Why Lou Malnati's Is Chicago's Favorite Deep Dish Pizza | Legendary Eats

[Music] this cheesy meaty deep-dish pizza is from Lou Malnati's in Chicago which we filmed that in September 2019 sources like Food Network and Zagat continue to rank it above the rest for a reason actually it's four reasons the buttermilk crust that holds the pizza together the mozzarella cheese always in slices never shredded their exclusive blend of sausage loaded across every inch of the pie and the lengths they go to get perfectly ripe California tomatoes I think the way that they construct their pizza makes every ingredient shine like every bite is so hearty it is like nothing you've ever experienced it's it's so good they're known for their crust and it's the perfect amount of like a little bit crispy a little bit crunchy but still like buttery and doughy right now most restaurants and bars are relying solely on delivery and take out including ma not ease so I chatted with their owner Marc Malnati about how the restaurant is still delivering their famous pies even during this really challenging time did you do that yourself how did you do that get it up teach it you want all right I'm in one of our restaurants so now obviously we're talking to you via zoom rather than being at the restaurant with you can you tell us a little bit about what your restaurant is dealing with right now and how you guys are kind of handling the changes from the coronavirus shutdown yeah so in this new environment we're doing the best we can to deliver pizza at the curbside to to send it in cars you know people want their comfort food it's time like this that comfort food starts with their signature butter crust so the way that you curve it up can you explain again why you do that in order to fool date you said so we'll Pat the crust on the bottom of the pan and then we'll pull it up the sides and just so that the cheese or the tomato sauce doesn't leak out over the top because if it does it'll start burning underneath the crust and open so we want the crust to be high enough to just be a solid container for all the ingredients that we put on top of the pizza then come layers of mozzarella cheese made from the same Wisconsin dairy for the last 50 years but you can really tell with that in some like nice local Wisconsin cheese and it's not just something random pick that from the grocery charm is there a way of adding it to the pizza is there a certain reason you do it that way with the slices layered kind of around like that the reason we use slices is because we use so much sausage on the pizza and it's easier to layer the sausage on top of a flat bed of cheese than it would be if it was great it it just wouldn't stay in place we want to have an abundance of sausage so that's the main reason it's that sausage that makes the Chicago classic pie at Lou Malnati's so popular there's sausage there's something about it it just like it's it tastes so good and I think what I love about it is that there is a sausage in every single bite you get they use a lot of sausage and they really take advantage at the surface area of pizza and they just load it up the seasoning is a blend of garlic salt and pepper loaded bit by bit until you can't see anymore mozzarella cheese it's a reason for that technique I want the cheese to bubble through the sausage it can't be a flat layer so there's a prodigious amount of setage but the cheese is coming through all over the place again I want to taste every ingredient in every bite and to top it off a sweet and tangy sauce made with California tomatoes we use a whole peeled pear tomato and when they can that tomato they wait until the tomato hits it it's seen it when it's the reddest the plumpest you know the most sugar just kind of jumping out of that skin and we'll wait till then we send it a group of guys out there and they and they watch the tomatoes until they're exactly the right profile for us pies cook for about 30 minutes each at 550 degrees but ever since the shot down ma na T's has taken many of his pies straight from the oven to customers doors you can pick it up or get it delivered if you live in Chicago or they have their frozen pies that they shipped nationwide people ask freeze those pizzas you know so they're frozen in seconds and when we ship them out and we ship them out within we when we make them they get to you across the country in great shape my mom just sent me two frozen Lou Malnati's pizzas um it was like the best day of quarantine when that arrived in the mail I'm sushi scented cheese on fine and a sausage one and honestly that was my first time having it frozen and you know not fresh and it was amazing it tasted just like having it in the restaurant or just like having it for delivery because long Audis is now relying on orders like these rather than dine in service mark was forced away off much of his way staff most of our service staff our bartenders our waitresses our waiters Busboys aren't working some had picked up hours as drivers but we've had a layoff a few hundred people helped offset this mark-up to employee discounts to 75 percent it started with staff fund for workers in need our team can write in to us and say hey we're struggling to make ends meet right now I'm home because my my mom has kovat could you help us right now and we're sending checks out to Artie and hopefully we'll be able to keep that up and hopefully this end quickly and as for the rest of the locations are they for the most part going to stay open is that the plan yeah we'll stay open for sure I mean as long as we can but it is not the easiest thing in the world to operate a kitchen that is really busy on a Friday night can maintain social distance so my crew is getting better and better and we've been healthy too to this point I hope it stays that way but it's a it's a scary thing it's a crazy time Lou Malnati's truly has a piece of my heart so my hope for them is that they are able to weather this crisis and make it through and I am willing to continue ordering frozen pizzas if that helps in any way

Channel: Food Insider

Views: 319,519

Rating: 4.8562369 out of 5

Keywords: INSIDER, FOOD INSIDER, legendary eats, deep dish pizza, pizza, chicago, Lou Malanti's, cheese, cheese pizza, sausage

Id: 5x9ah3Mt3aY

Length: 6min 22sec (382 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020