The Pizza Show: From Deep Dish to Thin Crust

best papers that's his inspiration Kate Upton is his inspiration while he works I say your aspiration yeah nice to Keith over here and then you got Papa Francisco video yes hey a little lecture inspiration never hurts right I've never been to Chicago but I've heard about the pizza I'm from Brooklyn so this style is clearly different from what I grew up with but I'm open to trying anything I thought you kaga was a one-note pizza city it was deep-dish or bust but I quickly learned the opposite this said these Pizza game is on point if you want a crash course in Chicago history and deep-dish pizza you gotta go see Tim Samuelson it's a great Pizza culture that's for sure and as you can see I have a lot of research I have to I have to alright enough talking about talking let's eat it and here it is the original pizzeria owner the real thing came out of the same place where it was invented in 1943 pizza lesson you can see the taper of the crust the crust is at the bottom but you see that line right there oh yeah that's solid mozzarella and then piled on top of that sausage and then you have the tomato sauce on top it's built upside down it's beautiful mmm even though there's a lot going on the ratios are good you still taste the sausage you taste the cheese you taste the crust it tastes like a pretty basic tomato sauce not too much added to it it's just solid and I guess that kind of goes with the whole theme right she was kind of basic no-nonsense Butler stone art how you put it together in Brooklyn in Long Island where I grew up Pizza was a very big thing and it was always this competition between New York and Chicago as far as a pizza thing goes which you know the very different styles what does this pizza mean to the city it's actually become one of the great symbols of the city so when you mentioned Chicago it's something that people think of and there is kind of an interesting almost a Midwest aspect what kind of a hearty meal Midwest in five months out of the year as a cold city yeah you know so you need something that's gonna fill you up something that's gonna keep you warm I mean this pizza couldn't have been invented in California bingo and it is different I grew up in Chicago I've been here all my life there always was an energy about it Chicago was a city where almost everybody came from somewhere else Chicago is a city that kind of grew out of nothing so there was no set traditions on how you shouldn't do anything and so that gives the idea that you could improvise this kind of food in not only in creating it but you'll also find people who won't have any baggage about trying something new so it's a real Chicago story is if you're gonna tell the story of Chicago pizza the King creator is Rick Ricardo and Rick Ricardo in 1943 opens a bar there and tries to figure out an interest to think for kind of bar food to go along with the drinks the Pizzeria Uno is the descendant of that original pizzeria if there is the Crown Prince royalty of pizza that's the Malnati's so I mean pizzas in the Malnati's laga Lou melon daddy worked under his father Rudy in the early days a pizzeria Luna he grew up in the pizzeria and eventually went on to open his own place Lou Malnati's in Lincoln wood now with over 40 locations it's hard not to run into a Lou Malnati's despite its growth Malnati's is still family owned and operated by Lou's son Marc so we're going to talk about pizza for a little while and then we're gonna make some if you're up if you're up for it then I'm up for it well I'm from New York and I don't really is my first time in Chicago so you need directions what is the Chicago deep-dish pizza all about well the Chicago deep-dish pizza is different than New York Pizza or other pizza because it's Chicago it's a different kind of town this is a town where you want a whole meal on a plate and that's what deep-dish pizza is all about you don't want me to say anything about how bad New York Pizza is I mean we could talk about New York Pizza if you started saying that then I'm gonna come at you with some stuff I hope you got some thick skin you know this doe wants it doesn't want to be abused it doesn't want to be you know fondled too much cuz it's gonna come out light and flaky and so now we're just gonna take it we're just gonna kind of work it I want you to work it all the way to the sides when did you get into the business I started as 15 but I'm full-time I'm right out of college 22 so yeah you're a pizza lifer this has been your only job it is I'm unemployable yeah and now just kind of yours your fingers would pull it up but don't break it only rookies put holes in it you're not gonna make any rookie mistakes today it's on Amateur Night this is Wisconsin mozzarella okay now why do you imagine that I use the cheese as a base because the cheese is gonna act as a sealant on the bottom here so all the sausage fat doesn't sort of seep through and make the crust on the bottom soggy I think that's true and the other reason is it's gonna be a hell of a lot easier for us to apply the sausage to the pizza with a flat sturdy basic cheese what were the early days like you opening day was 1971 in Lincolnwood Illinois that was 15 and I had invited a bunch of my friends to come over and just kind of help in case we got busy wall before the doors opened there were people lined up down the sidewalk around the corner it was like Disney World was opening Wow and it stayed like that for months you see the size of these two Marian slump are they broken by hand at all they're just kind of we're gonna break them a little bit how good is that they're really delicious huh you taste the sugar just popping out of them I do we're gonna give it a nice little coating we're going in ready going in baby let's do it here we go and we'll check back in about 25 minutes pull that out all right look at that that looks great yeah a little bit of stretch at least among this too much to ask for a New Yorker to eat it with a knife and fork you know what I'm Sicilian so we I come from a place where we could it's intense you know and we do sauce on the top this isn't so far from my universe you know beautiful so I really thought we could agree we can agree instead of rolling we're hugging at the edge there well it's a toast salut salut Chicago and deep-dish go hand-in-hand but there's another style it's just as popular amongst the locals Chicago is a thin crust town and if you asked any old-timer regular that came in here that what kind of pizza is Chicago a big thin crust Steve the lynskey aka the hungry hound is a Chicago food personality just ranked 76 pizzeria it was the bane of my existence over a summer pretty much so I saw one of these typical round ups online the 7 hottest pizzas in Chicago right now and I disagree with most of them I'm gonna do a pizza round of call the pizza quest it sounds great on paper I'm need pizzas for two months that's all I'm gonna eat you know my family thought it was crazy I was bringing pizzas home every night I'm like here you gotta try this one and I just wanted to have once-and-for-all have a complete ultimate guide to Chicago pizza no one had never done it which was unbelievable to him so coming to Chicago I really just thought it was gonna be deep-dish