by Nathan Grant ’16, News Editor
Do you like pizza? Do you like tours? Have you ever wanted to try pizza from every famous restaurant in Chicago? Well now you can. Rated among the top new businesses, the Chicago Pizza Tour takes you to the best pizzerias in Chicago.
While waiting on the bus, a tour guide will explain each restaurant’s history as well as some of the city’s history. This tour is amazing and offers something for everyone. From tasting Chicago’s best deep-dish or thin-crust pizza to learning about Chicago’s pizza history, you will never get bored.
A unique aspect of this tour is that you can compare several different Chicago-style pizzas. Plus, the pizza was always at our table when we arrived. You never have to wait! You get on the bus and go to a restaurant. Soon enough, you’re back on the bus and on your way to the next restaurant! If you aren’t on this tour, it may take you two days to do what we did in just four hours.
There were only seven people on my tour and we all reviewed the same pizza. The Chicago Pizza Tour took us to four restaurants: Pizano’s, Coalfire, Piquod’s, and Flo and Santo’s.
Here is my review:
Pizano’s Pizzeria
This was our first restaurant – so of course we were hungry and we ate more here than at the other restaurants. We ate the cheese, tomato deep-dish pizza and the sausage thin crust pizza. To be honest, this was not my favorite restaurant. The crust was really dry and too crunchy. There was not enough cheese and way too many tomatoes (but I guess that’s because it’s called the cheese tomato pizza – but where’s the cheese?). It was a good restaurant, not too bad but not great. I give this restaurant 3.5 stars. Good thing I saved enough room for the next restaurant!
Coalfire Pizza
This was my favorite restaurant on the tour! This restaurant is unique because it’s the only one in Chicago that makes pizza in a coal-fired oven. Not wood, coal! We ate the marguerita thin crust pizza and the sausage spicy thin crust pizza. The crust was excellent. It was crunchy due to the wood-fired oven – but not crunchy to the point where you can’t eat it. The coal makes it so the pizza doesn’t burn on the bottom. The cheese and sauce were great as well. I loved this restaurant. If you can’t go on the Chicago Pizza Tour this summer but you want to try pizza made in a coal-fired oven, go to Delicio in Montgomery. It’s a great restaurant but not as good as Coalfire in Chicago. I give Coalfire 6 stars – can I do that?
Piquod’s Pizza
Piquod’s was my second favorite restaurant. We ate the pepperoni deep-dish pizza. I am not a big fan of deep-dish but surprisingly this pizza was very good! The crust was excellent and the chefs burn just the top of the crust, nothing else. Perfect! The cheese was very good. The sauce is unique because sugar is added for flavor. I give this restaurant 4.5 stars.
Flo and Santo’s
This restaurant was not my favorite. We ate the sausage thin crust pizza and the desert s’mores pizza. Now you might be thinking: what’s so bad about that? Well….the sauce was pretty bad. Chefs add salt to the sauce because this restaurant is a bar and they want people to buy drinks. Therefore, the sauce does not taste good. The cheese wasn’t very good, either. The crust was alright. Sorry Flo and Santo’s, but I give you 3 stars. However, this restaurant has a unique history. Flo and Santo are two of the owners. Flo was from Poland and Santo was from Italy. They both came to Chicago and opened this restaurant, combining Polish wines with Italian pizza. Great idea!
Chicago Pizza Tours is one of the best tours you will ever go on! Don’t worry about how much you will eat, it’s worth it! You will learn a lot and you will taste some delicious pizza! Book your tour here:
