This past weekend we headed out to Illinois for a gathering of some of Miriam’s family and a memorial service for her grandmother.  It was nice to see people, and to honor her grandma’s 97 years of life, and we also got to visit a few pizzerias with the whole crew.

If you know anything about Illinois and pizza, you’ll understand that we didn’t sample any of the typical kind of pizza we’re used to – instead, it was a weekend full of deep dish!  Deep dish pizza was invented in Chicago almost a hundred years ago, and it’s now a staple across all of northern Illinois.  It’s a style that’s a lot heavier and more filling than a thin crust New York-style pizza because each pie is cooked in a deep pan, which means that sauce, toppings, and lots of cheese are piled into the pizza to make for some pretty hearty slices that you need a fork and a knife to eat.  Being from the East Coast, we’re not used to this type of pizza, but we’re always up for trying regional cuisine and visiting some highly rated pizza places, so here are three spots we enjoyed.

First up was Lou Malnati’s, a chain that started in the Chicago suburbs in 1971 and now has 60 locations across the Chicagoland area, plus a few restaurants in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Arizona.  We visited their River North location, right near Lake Michigan in Chicago, and we customized our own pizza there – here’s a cheese deep dish with garlic and spinach sandwiched in the middle.

We also got a chance to visit Pequod’s Pizza, which has locations in both Chicago proper and in the suburb of Morton Grove (which is the one we went to).  Pequod’s is consistently rated as one of the top pizza places in the U.S., so we were very excited to visit.  Miriam got a cheese pan pizza with green bell peppers and sliced spicy pepperoncini …

… while Cyril got one with pepperoni and sausage.

And finally, we absolutely had to stop by a Giordano’s.  Why?  Because this is the most beloved of all the Chicago pizza chains – and as proof, we’ll tell you that on our bus back to the airport, almost every single other passenger had a take-out box of Giordano’s with them to carry home on to the plane.  They’re most well known for their stuffed pizzas, which take deep dish to a whole new level:  it’s made with two separate layers of crust, plus plenty of cheese in the middle and toppings scattered through the whole thing.  We ended up going to their restaurant in Rockford, about 90 miles west of Chicago, and got to sample two different pizzas.  First was their signature stuffed deep dish, which we added garlic broccoli and giardiniera peppers to.

And then Cyril also tried their Special deep dish, which has sausage, onions, green peppers and mushrooms buried under all that sauce and cheese.

It certainly was a lot of pizza, and we flew home with some slices in our bags to save for later.  It was also nice to get a pizza change of pace – we’re so used to our thinner crust pies here in the New York area, but different kinds of pizza are good too!  This is especially with deep dish, because that tall crust is a perfect vehicle for lots and lots of cheese.  There are a ton more pizza spots we’d love to visit in Chicago on another trip, but for now these are the places that we really enjoyed with family.