Chicago Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza
Chicago's everyday pizza: a cracker-thin crust, a sweet herby sauce to the very edge, fennel-flecked sausage and mozzarella to the rim, cut into little squares.
Chicago's thin pizza grew up in bars. Historians quoted by the American Historical Association say tavern-style pizza appeared in the 1930s, about a decade before deep dish, because salty food sold beer, and small squares were easy to eat with a drink in the other hand. Home Run Inn says that in the early 1940s its tavern put complimentary thin-crust pizza cut into squares on the bar, and took its name in 1947 after a baseball broke the front window. Vito & Nick's, a family tavern since 1923, says it began making pizza in 1946 with help from Nick's mother. Food writer Steve Dolinsky, who ate 185 pies for his book "Pizza City, USA", says "most Chicagoans eat tavern-style".
🇺🇸 This one is American
Chicago's everyday pizza: a cracker-thin crust, a sweet herby sauce to the very edge, fennel-flecked sausage and mozzarella to the rim, cut into little squares.
🇮🇹 The original
In Naples, pizza is a soft, thin-centered disc with a puffy, blistered rim, topped with tomato, mozzarella and basil and baked in about 90 seconds in a wood-fired oven. See the Pizza Napoletana Margherita recipe.
Why it works the kitchen science
Food processor and rolling pin
A short spin in the processor makes the dough with little gluten, and rolling it thin keeps it from puffing, so it bakes up crisp like a cracker.
Toppings to the edge
With no raised rim, sauce and cheese run right to the edge and fry into a lacy, browned border.
Step by step
- Step 1
Pulse the flour, sugar, yeast and salt in a food processor. With the machine running, pour in the cold water and oil and process until the dough forms a ball, about 30 seconds. Knead briefly by hand, put in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let rise at room temperature 2 to 2 1/2 hours, until doubled.
- Step 2
At least 1 hour before baking, put a pizza stone on the lowest rack and heat the oven to 500°F.
- Step 3
Stir the sauce ingredients together in a bowl. No cooking needed.
- Step 4
Divide the dough in half. On a floured counter, roll one half into a very thin 12-inch round and move it to a peel dusted with cornmeal.
- Step 5
Spread a scant 1/2 cup sauce to within 1/8 inch of the edge. Pinch half the sausage into dime-size pieces over the sauce, then cover with half the mozzarella right to the edge and sprinkle with 1/4 tsp oregano.
- Step 6
Slide onto the stone and bake 10 to 14 minutes, until the edges are crisp and dark and the sausage is cooked through (160°F).
- Step 7
Move to a cutting board, rest 2 minutes and cut into 2- to 3-inch squares. Repeat with the second pizza.
Chicago Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza
Serves 4 (half a pizza each) · 2 pizzas, 12 inches each · 3 hr 15 min total
Dough
- 2 1/2 cups (354 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
- 1 tsp table salt
- 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp cold water
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Cornmeal, for the peel
No-cook sauce
- 1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1/2 tsp fennel seed
Topping
- 12 oz sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
- 12 oz (3 cups) whole-milk mozzarella, shredded
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
Method
- Pulse the flour, sugar, yeast and salt in a food processor. With the machine running, pour in the cold water and oil and process until the dough forms a ball, about 30 seconds. Knead briefly by hand, put in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let rise at room temperature 2 to 2 1/2 hours, until doubled.
- At least 1 hour before baking, put a pizza stone on the lowest rack and heat the oven to 500°F.
- Stir the sauce ingredients together in a bowl. No cooking needed.
- Divide the dough in half. On a floured counter, roll one half into a very thin 12-inch round and move it to a peel dusted with cornmeal.
- Spread a scant 1/2 cup sauce to within 1/8 inch of the edge. Pinch half the sausage into dime-size pieces over the sauce, then cover with half the mozzarella right to the edge and sprinkle with 1/4 tsp oregano.
- Slide onto the stone and bake 10 to 14 minutes, until the edges are crisp and dark and the sausage is cooked through (160°F).
- Move to a cutting board, rest 2 minutes and cut into 2- to 3-inch squares. Repeat with the second pizza.
