Encyclopizzeria 
I’ve been a Chicago expat since moving away for college 6 years ago. I’ve met a lot of folks from all over the world. I think it’s only natural to try to connect with people by showing some knowledge of where they come from. Years ago, the first thing to come to mind at the mention of Chicago was probably Michael Jordan. Now, I find the most common topic to surface is deep-dish pizza. At a basic level, this is really where the idea for Encyclopizzeria came from. I originally wanted to dispel the common misconception that Chicagoans only eat deep-dish pizza. It’s no secret—Chicago is a pizza town. But what most outsiders don’t realize is that Chicago is home to its own style of thin crust pizza, and from my experience, it is way more prevalent than our iconic deep dish.
I was tossing around the idea for a while and was rather surprised that I couldn’t find any websites out there devoted to pizza in Chicago (be it thin or thick). This happened to be late 2013 and right around the time Jon Stewart offered his infamous affront to Chicago-style deep dish—debasing our husky food’s place alongside its thinner counterparts. Incidentally, that sentiment has now become the common refrain of a new bandwagon of deep-dish naysayers: “it’s not even pizza!”, “it’s just a casserole!”, or worse, “it’s like a lasagna!” being the most inane of the catchphrases. I think Stewart’s piece is really what made me say, “enough is enough!”
So why don’t we we suspend reality for a moment and pretend deep dish is any less “pizza” than the floppy, 99-cent slices sold on street corners in New York City. Actually, forget deep dish ever even existed for a moment. Now let’s talk about Chicago pizza. Yes, there is such a thing considered “Chicago pizza” that doesn’t come in a pan and doesn’t get the same negative, undeserved, insecurity-driven attention. In fact, Chicago-style thin crust pizza doesn’t get much attention at all! We can speculate the reason for that (and we will), but the bottom line is that it isn’t for lack of merit.
Chicago-style thin crust is ubiquitous in our beloved city of big shoulders. I suspect most Chicagoans have never even described it in this long-winded, clinical way; instead, we simply know it as “pizza.” The style is marked by a uniformly-thin crust (likened to a cracker for it’s crispiness), ingredients that are tucked under the cheese, and a finished product that is cooked on the well-done side and cut into squares. (More on that later.)
From my perspective, Vito and Nick’s Pizzeria in the Ashburn neighborhood on the southside of Chicago is the iconic example of a thin crust Chicago pizza joint. Nick and Vito’s—as my family has always called it—is a neighborhood spot. Everything about it screams Chicago. We are a city that loves Old Style on tap, sausage on pizza (we were the hog butcher for the world, after all), and friendly folks waiting on us at family-owned establishments. These elements have become what we at Encyclopizzeria consider to be the defining qualifications of “true Chicagoness” in a pizzeria. Nick and Vito’s is all of that (and more) wrapped up in a lovely wood-panel-and-carpet-on-the-walls package.
Steve and Erin pose with Lee, former waitress at Vito and Nick’s.
Nick and Vito’s is down the street from where I grew up, and my family has been going there for decades—well before the oven was even preheating for baby Steve. For my entire life, I had the pleasure of being served pizzas by Lee, daughter of Vito and sibling of Nick. Lee is that friendly waitress at your local family-owned restaurant. As a testament to this, Lee attended my parent’s wedding back in 1980. That’s right—they invited their regular pizzeria waitress to attend their wedding. Lee only stopped serving pizzas a couple years ago (already in her 90s), but her friendly face can still be found working the crowd on a bustling weekend at Nick and Vito’s.
Continuing the family affair, Nick’s daughter Rose is presently the 3rd-generation owner, joined by 4th- and 5th-generation employees. Rose flashed her bright smile and nodded in affirmation when I explained to her my other defining factors of “Chicagoness” in a pizza place. Old Style has been the exclusive beer on tap since Nick and Vito’s first opened as a tavern over 90 years ago. So too, the distinctively-Chicago, fennel-laden sausage is a staple. The recipes for sauce, crust, and sausage are family secrets that have remained closely-guarded and unwavering in quality since the very beginning.
Growing up eating at Nick and Vito’s, this is just what I thought pizza was. I’m not saying I was jaded—you could go there every day and still think you were tasting a slice of heaven. To be honest, I just had no idea that Nick and Vito’s, or any Chicago pizza for that matter, was something special. It was only when I packed up my life and moved around to other parts of the country that this became so painfully apparent. As a mandatory stop on any visit back home to Chicago, Nick and Vito’s was in large part my inspiration for Encyclopizzeria.
The idea really just grew from this simple starting point, especially when I got Erin interested in coming onboard to lend her talented writing skills and get this project off the ground. What started as a celebration of a style of pizza that is so overlooked (yet deserving of the same notoriety as our amazing deep-dish pizza), has become a compendium for all things Chicago pizza and beyond. I think we could both easily see the potential—pizza is truly a part of the culture of Chicago, and there are so many people to meet, stories to be told, and pizzas to be eaten. Encyclopizzeria has become an embodiment of our shared love affair with home, using our odd talents to construct an ode to pizza that pays homage to our great city. While we made the conscious decision to start with what we know, Enyclopizzeria will not be restricted to only Chicago pizza. Any noteworthy pizza story will get a slice of the pie, if you will, and we are so excited to see what is to come! We invite you to ‘join the table’ as we begin our journey of pizza discovery.
1 Comment
Excellent article. Nick and Vito’s is indeed the quintessential Chicago style taven cut pizza with homemade sausage. Similarly, I grew up on Q’s Pizzeria in the very blue collar western suburb of Hillside. Q’s is the Nick and Vito’s of the Hillside, Berkeley, Bellwood, Westchester area, and they’ve been serving up delicious thin crust pizza with homemade sausage for entire generations. Much like Nick and Vito’s, the dining area is packed to the gills on the weekends, and the lounge/bar still feels like home with everybody from the neighborhood. I’ve had many family parties in the backroom at Q’s over the years, and I’m surprised the place doesn’t get more attention due to its’ local fame. The clientele and the neighborhhood is very similar to the Ashburn neighborhood. For Pete’s sake, Bruce Springsteen could have wrote his famous “My Hometown” about Hillside. The place is always packed with families in the dining area, and neighborhood guys watching whatever sporting event on t.v. at the bar. In addition, the Q’s sign has been officially declared a landmark. The only negative review I’ve ever seen of the place was by a guy I normally agree with over at Slice Serious Eats/Serious Eats Chicago. But he was wrong about Q’s. The place didn’t achieve this type of immense popularity by making bad pizza. It’s an institution in the western suburbs, and for good reason- they make great thin crust pizza with homemade sausage, much like Nick and Vito’s.
I use to live over in the Clearing neighborhood of Chicago not far from West Lawn, and whenever I ate pizza, it was either Nick and Vito’s or Villa Nova in nearby Stickney. There’s a great write up about Villa Nova on Serious Eats Chicago from a couple years ago, and they recently won best thin crust pizza in Chicagoland on CBS2 News Chicago. I think Villa Nova may have the best homemade fennel laden sausage of them all, but I like Nick and Vito’s crust better.
Unfortunately, now that I live on the far Northwest Side of Chicago, I no longer have monthly access to neither Villa Nova, nor Nick and Vito’s. Up here, it’s all about Armand’s in the Edison Park neighborhood of Chicago or Pizano’s of Rudy Malnati, Jr. fame up in Glenview. Armand’s makes their own sausage, too, and it’s excellent. I miss the original Grand Ave. location in Elmwood Park’s Little Italy, but the guy that runs Armand’s Edison Park grew up in Elmwood Park on the original, and he hasn’t missed a beat with the new Edison Park Chicago Armand’s. As for Pizano’s, Rudy Malnati, Jr.’s thin buttercrust is excellent, but Pizano’s will never have the neighborhood ambiance of Q’s in Hillside or Nick and Vito’s on the South Side. But Pizano’s does make great thin crust pizza, and Rudy, Jr. still gets his garlic sausage from the legendary Anichini Brothers downtown, just like his father did at Pizzeria Uno all those years ago. However, his thin buttercrust outsells his deep dish by a 3:1 margin, and for good reason- it’s flat out better. In my humble opinion, Rudy’s late brother, Lou Malnati, still makes a better deep dish pizza. But when it comes to thin crust, Pizano’s wins hands down when it comes to the Malnati’s.
If you get the chance, try Q’s in Hillside on a Friday or Saturday night, and you will most definitely be reminded of Nick and Vito’s in every regard, especially the neighborhood ambiance. And try that sausage pizza at Villa Nova in Stickney, too. Villa Nova may have the best sausage anywhere, and that’s saying a lot because we are all blessed to have so many great thin crust sausage recipes in the Chicago area.
Good luck with your new internet site. I’m very much looking forward to more reviews/articles.
Good Eating As Always,
Rob