Hello Everyone!
A lot of the major cities in the US have food associated to it. Boston has New England clam chowder, Baltimore has crab cakes, Philadelphia has Philly cheese steaks, and San Diego had fish tacos. What about Chicago? Chicago has deep dish pizza! There are four main places in Chicago to get the best deep dish pizza: Giordano’s, Gino’s East, Uno, and Lou Malnati’s. This past week, I went to the original Lou Malnati’s at Lincolnwood.
We went kind of late on a Friday night (around 8pm). We were seated immediately and the first thing I noticed was all the posters and jerseys hanging on the wall and most of them were for the Chicago Bears. There were signed posters of Urlacher and Hester; jersey of William Perry; and they even had a display for a goal post pad.
There was also an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay where Bobby Flay challenged Mark Malnati (Lou’s son) to a deep dish pizza throwdown. Here is a clip from the episode which describes how to make a Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza. If you were wondering, Mark Malnati defeated Bobby Flay in the throwdown.
The pizzas usually take a while to make (the menu says around 30 minutes), so we ordered a salad first. We got the Antipasto Salad. If you are not a fan of excessive vinegar and sourness, then you are not going to enjoy this salad. Luckily, everyone at our table loves vinegar so it wasn’t a problem for us. Aside for the sourness, it was a typical salad. I really liked the baked croutons; flavor with every crunch.
For the pizza, we got a medium sized “Lou” which contains fresh spinach, mushrooms and sliced tomatoes covered with a blend of mozzarella, romano and cheddar cheese. Deep dish pizza without meat is a crime, so we added sausage to it (for a little extra cost).
We had to wait a while for our pizza, longer than the 30 minute advertised on the menu. But I will say that the wait was worth it. The pizza was really good! And the “Lou” comes with a butter crust which adds so many flavors into the crust. It is completely different than any crust I have ever had.
Overall, my experience at the Lincolnwood Lou Malnati’s was positive. The pizza was very good (I hear that the pizza at this location is better than the other ones), but I was not satisfied with the service. Maybe it was because it was towards the end of the night and our waitress just wanted to go home, but I just didn’t feel welcomed. Even with the unsatisfactory service, I would go back just for the deep dish pizza. My goal is to try some of the other deep dish pizzerias and figure out which one I like the best, so make sure you check back for updates!
Eating in Chicago 