Second city
to none.
A pizza blog, a passion project, and the juiciest pizza atlas on the internet — built slice by slice by crust-obsessed locals.
Pizzatown started as a bar-napkin brainstorm and rose — like a 48-hour ferment — into a full-blown pizza atlas. We're Chicago pizza obsessives: we chase the places that matter, film the people who make them when we can, and label every pin honestly. No bylines, no egos — every story is signed The Pizzatown Crew.
From tavern corners to deep-dish dens: we spotlight the hands behind every bubbling rim and shout out the new pie pioneers.
Tell us about the crust that changed your life. We'll take it from there.
While Italy gave the dish its name (pizza first appears in 9th-century Gaeta), topped flatbreads go back even further—Persian soldiers reportedly baked them on battle shields six centuries BC. Ancient Greeks refined the idea with herb-laden plakous; Romans followed with focaccia. For nearly two millennia, pizza was an Italian affair, quietly perfecting itself while the rest of the world played catch-up.
From Naples to New York
In 1889, Neapolitan pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito served Queen Margherita the red-white-green trio of tomato, mozzarella, and basil, cementing pizza Margherita as the gold standard. A few decades later, millions of southern Italians landed at Ellis Island, bringing coal-fired, foldable pies to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and New Haven. Faithful as they were, those East-Coast slices never left the Neapolitan orbit.
Chicago Changed the Game
Everything shifted in post-Prohibition Chicago. In 1943, Pizzeria Uno engineered Deep Dish: a tall-edged, buttery crust layered with cheese, toppings, and a bright tomato cap—pizza reimagined as a family dinner. Almost simultaneously, Vito & Nick's on the Southwest Side answered with Tavern Style: a cracker-thin round, party-cut into squares to keep patrons ordering "just one more" beer. Chicago forged pizza's thick-and-thin extremes, then kept pushing from there.
New York vs. Chicago — There's No Debate.
Search the pizza-city arguments and Chicago is always near the top, usually holding the sharpest knife. The Windy City still sets the pace. Debate settled — bring on the next slice.
Why Chicago Rules the Pie-Verse
- Condé Nast Traveler keeps putting Chicago in the food-city conversation.
- Roman "pizza Michelangelo" Gabriele Bonci chose Chicago for his only U.S. bakeries.
- Deep dish, tavern, stuffed, pan, Neapolitan, Detroit, Sicilian, Roman al taglio, New York: the city has room for all of it.
- Thousands of pizzerias keep the ovens roaring across Chicagoland.
"To map, film, and champion every slice in Chicago and beyond, honoring tradition while championing innovation."Our mission · Second city to none.
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