Mashed's Exclusive Survey Uncovers The Pizzeria That Makes The Best Chicago-Style Pizza
Americans, on average, eat 46 slices of pizza each year, and 3 billion pizzas are sold every year in the United States, according to the Washington Post. It's hard to imagine a food that has reached every American household more than pizza has. In 2021, Americans ordered over $45 billion worth of pizza (via Statista). There's the quintessential New York-style pizza, with its wide, heavily cheesy slices that beg to be folded. The Neapolitan pizza has a light, soft crust with airy pockets, flavored with the warm aroma of a wood-burning oven. Detroit-style pizza conjures the pillowy interior, and thick, crunchy base of Sicilian pizza, but in Detroit, the pie is traditionally baked in steel pans originally designed for the auto industry. Then, there's the Chicago deep-dish pizza, which allegedly began at Pizzeria Uno nestled in Chicago's North Side.
In the early 1940s, Pizzeria Uno's owners, Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo, invented the hearty, sauce-and-cheese-filled pie (per BBC). But in another likely origin story, Adolpho "Rudy" Malnati, Sr. worked as an employee at Uno's and created the pizza that became synonymous with the Windy City. The BBC goes on to report that one of Malnati's sons founded Lou Malnati's, now a Chicago deep-dish restaurant staple, and later, another son opened Pizano's in 1991, claiming to have the real recipe for authentic deep-dish pizza.
Now it's common at many different pizzerias, but we asked our readers which restaurant makes the best Chicago-style pie.
Giordano's Pizza is a crowd-pleaser
According to the results from Mashed's exclusive survey, Giordano's Pizza crafts the best Chicago deep-dish, taking 31.13% of the vote out of 604 responses. Pizzeria Uno came in second with 26.99%, followed by Gino's East at 18.54%, Pizano's at 10.93%, and Lou Malnati's at 9.77%. Pequod's came in last with only 2.65% of the vote.
It all began in a small northern Italian town near Torino, Italy, when Mama Giordano served her beloved "Italian Easter Pie" on special occasions. The double-crusted, cheese-stuffed pizza pie became a sacred tradition the family carried on when brothers Efren and Joseph Boglio immigrated to Chicago and set up their own pizzeria, according to Giordano's.
The restaurant officially launched in 1974, and over the years, has been locked in a tight race against Lou Malnati's Pizzeria, which offers its own family recipe-inspired version of a deep dish pizza. Chicago's famous pizza would not exist if not for the Neapolitan immigrants who flocked to Chicago through the late 19th and early 20th century for work in America's booming factories (per The Culture Trip). Regardless of the pizza's precise birthplace, the deep-dish reflects a story of immigration and a cross-cultural culinary journey. According to our survey, Giordano's is the best option available today.