Chicago Tavern-Style Pizza

For a while, tavern-style pizza was Chicagoans’ weird thing. We’d pretend to weather the jokes about deep-dish from out-of-towners before turning around and happily devouring the square-cut, cracker-thin pies that truly held our hearts. It was the old Jon Stewart Deflector rope-a-dope in action, but now the secret’s out, and our beloved corner bar style of pizza is having a moment.

The thing to keep in mind with this style of pizza is that everything about it springs from an absolute working-class utilitarianism. As you break down the recipe, you can ask yourself “could I pull this off in an ordinary bar kitchen occupying the bottom floor of an apartment flat?” I don’t have a time machine, but I know that my great-grandmother’s neighbor Mrs. Guzlowski wasn’t messing around with a poolish, importing 00 flour, or tossing pies into a mosaic dome oven. This pizza was made by people who had other things to do (running a bar) to serve to people who had other things to do (work at the stockyards or a factory, then get a little loaded before heading home for dinner). So this style is perfectly doable for the home cook. And that’s probably my favorite thing about it.

But since we’re at a municipal tipping point and in the process of officially defining and categorizing something that a lot of us have, frankly, always just called “pizza,” you may have questions. And questions are good! So let’s get those out of the way.

Frequently asked questions

Why is it called tavern-style pizza? 

This style began when tavern owners and bartenders would leave out free pizza for customers to entice them to stay for another round or two of beers (and likely shots). 

Why is it cut like that?

Those tiny pieces are scientifically optimized to fit on a bar napkin in one hand while you hold your beer in the other. Also, this pizza is specifically not supposed to ruin your dinner and get you in trouble back at home. And even pizza-providing neighborhood bar owners have an eye on the bottom line, and 25 squares goes a lot further than eight slices.

I’m from St. Louis and we invented it.

That’s not a question, and no, you didn’t. Amedeo Fiore did indeed trailblaze pizza in St. Louis, but only after he moved there from Chicago, where South Side taverns had been putting out square-cut pizzas since the 1930s. And, from a more scientific angle, tavern-style pizza uses yeast and mozzarella (as opposed to none and Provel).

Make ahead

You can place a rolled, docked round of dough between pieces of parchment on a cardboard round then cover it with plastic wrap and freeze. Frozen dough can be topped/baked directly from the freezer. 

Notes from the Food & Wine Test Kitchen

This recipe calls for some particular ingredients that are essential to the pizza’s texture and flavor. The high-gluten flour used to make the pizza dough gives it the structure it needs to stretch and roll out well. The sauce gets its intense tomato flavor from the paste and canned tomatoes, and a hint of funk from the Marmite and fish sauce. Full-fat mozzarella cheese can be found at most deli counters, and makes for a creamier melted cheese.

One of the most important lessons from this recipe is the process of letting the pizza dough rest in the refrigerator after it is rolled out. This step, which is called curing the dough, allows the dough to dry out a bit, which is important for its crispy texture. This recipe makes more sauce than you need; you can store the extra sauce in the refrigerator up to five days, or the freezer up to 1 month.