Oh where to begin... I was raised on this pizza living in Highland Park, it has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, so this review may be a bit biased, but ask anyone in chicago and generally they'll probably agree with most of what I'm saying....
Simply put, in my opinion, Lou Malnati's is the BEST DEEP DISH in the world. They also offer a great house salad to start the meal and if you aren't in the mood for deep dish they also have thin crust (though to me going to Lou's and getting thin crust is kinda.... odd).
The Pizza: Get the deep dish, scratch that, get the deep dish sausage pizza. Lou malnati's is amazing, and all their pizza's are great, but the sausage is their signature dish. Even if you are used to other deep dish, the sausage will surprise you... they literally use a sausage patty instead of small pieces of sausage randomly put on the pizza, this means that in every single bite you get a taste of everything. Their sauce is a great sweet tomato-y mix, but if you do not like whole tomato chunks you may not like it, I personally love tomato chunks, so I love the fact that they dont just mash the sauce into a liquid medium, it just adds to their recipe's amazingness. the cheese they use is fresh and light, it is obviously on the bottom below the sausage, other toppings and and sauce as all real deep dish places do and there really isn't anything to complain about there... Finally, the crust, as if their fresh ingredients, sausage patty, and great sauce wasn't good enough, their crust is literally the best thing there is in the world of food (in my opinion), it is a great crispy buttery crust that mixes beautifully with the other ingredients, and once you get to the end crust, its great just by itself with the little bit of cheese that is left on the bottom portion of crust.
You can also get other toppings there which while they are probably better pizza than most people have ever experienced, to me and my family there is no point because the sausage is literally the best thing there is... that being said, I would recommend if you are getting two or more pizza's to mix it up a bit, if you are getting a veggie pizza (which is also very good) I suggest asking them to not cut the pizza (more on this later) before pick-up, or get it in the restaurant as it can be a bit more watery with the veggies and cause the crust to get a bit mushy, but still great!
The Details: Lou's has 33 Chicagoland locations, mostly dispersed around the north/west suburbs with a few downtown locations including River-North, South-Loop, Lincoln Park, Bucktown, Gold Coast, and Lawndale. Note: I believe it's the Gold Coast location (at State & Rush) that is their newest location that is supposedly amazing. Most of their suburb locations are delivery/pick-up only, but check out their list of locations to find out where you can go for a sit-down meal. If you have the opportunity, I would suggest going to one of the restaurants, while their carry-out is out of this world, their dine-in is even better. Please understand that the dine-in experience can take some time as these pizza's generally take at least a half hour to cook after ordering.
If you are carrying-out or delivering, they do have an option where you can ask them to not cut the pizza, the thinking behind this is that as your pizza is in-transit the crust can get moist and mushy, while I usually don't use this option (the sausage doesn't really get that mushy) it is nice to know that they care enough about how their pizza tastes once it has left their restaurant and want the customer to have the best experience they can.
If the pizza itself wasn't a good enough reason to go try Lou's, the price is... you can get a Large deep-dish sausage pizza for around $22, now that may sound like a lot if you do not know how deep-dish works, but that could easily feed 3 very hungry people or 4 moderately hungry people. At 8$ or less a person this is a bargain in my eyes, add a few dollars to the tip when you pick up, they deserve it, they're always busy!
If you are out of Chicagoland, they do ship pizza's nationwide from this link, the prices on the shipped pizza's are a bit steeper as they have to ship it quickly while keeping it cold in the mail, if you want to get one shipped to you, try to find a few friends and order 4 or so where the prices get much more reasonable per pizza.
In Short: This is the best pizza in the world, and for a great price you get a ton of food that will make everyone very happy you opted for this pizza instead of other options. If you are ever in Chicago and you only have time for one meal, this is my recommendation, easily the MUST HAVE pizza in chicago.
I'm giving Lou Malnati's a 10 / 10
Keep doin what you are doing Lou's!!!
10/10
Thanks so much for your post - the pictures are great! You'll have to ask Santa for a www.tastesofchicago.com gift card for Christmas so you can get some Lou's delivered to Minnesota :).
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