Adapted from Cook's Country / America's Test Kitchen, "Chicago Thin-Crust Pizza" by Ashley Moore (2018, serves 4, two 12-inch pies), inspired by Vito & Nick's. The pizzeria details (sheeted dough, sausage pressed in, very dark bake) are from Cook's Country's visit to Vito & Nick's. J. Kenji López-Alt's multi-day, air-cured version is at NYT Cooking. America's Test Kitchen. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
Tips
- Keep the sausage pieces small. Dime-size bits cook through in the 10 to 14 minute bake; big chunks won't.
- Bake it darker than you think. At Vito & Nick's, a pale pie goes back in the oven (Cook's Country).
- The squares in the middle are the soft ones and the edge pieces are the crunchy ones, and people argue over which is best.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Cut in squares ("tavern cut" or "party cut"). Documented (Dolinsky in The Takeout; Home Run Inn).
- It outsells deep dish in Chicago. Disputed: no sales figures exist that we could find. Dolinsky says "most Chicagoans eat tavern-style"; the same InsideHook article says it is not the most common style in the Chicago area today.
- Free bar pizza. Disputed: Home Run Inn says its early bar pizza was complimentary; the AHA article only says salty food sold beer; Ed Levine links pizzeria-bars to the end of Prohibition in 1933 nationally.
- When Vito & Nick's started pizza. Disputed: the pizzeria says 1946; Cook's Country says 1945, when Nick joined.
- When Home Run Inn started. Disputed: Home Run Inn says the early 1940s; Dolinsky says it has made tavern pizza since the 1950s.
- Layer order. Disputed: Cook's Country puts sausage under the cheese; Kenji's NYT version puts cheese first and sausage on top.
- Fennel in the sausage. Documented as the Chicago flavor (Kenji's Chicago-style sausage recipe at NYT Cooking; fennel seed in the Cook's Country sauce).
Every other pizza
Pizza Napoletana Margherita
The Naples original: a soft, hand-stretched dough with a puffy, charred rim, topped with hand-crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil and olive oil, and nothing else.
Pizza Marinara
Naples' other classic, and the older idea: tomato, sliced garlic, oregano and olive oil on a soft, charred crust. No cheese, and no seafood either.
Sfincione (Palermo-Style Sicilian Pizza)
Palermo's tall, spongy pan pizza: cheese and anchovies pressed into the dough, a sweet onion and tomato sauce on top, and a crunchy blanket of oregano and toasted breadcrumbs.
Roman Pizza al Taglio with Potato and Rosemary
Rome's sheet-pan pizza by the slice: a very wet dough, cold-risen for a day, baked airy and crisp, topped with paper-thin potatoes, rosemary and olive oil, and cut into rectangles with scissors.
New York-Style Pizza
The big, thin, foldable slice: a cold-fermented bread-flour dough with a little sugar and oil, a smooth cooked tomato sauce and grated low-moisture mozzarella, baked hot and long until the cheese spots brown.
Grandma Pizza
Long Island's thin square pan pie: an oiled sheet-pan crust, mozzarella first, then raw tomatoes tossed with garlic, olive oil and oregano spooned on top.
New Haven White Clam Pizza
New Haven's famous "apizza": a thin, charred crust with olive oil, garlic, oregano, grated Pecorino Romano and fresh littleneck clams, and no mozzarella.
Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza
A tall, flaky, buttery crust baked in a round pan, filled with a thick layer of mozzarella and topped with a chunky tomato sauce and Parmesan. Eat it with a knife and fork.
Detroit-Style Pizza
A thick, airy rectangle baked in a well-oiled steel pan, with pepperoni under Wisconsin brick cheese spread to the very edge so it fries into a dark, crispy crown, and sauce spooned on top in stripes.
St. Louis-Style Pizza
A cracker-thin crust rolled out with a pin, a sweet oregano sauce, toppings to the edge and gooey, smoky Provel cheese, cut into squares.
California-Style BBQ Chicken Pizza
The pizza that told America anything goes: barbecue sauce instead of tomato, smoky gouda and mozzarella, roasted chicken, red onion and fresh cilantro.
Weeknight Skillet Pizza
Store-bought dough crisped in a skillet on the stove, then finished under the broiler: a crackly-bottomed cheese pizza in about 35 minutes, no stone and no preheating.
Pan Pizza, Inspired by Pizza Hut
Inspired by Pizza Hut's Pan Pizza, not an official recipe: a thick, no-knead dough that rises in an oiled cast-iron skillet and bakes with a golden, almost fried bottom and cheese right to the edge.
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