bill came out to $14 apiece for all the pizza we could eat.

Petey gives Palermo's a 5.975

[Chicago Pizza News] Two Pizza Chains Are Coming to Chicago

Papa Romano's, a pizza chain with 46 restaurants in Michigan and Texas, and Mr. Pita, which has 40 locations in Michigan, Texas, Florida and North Carolina, are both planning massive expansions into Illinois and Indiana.

According to Papa Romano's website, that company is also looking to expand into Colorado, Florida, New York, and North Carolina. Mr. Pita, which does sell pita pizzas, is also looking to expand to Colorado.

The restaurant chains, which are owned by the same Michigan-based company, plan on opening their first Chicago location in the summer of 2009.

[Chicago Pizza News] Anticipated New Neapolitan Pizzeria Opening is Delayed

A couple of months ago, the CPC found out that the original pizzaiola from Spacca Napoli would be opening a new pizzeria in January.

Now it appears that the opening of Franco & Nella has been delayed until at least March.

[Chicago Pizza News] Chicago Style Pizza in Beijing

This is not particularly timely, but it's still news. Here's a video of Tribune reporter Kevin Pang from The Kro's Nest, a pizzeria in Beijing that he found while covering the Olympics last summer. The restaurant sells, among other varieties, a Chicago style pizza.

Oddly, it appears than Pang is only familiar with deep dish pizza and doesn't realize that Chicago is also known for it's stuffed pies. He says, "I don't know why they call it Chicago style...It just appears to be...two layers of crust with meat and cheese stuffed inside." As you can see from the video, the slice also has tomato sauce on top. Looks like a slice of stuffed pizza to me.

[Meet the Members] Mikel

Screen Name: mawatras

Real Name: Mikel

Came out of the Oven: In Farmington, CT

Favorite toppings: Pineapple

First Pizza Club Meeting: October 29th, 2008 at Piece

Favorite Deep Dish Pizza: Hmmm...I haven't tried too many deep dish pizzas so I'm choosing from only a handful of restaurants. I'm going with Pizzeria Due because I remember being surprisingly satisfied.

Favorite Thin Crust Pizza: Piece - no doubt.

Favorite Pizza outside of Chicago: Naples Pizza, Farmington, CT

Had Pizza in the Motherland? Yes, I've had pizza in Capri and it was delicious. I recall large circles of fresh mozzarella. Yummmmmy!

What Do You Do When Not Eating Pizza? Dream about crepes.

Personal Pizza Statement: I love eating (pizza), I love trying new things (pizzerias), and I love letting my voice be heard. This all happens at CPC and others benefit from our experiences to boot. What's better?

Pizza By Alex [Meeting #70]

Pizza By Alex [Map]
5044 W Montrose Ave
Chicago, IL 60641
(773) 427-8900‎

CPC invaded Pizza By Alex on 12/01/08.

From deep dish pizza to stuffed pizza to the pizza puff, Chicago has been at the forefront of pizza innovation for over 50 years. But we at the CPC are not regional chauvinists; we can appreciate additions to the pizza world that did not originate here. One such welcome addition came from the California-based movement that began at Chez Panisse in 1980. When Alice Waters started putting then-goofy toppings like goat cheese and artisinal sausages on pizza, she started a movement that was soon copied by multiple California chefs. Ed LaDou was a San Francisco chef who copied Waters's pizza style while the chef at Prego. Wolfgang Puck had one of LaDou's pizzas and hired him to work at the not-yet-opened Spago. The founders of California Pizza Kitchen hired LaDou away in 1985 to create their menu and a new national pizza phenomenon was born.

Today, nontraditional toppings are commonplace throughout the land, but there is room for so much more variety, particularly if pizzerias choose to combine pizza with other ethnic culinary traditions. Pizza By Alex has done its part to fill that gap for the past five years, offering a number of Mexican-influenced options in addition to more traditional toppings. And it was the CPC's quest for chorizo pizza that brought us to Pizza By Alex for this meeting in Portage Park.

Alex Pinega learned the pizza business while working at Caponie's, where he started as a dishwasher in 1992 and quickly worked his way up to general manager in just three years. After developing his pizza-making expertise there, he founded Pizza By Alex as a carry-out pizzeria in 2004. He did well enough there that he expanded to add a sit-down restaurant in the early part of 2006.

Greeting customers who enter the restaurant is a large brick wood-burning oven that not only made pizzas, but provided us with some additional heat on what was the coldest night so far this winter. The thin crust pies, which includes their 8 special pizzas, all cook in the 500+ degree fire in that oven, while the deep dish and stuffed pies cook in a gas oven in the kitchen.

