While every year continues to be the 'Year of Pizza' for me, 2024 was an exceptional one, and I had so much good pizza that it simply could not be contained within the boundaries of a single post. Here's part one if you missed it.
This is a rundown of my favorite pizzas from the back half of last year, including a special mention of my top three!
July
While June was full of birthday pizza(s) for me, July started with birthday pizza for my little brother.
His pick was Flapjack Brewery in Berwyn, right down the road from his house. Flapjack is a small-batch brewer that also does outstanding wood-fired pizzas:
I’d been meaning to check out Flapjack for quite some time, and not solely because of the great stuff I’d heard about their pizza, because they also happen to put on some pretty cool shows (and host all sorts of trivia nights):
Next up was a family favorite, Frank’s Pizzeria, which has been a go to in the Dunning neighborhood since 1952, but remains a bit of a hidden gem at large, even though they serve some of the best tavern-style in Chicago. It’s also worth visiting Frank’s just for the experience of eating in their tiny/vintage dining room, which I sadly did not take any pictures of this time:
We went to Frank’s as my official goodbye pizza before I left for RAGBRAI, which took me out of pizza rotation for the entire rest of July. I did come across something amazing in my travels though, so if you’ll bear with me while I take a brief detour, I’m happy to tell you about some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had:
Rip’s Tavern is in Ladd, Illinois, which is 110 miles west of Chicago on I-80 and just about halfway to Iowa. If you’re driving anywhere in the vicinity, do yourself a favor and GO. It’ll take a while since every single piece is fried to order, but oh my goodness is it worth it.
We found Rip’s thanks to Roadfood, which is the single best tool I’ve ever come across for finding those mysterious, authentic, one of a kind restaurants in the middle of nowhere that my family was always on the hunt for on our road trips when I was growing up.
August
I came back from my Hell Week in Iowa, and immediately went on vacation with my family to Cancun where, believe it or not, there’s not a whole lot of quality pizza (our resort did have a pizza restaurant in it. It was not edible). I was still able to work in some quality NY-style later in the month, however.
First up was Pizza Lobo, where I met up with one of the funniest people in Chicago in order to interview him, and only had to ask him to repeat himself 8,000 times because of the constant stream of Blue Line trains passing by immediately overhead:
Eating Pizza With a Cool Person
Noah Watson is a standup comedian who grew up in Northern California (where he was a Gilman kid, which unfortunately we talked all about while I was still in the process of setting up my audio), then found his way up the coast to Portland for a few years before eventually landing in Chicago in the spring of 2023.
It was my first time at Lobo and not only were their slices excellent, but Noah is right, their patio is a great place to sit and space out:
And while Lobo puts out Noah’s favorite New York-style in Chicago, my heart just might belong to Jimmy’s Pizza Cafe:
Jimmy’s gets bonus points for their well stocked and varied slice case up front, as well as the fact that they make monster 20 inch pies (which is an art form in and of itself and is rarer than you think, especially in Chicago).
I’m a sucker for giant pizzas, and some days I still gaze wistfully out the window while thinking back on all the giant football pizzas my roommates and I used to get from the old Congress Pizza in Logan. And FYI, there remains a lone Congress Pizzeria location (it’s actually pretty close to my house now and rocks a 3.6 Google rating, which feels like it shouldn’t be possible) that’s still putting out ridiculously sized (and priced!) pizzas:
September
While there’s only one pizza entry for September, it will probably either astonish and/or horrify you to know that while I’m out eating all these unique and interesting pizzas in the wild, my family is still having pizza night at home every Friday where I’m either making it myself, or we’re ordering from the same stable of shops in our neighborhood.
This is the first of (what will be) two Middle Brow appearances on this list. My wife and I typically go to Middle Brow specifically on Tuesdays for their tavern-style (it’s the only day they offer it), but it’s also a great place to go and sit outside in the summer on any night of the week.
October
While September may have been a leaner month (in the volume of pizzas represented, certainly not in calorie intake), October more than made up for it.
It started out with a visit to Piece for the first time in a few years:
Bill and his staff continue to crush it with their New Haven-style pies, and one of the things that comes up a lot when I’m talking to folks for this newsletter is how much of a touchstone Piece was in terms of them first experiencing (and enjoying!) a different style of pizza in Chicago other than what we could typically expect to get our hands on even just 10–15 years ago. It was their gateway pizza, if you will.
Piece is once again teaming up with PAWS Chicago for their ‘Slice to Meet You’ campaign, where they donate the proceeds from their sales of specialty pizzas created by guest chefs to benefit homeless pets. You can find all the info about that right here.
After that, I was off to Vegas, where I ate five different pizzas in roughly 60 hours. I had some killer Neapolitan at Double Zero:
And also at Yukon, which is fantastic in a completely different way:
Knowing what I know about both shops now (and you can find a ton of backstory in my post abut my Vegas trip), it’s amazing how much you can tell about both restaurants, simply from the pictures of their pizzas.
Double Zero is inspired by the Neapolitan pizza scene in Japan, so their goal is precision while replicating the classic Neo form you’d expect to see in Italy. Whereas Yukon started out as a backyard pop-up during the pandemic, so it has more of a unique, artisanal vibe.
I also got to do one of my favorite shop visits yet when I sat down with Christina Martin from Manizza’s Pizza:
Shop Visit - Manizza's Pizza
Opened by Christina Martin in 2021, Manizza’s Pizza is a family-friendly pizzeria in the Spring Valley area of Las Vegas (some 15 minutes from the strip), that cranks out fantastic thin crust, New York inspired pizza, which they currently offer for dine-in, carryout, and delivery.
I found out more about the realities of owning and operating a pizzeria in the 60 minutes I spent with Christina than perhaps everything else I’ve learned throughout the entirety of writing this newsletter.
After I got back, it was my first time trying Novel Pizza Cafe in Pilsen:
I’ll get into their pizza a lot more in a few minutes, but my visit was also an entirely different kind of first for me, as I met up with Dave from Windy City Pie (which is in Seattle) there. I wanted to interview Dave while I was in Seattle for the Blackhawks game for my other gig in November, but it just so happened he’d be back in Chicago (Dave grew up here) while I was out there, so we decided to meet up at Novel to do the interview there instead. My chat with Dave will be out in the next few weeks, and it’s another really good one.
Then October wrapped up with an invitation to attend the opening of the new Candlelite that’s located inside the iO Theater in Lincoln Park:
As if the free (and delicious) tavern-style pizza wasn’t enough, we were also treated to an improv show based off suggestions from Candlelite’s owner Pat Fowler — who is a unique success story in his own right as he took a job at the OG Candlelite after college just because he loved their pizza so much, then eventually ended up buying the entire place.
November
Told you October was a lot.
November started back down in Pilsen again, when I visited one of my favorite pizza people in all of Chicago, Travis Hezel, who not only works at Novel, but also runs his own pop-up called Chomp Pizza where he sets up his Gozney oven on the sidewalk in front of his apartment every Sunday to make Neapolitan pizza for his neighborhood:
I’m working on an interview and a separate project with Travis right now, and I’ll have a lot more to share on both fronts soon.
Then I headed to the great northwest. My first stop was in Portland, where I was lucky enough to hang out with one of the most interesting pizza people on the entire planet, Miriam Weiskind (I owe a huge thank you to Jonathan Porter from Chicago Pizza Tours for putting us in touch).
I met Miriam at her favorite pizza place in Portland, the legendary Apizza Scholls:
Broken record time, but my interview with Miriam is also on the way. She has a varied and incredible history with pizza, from getting her start doing tours with Scott Wiener, working for the literal Paulie Gee, running a pizza pop-up out of her Brooklyn apartment during the pandemic that blew up so big she had a six-month waiting list and was invited on Chopped, and she also spent a summer in Chicago training under Jonathan Goldsmith at Spacca Napoli before she made her way out to Portland where she’s currently in the midst of building out her own restaurant, Yums of PDX.
Off Miriam’s recommendation, I stopped by Scottie’s Pizza Parlor (the NW location) for a couple of their naturally-leavened (sourdough) slices on my way out of town. Scottie’s NY is great, but their square slice is one of the best I’ve had in a looooong time, and almost snuck into my top three:
Next up was my official shop visit to Windy City Pie in Seattle (with a stop by Cannon Beach and the Goonies house on the drive up):
You’ll find out a lot more about their pizza in my interview with Dave, but the picture tells you just about everything you need to know in the meantime.
Then November closed out in epic fashion back in Chicago with the party to celebrate the release of John Carruthers’ second pizza book, Super Pizza World:
John was manning the kitchen and not only cranking out his excellent tavern-style pies, but also some early 90s inspired miniature personal pan pizzas that were baked in actual Pizza Hut pans that he bought off ebay.
The book is fantastic and funny and full of lots of really cool recipes, and I also have to give a special shout out to Ragadan for bringing some of their signature baklava milkshakes.
December
The year finished up with some repeat offenders and my first time checking out a shop I’d been eyeing for a while now.
