Barely a week into Pizz’Amici’s much-abuzzed opening on Grand Avenue last November, owner Cecily Federighi reluctantly joined OpenTable after wrangling hourslong waits on a handwritten list.
Wanting to maintain a neighborhoody spirit at this modern tavern-style pizzeria, Federighi decided to keep about 16 of the tiny restaurant’s 40 seats open to walk-ins. But getting a seat was still nearly impossible.
Approximately 10 months after that, having long since given up on snagging a reservation, my husband and I begged off work just before 5 p.m. on a Wednesday to drive to West Town for Amici’s famous tavern-style pizza.
On the way, we passed the stalwart, freshly redesigned Salerno’s Pizza, where the after-work crowd casually downed pitchers of Bud and cheesy, sausage-topped squares with the long-baked cracker crust.
“See?” I hissed. “Tavern pizza shouldn’t be trendy food.”
We grabbed one of Amici’s few open tables without waiting. My crankiness melted at the arrival of a martini slicked with lemon oil droplets in a pretty coupe and peak-fresh arugula salad heaped as ethereally as if it had fallen from the sky.
Then came chef and owner Billy Federighi’s pizza, with a char-speckled base like a buttery Saltine, chunky tomato sauce kissed with sweetness, and just enough blistered cheese to encase fennel-scented sausage and paper-thin onion slices. It was the crisp, square-cut style I grew up on at beloved joints like (bygone) John’s Pizzeria in Bucktown, but — dare I say — better?
Pizz’Amici sits on a mile-plus stretch of the near-west Grand Avenue corridor that’s home to several beloved pillars of Italian-American dining in Chicago. There you’ll find the 55-year-old coal-fired pizzeria and sub shop D’Amato’s Bakery & Subs; 52-year-old deli and grocer Bari Italian Subs; suburban-born Salerno’s, which expanded to Chicago around 1980; and Coalfire Pizza, which debuted its bubbly, coal-forged pies almost 19 years ago.
But recently, said stretch has also become ground zero for the city’s buzziest pizzerias, Professor Pizza Slice & Pie and the six-month-old Zarella Pizzeria & Taverna, which is packing “as many as 700 people between lunch and dinner,” a server told me on a recent Monday night.
“We have our own little dining strip going, which makes me happy to see,” said Coalfire owner Dave Bonomi, who also operates Peanut Park Trattoria on Taylor Street.
Tavern style, a.k.a. party cut, is riding especially high after ascending to the national spotlight over the past six years, since the writer Jason Diamond, who grew up on crimped-edge Barnaby’s Pizza in the suburbs, declared tavern-style “Chicago’s real signature pizza” in a viral story for Bon Appetit. Before long, the square-cut, bar food staple was booking full-page spreads in The New York Times dining section and Esquire magazine.
But why is everyone settling on Grand? Beyond the historic Italian connection, Bonomi speculates that rent has something to do with it, as Grand Avenue remains cheaper than the saturated, downtown-proximate West Loop, which sits just south. But it comes with tradeoffs, Bonomi said: “It’s harder to do business here; there’s less foot traffic.”
A concentration of new pizza spots could have the effect of solving that problem. As for why pizzas keep proliferating in a hyper-competitive landscape with sky-high operating costs, the answer is easy: Pizza is affordable and the margins are good, particularly when almost everybody not only eats the stuff, but can’t seem to get enough of it.
Next-level pies in a city that knows pizza
What’s happening on Grand Avenue isn’t just a lot of pizza, however. It’s next-level pie in a town that knows the difference.
Chicago is home to one of the nation’s highest concentrations of Italian-Americans. The city never had a dedicated Little Italy, per se, though in its heyday Taylor Street contained one third of the city’s Italian population. New immigrants clustered in the River Wards branching out from their workplaces around the Loop, and enclaves ensued in Pullman, Dunning and along the Grand Avenue corridor, including West Town.
You could say that Coalfire warmed up Grand Avenue nearly two decades ago. When it opened in 2007 just west of where Amici is now, the foodie hordes were known to wait hours for its charred pies with fennel sausage from heritage pigs, herby whipped ricotta and ribbons of fresh basil.