Ordinarily, the Chicago Pizza Club tries each style of pizza offered by every restaurant we visit, but we were so enamored with some of the specialty pies that we went with four thin crust pizzas one deep dish. We were not disappointed.

The crust was cooked well and had noticeable charring on the bottom. The texture was a little crisp and a lot of chew, which I think was a reflection of it being a touch thicker than is typical for wood-burning over/Neapolitan-style crusts. The extra girth was necessary to support the very generous amounts of whole milk mozzarella, fresh vegetables, and wide variety of meats.

Up first was the Pizza By Alex, which features Italian Beef, mushrooms and onions. There was ample meat which was good, but the fresh mushrooms actually had the strongest flavor. There was a very thin layer of tomato sauce on the pizza that some of us thought had little to no flavor, but others thought had a light tanginess to it.

The Pizza di Pastor had steak pastor with grilled onion and pineapple, and came with a choice of red or green sauce. We didn't specify the sauce and the pizza came with a spicy green tomatillo salsa, which was definitely the right call. The sweet pineapple provided a good balance to the spice from the salsa, and with the grilled meat made one of the more popular pizzas at the table.

The Pizza Ranchera featured chorizo, pinto beans, mushrooms, onions and a homemade chipotle sauce. The chorizo was crumbled and there was some disagreement as to how much flavor came from the meat and how much came from the chipotle sauce. Wherever the epicenter of spicy goodness was, this pizza made many Pizza Clubbers very happy. The soft pinto beans did an excellent job tempering the kick from the chipotle while adding a flavor that more than a couple of us thought was surprisingly good.

Carne Enamorada, which means in love with meat, had a whole lot of pig on it: The pizza came with bacon, ham, pepperoni, and chorizo. Italian sausage is an optional replacement for chorizo, but given how important chorizo was to the decision to go to Pizza By Alex, no serious consideration was given to Italian Sausage on this pie. As was the case with the Pizza by Alex, there was very little sauce on this one. An interesting twist to the pizza construction was that the bacon, chorizo and pepperoni were all on top of the pizza, while small pieces of ham were spread out under the cheese.

We also got one deep dish pizza - with roasted red peppers and onions. The crust, which was not thick at all, was firm and had a lot of chewiness to it. It was topped with a good inch of cheese that was filled with the onions and meaty red peppers. The sauce has more seasoning and is a little thicker than the red sauce on the thin pizza. There was a lot more sauce on the deep dish pie, but compared to other deep dish pizzas, there was very little. The deep dish pizza was well-received, but most of us were so focused on trying the different thin crust pies with the unique toppings that most people did not get to it until the latter part of the meal.

One more important detail worth noting about Pizza by Alex that is not advertised on their website: it's BYOB. And for your convenience, there's a liquor store around the corner, albeit one with a limited wine selection.

Petey Pizza gives Pizza by Alex a 6.972.

[Chicago Pizza News] Obama's Favorite Pizza Goes To Washington, Or Does It?

Hyde Park is home to many well-known pizzerias: the original Edwardo's, the oldest still-operational Giordano's, the original Medici, an outpost of Pizza Capri, and Caffe Florian. Hyde Park residents Barack and Michelle Obama bypass all of those places to satisfy their pizza cravings in favor of the pies from Italian Fiesta Pizzeria, which is in the strip mall at the corner of 47th and Lake Park.

And now, the Ritz-Carlton in Washington DC is hosting a Presidential Inauguration expo on November 20, and they have invited the owners of Italian Fiesta Pizzeria to come to DC to make pizza for the occasion.

However, it turns out that Italian Fiesta may be going to DC under false pretenses. While Michelle Obama is on record as saying how much she likes it (and the South Shore native did grow up near the oldest location), there is no evidence that Barack Obama has ever been inside the place. More importantly, Obama is on record as telling the owner of a Chicago-style pizzeria in St. Louis called Pi that that place serves up the best pizza he's ever had. Perhaps next summer the CPC will venture to St. Louis for a Cubs/Cardinals game and do some research on our President-Elect's pizza tastes.

Connie's Pizza [Meeting #69; Meeting #16 Revisited]

Connie's Pizza [Map]
2373 S Archer Avenue
Chicago, IL
(312) CONNIES (266-6437)

CPC invaded Connie's Pizza on 11/10/08.

