Best Pizza in Chicago 2026

Burt Katz opened Pequod's in Morton Grove in 1971, pulled out of the deep-dish business briefly in 1991, and the Lincoln Park location at North Clybourn Avenue has been the spiritual flagship since. The pan technique is the entire identity: mozzarella is run up the sides of a deep cast-iron pan so the cheese fuses to the dough rim and broils to a near-black ring. That ring — visible as a charred crescent at the edge of every slice — is the order. The pie underneath is a thinner dough than Lou Malnati's, the sauce is chunky San Marzano-leaning, and the sausage is Italian-style with fennel. Bar in the front room; pints of Goose Island on the taps. Walk-in friendly on weekday evenings; an hour wait Friday and Saturday past 7:00 PM.

Lou Malnati apprenticed at Pizzeria Uno under Rudy Malnati Sr. — the lineage matters because it tells you the deep-dish recipe Lou broke off with in 1971 is genuinely Pizzeria Uno's, plus the butter in the crust. The dough is unsweetened, slightly flaky, and shores up tomato sauce, sausage patty, and the famous wedge of mozzarella that does not melt until the last five minutes of the bake. "The Lou" — spinach, mushrooms, sliced tomato, three cheeses — is the alternative to the standard sausage. The Lincolnwood original is the room with the lineage; the River North branch on North Wells is the easier reservation. Both bake the same pie. Phone the order ahead — the pizza needs forty-five minutes in the oven.

Jonathan Goldsmith trained in Naples in the early 2000s, shipped a Stefano Ferrara wood-fire oven across the Atlantic, and opened Spacca Napoli on Sunnyside Avenue in 2006. The room is small (under fifty seats), the bake takes ninety seconds at 905°F, and the dough is a strict 60% hydration overnight cold ferment. The Margherita is the test pie — San Marzano DOP tomatoes, fior di latte, basil snipped on after the bake, finish of olive oil. The Diavola adds Calabrian salame piccante and is the order for a guest who wants heat. Italian wines by the glass; espresso is properly pulled. This is the most disciplined Neapolitan room in the Midwest and the only one in Chicago that holds the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana certification with current standing.

Vito Barraco opened the original in 1932 and the family has been running it ever since — granddaughter Rose Barraco George took over in the 1980s and the next generation runs the kitchen today. The pizza is the prototype for the entire Chicago tavern-style category: cracker-thin crust rolled (not stretched), sausage and mushroom on most tables, square-cut into roughly nine-by-nine pieces so the corners are the prize. The room is South Side neighbourhood bar — vinyl booths, sports on the television, Old Style on tap, no pretension. Tavern-style is what most Chicagoans actually eat; deep-dish is what most Chicagoans send tourists to. Vito & Nick's is the lineage room for the style and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Dave Bonomi opened Coalfire on Grand Avenue in 2007 and it remains, by a clear margin, the only coal-fired pizza oven inside Chicago city limits — the city's permitting process for coal is brutal, and no operator has cleared it since. The 800°F coal heat puts a deeper char on the cornicione than wood does, with a slightly drier crumb. The signature is the meatball pie — house meatballs, mozzarella, basil, San Marzano sauce, finished with parmesan and pecorino. The room is small, exposed brick, the kind of casual that takes itself just seriously enough about the dough. A second branch in Lakeview makes the same pizza in a larger room. Walk-ins easy on weeknights; book ahead for Friday and Saturday.

Andrew Lytle and Zach Mathieu opened Bebu in 2019 with a deliberate thesis: take the Chicago tavern-style template — cracker-thin crust, square cut, sausage on the corner pieces — and apply chef-driven sourcing and a wine list that takes itself seriously. The dough is a 48-hour cold ferment; the sausage is house-made; the soppressata-and-honey square (the Bebu) is the signature. The room is twenty-eight seats, the lighting is warm, and the bar pours a properly chosen list of Italian whites and lighter reds by the glass. This is the rare Chicago pizzeria where the wine pairing is part of the meal rather than an afterthought. Reservations on Resy, two weeks out for prime time.

Robert Garvey was a software engineer who taught himself dough chemistry — that fact matters because the dough is the pizza here, and it is treated like a research project. The base is a 24-hour cold-ferment with a high hydration that produces a thin, blistered, slightly chewy round. Garvey opened the McClurg Court shop in 2017 and the pizza is not in any traditional Chicago style — it is its own thing, closer to a New Haven or a Roman al taglio cousin than to anything else in the city. The prosciutto-and-arugula is the test pie; the funghi with truffle oil is the wine-pairing order. Streeterville location makes this the pizzeria for a pre-symphony or pre-theatre dinner — Chicago Symphony is fourteen blocks south.

Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo opened Pizzeria Uno at the corner of Ohio and Wabash in 1943 and invented Chicago deep-dish in the process. The original room is still there at 29 East Ohio Street, the booths are still vinyl, and the "Numero Uno" — sausage, peppers, onions, mushrooms — is on the menu as it was eighty-three years ago. The pizza is now meaningfully behind Pequod's and Lou Malnati's on technique, but the room is a piece of dining history and the deep-dish bake remains a forty-five-minute, sausage-patty-on-cheese affair that defined a category. Visit Uno once for the place; then make Pequod's or Lou's the regular order. The franchise chain "Uno Pizzeria & Grill" descended from this room — none of those branches are the original. Only Ohio Street is.