so I'm kind of excited to try all these different styles of pizza well I commend you for getting outside of the downtown area cuz everybody comes to Chicago they spend all their time in a six-block radius and they eat deep-dish and stuff and then you get out into the actual neighborhoods of Chicago like you have and you see the real pizza which is tavern style thin crispy crust square cut this is a very Chicago thing and started working class neighborhoods and it's like a finger food right it was meant to be at the bar so you drinking and you could just pick it up and eat it out quickly so what is your number one pick the tavern style then well this is Vito Nicks and it is even true tavern style Chicago legend it's always on the top five top ten list of anybody who does a pizza round up in Chicago in here for 70 plus years Rose is still the back in the kitchen almost every day all right now we're talking thank you very much beautiful that sausage oregano yeah looking at these bubbles it's and just go for it give me a hat I like the end pieces I like the crispy in the end yeah I was a lot of flavor each one if you just enough cheese really nice thin crust but it's really crispy and really holds up to the toppings on it hold it holds up to the toppings doesn't overwhelm it I kind of can't stop eating it right now good I'm hungry but it's really good I haven't eat this much since my quest and so here I am that video annex I mean you're gonna call to the pot hunters in the they'd roll the boards I can't as well I get to give it a try yeah you can't all right all right that was a Hamas I like that man I like this kitchen that was great that was great so what are we getting on this one you need an apron and a half okay now I'm gonna show you 101 apron everybody gets this from me okay I wrote it down once you fold it down second time okay and then you roll it twice Wow and the key here is you take all the strings and tuck them underneath so it's nice and neat wow that was the most detailed apron setup I've ever seen them this is the way I do mine they do it differently but I like doing it this way okay grandpa just had a Tamron on the west side in 1920 and then the piece that began when my father came back from World War two why then oh my my father had said to my grandmother you know telling her about this piece was she's been making him different thicker rectangular just like you're used to the Sicilian pizza so he decided to make it thin and it's groaning groaning drum doesn't make it sure small pieces uniform make the crotch you have to push him in give him you want to kind of almost smash it so it's Daisy I mean I being here since they Vulcans I've been working this over sixty years at the first place when you guys first started making pizzas making pizza when I was very young I started cooking with my grandmother I was like five or six years old so you do quite a bit of cuz I do quite a bit I oversee making sure everything is done correctly I'll go in the kitchen if they need help does it make a difference well have you got to be yeah that's what you go so you started with a little bit of cheese in the end up with a little bit shoes and on the top or bacon alright give it a generous amount a little bit more than that coming in right there in the center right here yeah bang it on the counter then that tells them you're gonna throw a board Oh what's your day-to-day like I come down here I start cooking what time do you wake up usually well today I started in three so I came down I made bread pudding I read that I'll start things like that oh here you're gonna give you a hug so then you have to start your day right oh yeah I'll do dull or whatever he has to be done so I make the pizza dough primarily I do the dough a lot this is the dole poopy oh wow and it's already been punched down so whole time come back and punch it down every couple hours yeah Wow Volvo's ice melters made last night yeah shut down hard this will be gone by the end of the night we make it every day I make my own wine so when you're not making pizza and you're not making bread pudding you're making your wine here's the most fat there's an M that's one take it take it take it enjoy we're gonna have some fun tonight boys yam guys did it all huh we did everything Sicilians man what handy huh a bread pudding was delicious little icing on top I'm glad you enjoy very much stuff southside of Chicago is associated with Mall of Rafah neighborhood a working-class Northside people when they come in you can pick them up instantly just the way they look like the deer in the night that's a dairy I mean that's how it seems to me they come in I think expecting something different right right I really do believe that because you're on the tops of all the lists and everything so they expect maybe like a really fancy place they don't realize what this place is about is about family and character and it's exactly it is we have families all the time in here and you'll him I have seen three or four generations maybe more they feel like they're at home and that's really true it's a wonderful thing Steve also told me about another one of his favorite pizzerias Freddie's in Cicero just eight miles outside of the city this place is run by Joe Quercia and when i walked in i felt right at home the horns sicilian playing cards all the stuff that italian records stories happen i think it being JA gonna get along this this stuff all looks amazing I mean obviously you make it all fresh every day every day every day and then we make our own bro my breath what do we have over here this is something that's Justine Barlow in Barlow yeah that's my version like we make in the South become macaroni pie alright and of course we put piece the neighborhood's we put a lot of people your story coming here to America and working at freddys waited at all well they started there was in 1968 well I came here and from Naples and we lived in Cicero at that time I was about 13 years old somehow my dad asked me if I could have gone with them who storm somehow on the way back we took a different direction we got lost so I just happened to see there was a sign outside this is Freddie's Italian lemonade so I said oh my god somebody's got to speak Italian here they give us the right direction so I walked in and I asked the man the directions of messiah's for the job I worked for five years and the police was up for sale Oh graduated from high school and I put some money together so only 18 19 years old was 19 years old when I bought it this is my only job in this country there was a and so were you the main pizza man back then yes I was making all the pizzas and I still make something this is though we call a bakery style Sicilian style yeah they're so like very much like a New York style Sicilian pizza how many different pizzas do you make this is one then we have this one here this is a round deep-dish oh yeah this is a fresh sausage Wow no precooked this is what I think of when I think of Chicago pizza yeah this should we call the Chicago style we used a fresh sausage on top now this is to me as a skill in it in itself the way he's breaking down sausage you know this is the my gatita style okay okay if I stretch it up oh you know how to do it still feels good he has the dough