Most people think that U.S. Cellular Field (Comiskey Park) sits in Bridgeport; but they are mostly wrong. The original Comiskey Park (and the overwhelming majority of the current structure) actually sits in Armour Square, a long, skinny community area tucked between Bridgeport and Douglas. Armour Square gets its name from Armour Square Park, which was named after Chicago meat titan and philanthropist Philip Armour and designed by the Olmsted Brothers and Daniel H. Burnham and Co.

The Chicago Pizza Club was in Armour Square to satisfy a quest to find chorizo pizza, which allegedly exists at Fratellini Pizza & Pasta Inc. A person I spoke with at Fratellini, which has the wrong phone number listed on its website, assured me that they were open on Mondays (as their website indicates), but we arrived to a closed restaurant that has no sign indicating its hours of operation. I tried calling to find out what was going on, but the outgoing voice mail message offers nothing, not even the name of the restaurant. Odd.

Undeterred, the CPC immediately regrouped and headed to Connie's Pizza, which has been operating in the area for 50 years. In the 1950s, Raymond DeGrazia and his wife, Connie, opened a pizzeria in Bridgeport at 638 W. 26th Street. After tinkering with their pizza recipe by replacing provolone with mozzarella, Connie's pizzas quickly grew in popularity. In 1963, Jim Stolfe bought the restaurant and it has remained in the Stolfe family ever since (his son Marc now runs the company).

Forty-five years later, Connie's has established itself as one of Chicago's best-known pizzerias. In addition to the 6 Connie's restaurants and two Pazzini locations, Connie's pizza can be had at both baseball stadiums, Brookfield Zoo, and O'Hare Airport. And thanks to their fleet of ubiquitous pizza delivery trucks and frozen pizza business, Connie's can be had virtually anywhere in the City.

A couple of fun Connie's facts before getting to the pizza: Connie's allegedly paid the mob well over $100,000 in "street taxes." When Chicago passed its since-repealed foie gras ban, Connie's joined with dozens of other protesting restaurants by offering a foie gras pizza on the day the law went into effect.

The Chicago Pizza Club did not partake in foie gras pizza on this visit, but only because it was not on the menu. We did, however, have a couple of very unique pizzas. Connie's is currently running a special featuring three unique toppings that are served on a thin crust made with Old Style Beer. We opted for the chili cheese dog pizza, which includes chili con carne, slices of Vienna Beef hot dogs, mustard, shaved onion, sport peppers and both mozzarella and cheddar cheeses. Perhaps it's because this pizza was served first, but it was inhaled by the CPC. Some of the slices were missing hot dog pieces, but other than that there were no complaints about that pie, and there were a couple of raves. The crust was a little firmer and thicker than traditional Chicago thin crusts, and it held up well to the generous portion of toppings piled on. I didn't taste much flavor from the beer, though though it did add a yellowish tint to the crust.

We were so enamored with the special toppings offered on the Old Style crust, that we opted for a second one - the Italian Beef pizza, but on the regular thin crust. Toppings on that pie included Italian Beef, hot giardinera, sweet peppers, sauce, and mozzarella and provolone cheese. The well-seasoned meat was not wet like most Italian Beef, but that was probably a good think as traditional Italian Beef would turn any crust into a soggy mess.

Up next was Connie's most famous pizza - a middleweight crust with sausage. This is the pizza that is sold at both baseball stadiums, the United Center, O'Hare Airport, Brookfield Zoo and every other non-pizzeria location I've seen Connie's. The crust is about half an inch thick and is more like bread than the kind of crust typically found on deep dish pizza. The pizza comes with a generous supply of sausage, which was had a pretty strong fennel flavor, but a texture that a couple of us noted screamed mass production.

On our deep dish pizza, we went for pepperoni. The deep dish crust is identical in texture to the middleweight, only it is about twice as thick. The pepperoni seemed to me to be a little thicker slices than is common, but other than that was indistinguishable from most pepperonis out there. The sauce on the deep dish and the middleweight was thick, but not chunky. It was neither noticeably tangy nor sweet, but rather a solid basic pizza sauce.

The final pizza we ordered was a very unique stuffed crust. Typically a stuffed pizza consists of a normal bottom crust about 1/4 inch thick and a paper thin top crust that is often indistinguishable from the thick layer of cheese it covers and unnoticeable due to the sauce that sits on top of it. Connie's top crust is just as thick as the bottom crust. They offer the stuffed pizza two different ways - with sauce on top as is done everywhere else, or what they call the "original 26th street style" with the sauce on the side. We opted for the latter, and we got it stuffed with ham, bacon, and cheddar cheese (in addition to, not instead of mozzarella).

