Chicago is a pizza town, no doubt about it, and who better to lead a tour through the region’s best pizza places than the guy who wrote the book on the subject? Steve Dolinsky is a 13-time James Beard Award-winning food reporter who’s lived in Chicago for more than 25 years. He’s raised his family here, eating more than his fair share of pizza for his work as the Food Reporter at ABC 7 News, Co-Host/Producer of The Feed Podcast and travel writer for The Chicago Tribune. Steve truly earned his “Hungry Hound” moniker when he embarked on his epic Pizza Quest in 2015, tackling 76 pizzerias in the city and suburbs. Visiting another 100 or so in 2016 and 2017 led to his golden list of 101 outstanding pizzas, broken into 10 distinctive styles. One of the biggest surprises of all: Chicago is a “thin” town (that is, tavern-style, square-cut) as opposed to the deep-dish and stuffed images of gigantic pies most people associate with The Windy City.
As a result of his research for the book, and friends constantly asking about where to go for the best pizza, Steve created Pizza City USA Tours in 2018. Our tours are curated from a local’s perspective, including a “Hangover Pizza Crawl” on Sundays. All of our tours allow for the purchase of beer or glass of wine if you like. We always visit four different spots, showing you four different styles of pizza in about three hours. Some of our tours are walking (limited to 16 guests), others are by bus (limited to 24 guests). If you’re interested in a private tour, we can also make those arrangements, just let us know.
Even though Chicago sausage is hard to beat, we always have options for vegetarians, but at this time we are unable to accommodate gluten-free guests. Steve ensures each of our tour guides (or rather, doughcents) are able to explain the history of Chicago pizza, but also share some of the unique features of each pizzeria we visit, regarding ovens, dough construction and noteworthy toppings.
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