proof in which I really like because it adds it adds a sponginess to it if you stretch it and you let her wait like you know even 10-15 minutes you make so much difference best thing is simplicity it will be the dough the fresh mozzarella on the tomatoes that's what makes all together this is my beetle I do good without let-up layer on top that's it whatever slice now only or sure okay now you're talking my language try the calamari right on top of the cheese can we convince you to open up one of these in Brooklyn gemma thing about proper calamari on tap no it's nice delicious this is the best breakfast I've had all week I'd really love your place because it's not your traditional pizzeria you could come in and you could get something that is a restaurant-quality dish or you just have a slice of simple slice of pizza it's not easy but you know when you enjoy doing dish and and of course at the end of the week it's rewarding why not we have a great life I have a great wife and an ask for more than that we met 1978 I worked at a bank and it was real busy and I was a student I just wanted to go home and my mother turned the car around and said I went with those pizzas and we're going there so I came in here to order a pizza so then he started talking to me and the pizza was taking forever and I was getting a little aggravated so he said do you have a boyfriend as well if you don't have a boyfriend I want your phone number I said fine here's my phone number okay please my pizza I really have to go Joe called me a week later I think I called him John he called so I just said look I'm really busy don't really have time for any ones yes so no let's just go out all right took her to the Playboy Club we had something to eat we danced really interesting evening we also take dancing lessons three times a week oh we do the cha-cha rumba tango waltz salsa it's really interesting fairly nice one two three we tried bowling and then Joe pulled his back and I pulled my shoulder in mine animals oh no I figured done working you want to have a little recreation just don't want to go home sit around and so we figured dancing which is nice one two three four five six seven eight nine butter ten eleven twelve more symmetrical butter design Butterfield for the lady okay Oh yo guys let your turn alright you insist I never did this before first time okay it's the Box step the boxed up to me is probably the eighth wonder of the world let's say a step that becomes familiar throughout all dance this is the step gotcha that's right we should have my own home I just really all right now most a backwards as you go forward okay that way okay I hope to the sign right over right I live aside right over that's it good I don't care I'm feeling terrific right now I'm feeling like I'm starting to get it down first a little stiff but okay Vito's quite good bro first another thing he's too freakin the shoes you're wearing mm-hmm gotta go yeah I got kitchen clogs on felis you just feeling Wow grab it grab it yeah now that shoe is a part of my foot you're walking on an object right it means well be like two two by fours you're walking on two sides just lose them go on my socks if you want to all right why not why not no dude Krista boxer walk yeah your ankles will call me everywhere you go your ankles will call me good much better we can push your hips down pushing them and dip the way right out of your middle right down the middle that's it hey they're not used to this posting right come on give me a left hand I keep the strength that you having your right hand touch me but my okay now walk me with the Box step veteran X you are you are quite a teacher yeah I hope I did all right you can feel it no oh yes this guy is a genius I can't think of a better thing to do with an hour out of your day just kind of come down to the ballroom and do the cha-cha-cha there's one guy in Chicago that's as legendary as his pizza Bert Katz there you go see how nice he is his posture got better and everything he's been eating too much peace he's starting to slouch sit straight like I told you these are my little friends she don't where's your hair today what the hell Burton his wife Sharon opened Bert's place in the 1980s after five decades in the pizza game Bert's hanging up his hat I didn't get a chance to try bird's pizza but didn't really matter spend a few hours with Bert was better than any pizza I could ever imagine it's all full reason up love the outside of the dining table there were not wrought irons aluminum no kidding though they don't like us you better believe it ah why are you gonna get a movie every year the guy the scraper with a brush for crying out loud and paint them to hell with that noise see the sign so perfectly people used to say to me for years you must be Italian because you make good pizza I got so damn sick and tired of hearing it they had this sign made up it says Jewish make the best pizza there's no one like Bert Katz it's like this place is almost like a true expression of you problem yeah I would say to a degree I buy all this little stuff you see around here cuz I like it the store seems so warm to people like they're in somebody's house yeah there's nothing pretentious there's no baloney I mean honest irresponsible for three different pizzerias in Chicago yeah basically yeah I read about a place called Gulliver's I started to and is that where you first started developing your style yeah more more shal after Gulliver's then they opened up Pequod's and we've been here 24 years in this store what is a Burt Katz pizza how would you describe it you're asking Burke it's that's not fair regards to the the common terminology of Chicago pizza pan pizza this stuff runs almost 2 inches sick - thinner probably about half that size the product that I've been making all these years is a matter of balance the crust is dark and is nice and from a kind of kind of crispy a caramelized you can actually see the air pockets an adult so it's a very light in texture all the years that you've been operating here in Chicago do you think yourself as a pizza legend because a lot of people do people put names on things I don't look at that one come on I'm a pizza maker I mean that's all I'm looking at my customers I want to keep them happy I want to do right by them people laugh at pizza when I'm up you know what you do it right and let me tell you you build up a following for years and years and years when I meet guys like you I'm a young pizza and it makes me feel like wow if I could be sort of half the guy that you make sure you're happier makes you smarter to get out of it while you can there's two sides in a working coin just just remember that it really worked well three I'm very satisfied we had a heck of a good run and I'm contempt I found my niche it seems like the American dream to me or American nightmare economy you know dreams nightmares night hallucination I don't recall it Oh a lot of faith it's all perspective it's all perspectives let me tell you after meeting so many great people here it's hard to believe that this is my first trip to Chicago from deep-dish the tavern style thing there are no fast and hard rules here when it comes to pizza there's just one constant the great people these people are truly the salt of the earth