The service we received was fantastic. Perhaps it's because Stelios blew our cover by announcing to the host when we got there that we are the Chicago Pizza Club and would be blogging about the meal, but the staff was incredibly attentive. There were twelve of us present and, unprompted, Connie's asked us if we wanted our pizzas cut into more than the normal 8 pieces so everyone could try each of them. I think that's the first time that has happened in the history of the CPC and it was much appreciated.

Petey Pizza gives Connie's a 5.37.


Hope we ordered enough...


The Sausage Pizza, as seen at many a sporting event and music festival...


The Stuffed Pizza with Ham, Bacon and Cheddar...


Italian Beef Pizza on an Old Style crust...


Deep Dish with Pepperoni...


The Chili Cheese Dog Pizza...


Italian Beef up close and personal...


The Chicago Pizza Club hard at work...


Where it went down...


Fred enjoys some leftovers...

[Special Report] Santarpio's Pizza

Santarpio's Pizza (GoogleMap)
111 Chelsea Street
East Boston, MA
617.567.9871

While on a recent trip to Boston for a wedding, my food-loving friends and 2 members of CPC decided to make a trip to Santarpio's Pizza in East Boston near the airport. Prior to my trip to Boston, I had never given thought to their pizza culture. If I had, I likely would have suspected that the overwhelming number of Irish descendants in this city would make for poor fare. This was not the case: East Boston has historically been an enclave of Italian immigrants. In recent years it has become populated by Central American immigrants, but there are still many signs of the prior Italian majority. Santarpio's opened in 1933 and has regularly been listed as one of Boston's best pizzerias by local publications. Today, it still remains a family business and in its original building. Frank Santarpio would be proud.

This is obviously a small restaurant with a local and outsider following alike. We had no wait when we arrived, but when we left an hour later there was a line 15 people deep outside the restaurant. As you can see below, the menu is not comprehensive. They serve two items: pizza and skewered meat. We opted for both. The servers seem way too busy to chit-chat and they expect you to order as soon as you take your seat. We ordered one special pie with hot peppers, garlic, pepperoni and italian cheese and a combination of Italian sausage and lamb skewers served with peppers.

The skewers were variable. The lamb was slightly overcooked and the sausage was just right. There was nothing particularly unique about each one with regards to seasoning, but the peppers were outstanding. They were mildly hot and acidic and were an excellent counterpoint to the skewers. One note about the skewers; I'm not sure how well tended they are while they sit over the fire. As I hinted before, I think this might cause a lot of variability in how "done" your meats are when they arrive at your table.

The pizza was very good, much to my surprise. As I mentioned before, I wasn't expecting much. The crust was probably the best part of the pizza. It was thin and the edges held up very well. The center had lots of loose cheese and toppings and mine actually kind of fell apart. The edges that were not weighed down with ingredients were like very good bakery-fresh bread: light but with good chew and perfectly baked. The pepperoni was outshined by the garlic and hot peppers, but the real star was the sauce and crust anyways. The cheese was, I think, a mixture of two cheeses that I could not distinguish. The sauce was slightly spicy with good acidity to it and in abundant quantities. For the chunky sauce fans, sorry, this place was more of a paste. And lastly, I should mention the oven. It is a brick oven, but sadly I did not venture into the kitchen to photograph it.

I think that when I next go to Boston, I would be interested in checking out other pizza places that are reputed to be excellent. They may or not be as good as advertised. But I would be even more happy to grab a table at Santarpio's where I know the pizza is good, plus I can also get a lamb skewer with those delicious spherical peppers.


The Menu with a nice picture of Frank...


Umm... THAT'S not pizza...but check out those peppers!


Ok, that's more like it...


El Presidente goes in for the kill...


Kate and El Presidente look dazed in the afterglow...

[Chicago Pizza News] Two New Pizzerias and an Additional Location for Another

Last week, Chicago Magazine's on-line "Dish" reported that Trattoria Trullo, formerly of Evanston and now in Lincoln Square (4767 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-506-0093), is adding a mini pizzeria on December 10 in the front of the restaurant. The owner says they will be offering pizza as it's made in his hometown of Puglia, Italy, which he says is thinner and crisper than Neapolitan pies.

The same article also reveals that My Pie has officially given up on finding a new Lincoln Park location, but will be opening a new location right by the Metra stop in Northbrook.

This week's Dish reports that the wood-burning Neapolitan pizza craze has grown again with the opening of Antica Pizzeria in Andersonville (5663 N. Clark St.; 773-944-1492). Mario Rapisarda, the Sicilian-born chef/owner, is a veteran of Spiaggia.