Upmarket newcomers slowly followed, including Italian deli and grocer Tempesta Market in 2017 (whose father-and-son owners singlehandedly made ‘nduja, the spicy, spreadable Calabrian sausage, a thing in Chicago), and cheffy red-sauce joint Elina’s in 2022.
“It feels like a revival right now for sure,” Bonomi said.
Professor Pizza, the second outpost of Anthony Scardino’s ghost kitchen phenom turned brick-and-mortar minichain, churns out nine trendy styles (think Sicilian, Detroit, cracker and neo-Neapolitan) in the former home of Bella Note Ristorante. The effort is backed by local juggernaut Fifty/50 Restaurant Group, and while carryout for now, the Grand location will add a 40-seat dining room this fall, as Scardino told Block Club Chicago.
Nearby Zarella also has the muscle of a big restaurant group in Boka Group — yet another indicator that Italian-American nostalgia isn’t yet played out. The group already owned the lease of an available storefront with the right vibes — cozy, warm and casual with a nice, long bar — to morph from a beloved seafood joint (GT Fish & Oyster) into a grown-up corner tap and pizzeria.
Chef/partners Pandel and Lee Wolen respectively spent years perfecting crackling, cornmeal-flecked tavern and puffy-edged artisanal pizza.
“There’s so much nostalgia and reverence for [tavern pizzerias] — the consistencies and inconsistencies, the Christmas lights everywhere, the people drinking pitchers of watery beer,” said Chris Pandel, whose Friday night childhood sustenance often came from suburban tavern-style icon Villa Nova. “Not to speak negatively to the forefathers of all the things that were Chicago pizza, but what you can get now is dynamite.”
Ever since Pandel’s popular Italian restaurant Balena closed in 2019, he’s dreamt of becoming part of that fabric. “We just wanted to make the crispiest, most delicious version we could figure out.”
Sitting amid the cheerful din in a buttery leather booth, I got a little verklempt at my first bite of Zarella’s shatteringly crisp tavern pie dotted with fiery giardiniera. The pungent flurry of Pecorino supercharged the salty, charred mozzarella that encased this whisper thin marvel of a crust I later learned was made with a new kind of 00 flour from Italy.
As with Amici, I had to admit that this generation of tavern pizza joints represents a welcomed evolution on something I hold stubbornly dear. Hell, it might even be worth making an occasional reservation for.
New arrivals feel like charming old favorites
The Federighis have their tavern pillars, too. South Sider Cecily grew up on such legends as Palermo’s 95th and Vito & Nicks; North Sider Billy’s staple was Armand’s Pizzeria.
Their pizza journey began in 2018 when they and friend Bradley Shorten were experimenting with New York-Neapolitan hybrids at home, which they started giving away on Instagram. They collaborated on the since-shuttered Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream in Bridgeport, making Sicilian pizza by the square, until Billy perfected overnight-cured tavern dough in fall 2020. It took off, culminating in Kim’s Uncle Pizza in Westmont, which Shorten took over.
But the Federighis never stopped searching for a space in West Town. They opened Amici in a former barber shop, painting a checkered black-and-white pattern over the wood floors, installing a marble-topped bar with red leather barstools and lining the hallway walls with family photographs.
“We wanted a place that would feel like it had been a pizza place for years and generations,” Cecily said. “We wanted to continue the tradition of the neighborhood’s Italian roots and grow on it and bring our own sort of flair.”
Going viral locally kept them on people’ radars — carrying them through opening each mostly self-funded venture (they have one investor). “But we have also created buzz just by creating really great food,” she added.
Coalfire and Salerno’s have benefitted from spillover of the current hottest ticket on the corridor, which, in turn, is turning younger generations onto who came before. Indeed, when anyone asks Billy to name his favorite pizza, he says Coalfire.
“What Amici did was bring a ton of new clientele — trendy twentysomethings who want to try the hot new place,” Bonomi said. Now the question is, can tavern-style pie keep bringing the heat?