Channel: Munchies

Views: 6,229,329

Keywords: BEST PIZZA, chicago deep dish, thin crust pizza, deep dish pizza, pequod's pizza, Chicago, MUNCHIES, new haven, New York, PIZZA, how to, Munchies, food, eating, chef, restaurant, VICE, interviews, vice, deep dish, burt katz, fresh mozzarella cheese, lou malnati's, freddy's pizza, Marie's pizza and liquors, Vito & nick's, Dance For Fun

Id: Z0xDAUXPc8c

Length: 26min 20sec (1580 seconds)

Published: Tue May 31 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/EthylMertz]

Having feasted on Gino's East pizza since I was a small child (I'm now 51), I am really surprised they didn't even get a polite mention. But yeah, I'm hungry for pizza now too.

[u/westvanthuggin]

Been waiting for the next episode in this series for ages. Love it! Spent a night in Chicago last summer and got to try deep dish. It was far more filling than I expected.

[u/kracksundkatzen]

And now I'm hungry for Pizza.

[u/patbags]

As a Chicagoan, I have to check out the places featured. It all looks so good!

[u/ImGladYouReadMyName]

I don't want to ruin the party, but it looks more like a pie to me.

[u/spellbunny]

I love munchies and the pizza show in particular makes me wish I lived in the states so i could explore all the different styles of pizza!