I started back at Middle Brow, where I met up with the incredibly talented Chicago artist and queen of the current hot dog stand revival, Julia Hagen:
If you aren’t familiar with Julia and what she’s up to yet, you can read all about her in our interview in a few weeks!
We met at Middle Brown during lunch, a time I had yet to ever visit, where I tried a third iteration of their pizza which I didn’t know they offered — the slice:
It’s a solid slice, and while I wouldn’t rank it above their tavern, I enjoyed it more than the sourdough Neapolitan-ish round pizzas they always offer.
Then back down to Pilsen on an especially warm Sunday to hang out with Travis while he was out in front of his apartment doing his thing:
And I closed up shop for the year with a visit to DeSalvo’s Pizza in Evanston. My wife and I take our kids to Lightscape at the Chicago Botanic Garden every Christmas, and we’ve been searching for some good pizza on the way up:
DeSalvo’s definitely DeLivered (I’m so sorry), and it’s a solid bet to be part of our tradition now. DeSalvo’s is a quintessential modern neighborhood shop with high quality ingredients and really great pizza, and it’s easy to tell just how beloved it is by the folks in Evanston as it was already packed when we got in at 5 p.m. and there was a constant stream of customers while we were eating.
And just in case you weren’t satiated by pictures of one random house that means nothing to you if you didn’t enjoy the movie, we made a very special stop after Lightscape since we were just down the road:
My Three Favorite Pizzas of 2024
I’m not a fan of “best” restaurant lists. They typically fail to acknowledge the highly subjective nature of food, and there’s generally a significant amount of receny bias in play (which I’ll also cop to since the majority of the pizzas I’ve written about in these two posts are from pizza makers that I tried for the very first time last year). This is why you’ll always see me approach any type of chronicling I do as “my favorite” as opposed to THIS IS NOW IRONCLAD PIZZA LAW PERTAINING TO ALL.
That being said, I think these three pizzas are truly special, and if you’re in the position to try them, I certainly hope you do.
Little Pops Trattoria in Lisle
New York-style pizza with an old school family NY dough recipe. Little Pops has three different locations in the far western suburbs — their big sit down restaurant in Lisle, and two smaller carryout locations in Naperville and Aurora. I wrote about how much I loved their meatball pizza in the last post, and if they were any closer it would be a serious threat for me to order at least once a week. The meatballs are perfectly cooked, chopped into tiny bits, and scattered over every inch of the pizza for ULTIMATE MEATBALL in every bite.
Novel Pizza Cafe
Located in the heart of Pilsen on 19th Street, Novel is one of the rare shops in Chicago that feels woven into the neighborhood. They turned an old house into their first restaurant, and they’re doing some really unique and interesting things with their pizza.
First off, they sell their tavern in slice form, where a slice is 1/4 of a full tavern-style pie. I ordered a sausage slice when I met up with Dave, it was ready in a few minutes, and it was excellent (and don’t sleep on their coffee! Novel Co-Owner Francis Almeda also owns both Side Practice Coffee and Drip Collective).
But what I really want to talk about is what they refer to as Alico pan pizza, which is a Detroit/deep dish hybrid that’s got a light and airy dough paired with a carmelized cheddar frico crown, and is baked in a round pan.
I owe that entire experience to Dave (and fate!), as he sent me home with a giant wedge of his hot pepperoni (pepperoni, ricotta, and hot honey) since I was still full from my tavern slice. If you have an affinity for pan pizza you owe it to yourself to get to Novel ASAP. The Alico takes 30-45 minutes to bake, so grab a coffee and take a stroll around Pilsen while you wait.
And my favorite pizza of the year came from…
Lupita Pizzaria in Lisbon, Portugal
The Gods of Fate blessed me yet again as I returned to Lupita after I initially ate there in order to get some better pictures, but wound up finding a rare open table as well:
I’m going to copy and paste what I said last time:
Lupita’s carbonara pizza is one of my favorite pizzas that I’ve maybe ever eaten. What makes the entire pizza is the guanciale — which is salt-cured pork cheek. The guanicale was sliced razor-thin, and it baked up super crispy on top of the pizza, so it tasted like the saltiest, lightest, most delicious pork rind you can imagine — which cut right through all the richness of the cheese and the egg yolk.
It’s a perfectly balanced pizza, and Lupita gets a ton of bonus points not only for the infectious and bustling energy of their shop, but also for their supremely delicious Basque cheesecake.
So take note entrepreneurs, if any of you are brave enough to open a pizza and Basque cheesecake restaurant in Chicago, not only will I be your initial investor, but also your best customer, quite possibly even to Homer eating hot dogs in the cemetery level: