Art of Pizza

Posted by Edmund in Chicago, Featured Articles, Pizza, Restaurants | 0 comments

Cuisine: Pizza.
Specialty: Deep Dish.
Location: 3033 N Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL 60657.
Price: Less than $4 for a large slice of pizza and a drink.

I had just made rounds of the legendary triumvirate of Chicago pies—Gino’s, Lou’s, and Giordano’s—that has riddled the city with an excess of nearly identical restaurants. That’s not to say they’re bad. I actually loved Gino’s East, for instance. Still, I had gotten plain sick of eating chain pizza. Since when was a really good pizza made by a huge chain (Gino’s being the exception, of course)? I was, not surprisingly, looking for a more traditional, very local, homey type of pizzeria where I could get a truly special pie.

Unfortunately, that’s not what I got when I went to the Art of Pizza, supposedly a huge fan favorite in the city and one of the only ones that really challenges the old houses. Not only did the Art of Pizza fail to compare to those large chains, it was just a downright unpleasant experience.

The actual restaurant, if you can even call it that, is underwhelming, to put it lightly. It’s a fast food joint with a lot of space, and you should go in expecting somewhat of a shabby look. Whereas Lou Malnati’s, for instance, looks like a real restaurant, this place just has some rinky-dink tables and chairs laid in a dining room that is covered by tacky paintings of fresh ingredients. There is no table service either—you just order at the counter, get your order, and go sit down at one of the shabby tables. It really is the blandest pizzeria I saw in Chicago.

That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, though, if it served up good pizza. But nothing I ate here stood out in any way, and in fact some of it was just genuinely bad. The Art of Pizza especially loses massive points for serving its pizza lukewarm and even cold within its own restaurant. I don’t care how much acclaim it’s received. No true pizzeria makes so fundamental and so simple an error.

But don’t think that my low scores simply reflect how lukewarm or cold the pies were, because there really were some fundamental mistakes in the way the pizza was articulated. Especially problematic was the crust, which was tough as a brick and—even worse—had a spongy center. Nor were the toppings ever right. The pepperoni was so salty it was inedible, the tomato sauce always dominated the whole pie, the oiliness was more cloying than any of the other pies I tried in Chicago, etc. And all those errors, while problematic, would have at least been tolerable had the pies been warm. But in a cold pizza can you really stand to eat a brick crust?

Overall, then, regardless of the hype surrounding the Art of Pizza, the pizza here was disappointing both for the poor way in which it was served and for its poor combinations of flavors. Skip all the hype and go to one of the other hundred deep-dish pizzerias in Chicago.

What I Tasted

1. Sausage, Pepper, and Onion Deep Dish Pizza: It’s a great pie, but something is missing, and I think it’s the sausage quality and the crust. The sausage is very zesty, with a really nice herbiness that makes it seem a bit less fatty. The cheese is just smothered all over, forming a gooey crust over the whole pizza—surprising, because this isn’t the deep dish that I’ve seen in other places, where tomato sauce is on top and cheese is on bottom. I honestly like it the other way better—it helps to keep everything glued on. I love the dough on the pie, though, since it’s very, very thick, compared to the other pies I’ve had. And even though it soaks up the tomato sauce, it’s not too droopy. Instead, it’s so thick that the very bottom actually stays dry. I didn’t like the crust too much, though, because it was tough and cold, without much butter or flakiness to it at all. And the whole pie is way too oily for its own good, as you feel the oil last on your palate for a minute or so and need to drink something to get rid of it. Finally, the pie was just a bit salty for me. 3.3/5.0. Bonus points for great cheese, great toppings, and good tomato sauce, but the crust and oiliness more than negate those effects.
2. Spinach, Cheese, and Mushroom Stuffed Pizza: This one’s a bit more traditional, with the sauce on the top, which is how I like my deep dish (though this isn’t technically “pan” pizza, but rather “stuffed”).  I immediately noticed the difference, as the pizza was much, much gooier and richer, especially with the overstuffing of cheese on the inside. It really just melted in my mouth. My two problems: first, this pie was again served lukewarm, so it didn’t seem too fresh. Second, this time around, they put way too much tomato sauce, completely overpowering most of the other flavors. It was nice to taste the tomato, but the sauce has such a tang to it that eventually it becomes sour in your mouth, and that’s never the right flavor for a pizza. The crust was, moreover, still dry and tough, with some mushiness in the middle that I found unsatisfying. 1.8/5.0
3. Pepperoni: This slice was just downright cold, so I wasn’t expecting much of it to start with. One thing I do like, though, is that it’s topped with virtually a mountain of pepperoni, so that you can get some in every bite. And there’s so much oregano on here that you’re bound to get some nice herbiness out of it. Unfortunately, it’s unbearably salty, to the point that I refused to take more than two bites—so in a sense, having so much meat actually hurt this pie. Moreover, with the pie so cold, I noticed the sogginess of the bottom layer of dough a lot more. It was really just subpar baking. Finally, unlike the sausage pizza, where the sausage was laid under the cheese, here the pepperoni is laid on top, which seems like a small thing, but it makes a huge difference. Since this pie has the sauce below the cheese and the cheese below the toppings, the cheese isn’t glued onto the dough itself and so just practically falls off, taking all the toppings with it. The traditional deep dish model—with the sauce on top—would have really helped out this pie. 0.0

Scores

Ambience: 0.0/5.0 (Not formally considered)
Service: N/A
Taste: 1.6/5.0
Value: 1.5/5.0. Great prices but I still wouldn’t pay for this pie.
Overall Score: 1.5+/5.0