Burt's Place Pizza

So we finally made it to Burt's Place Pizza in Morton Grove.  This restaurant has been featured on everything (Check Please, Chicago's Best, No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain).  Lots of people really love this pizza so we wanted to for check it out. 

Super Salad

There are some rules that have to be followed (think soup nazi but nicer).  Burt buys all of the ingredients fresh every day so you have to make a phone reservation (where you state the size and toppings on the pizza) at least one day before. The time you pick as your reservation time is the time the pizza will be ready and out at your table.  So don't get there late. Also order your appetizers ahead on the phone as well. They do carry out pizzas as well but you have to abide by the call ahead policy also.  So we did see a few parties try and walk in to be told they couldn't be accomodated.  The funny thing is when you look inside the restaurant it may look like there are tables available.  However, a few of the tables are used as staging areas where the pizzas sit to be served to you. And one last thing is that they are cash only.

Garlic Bread

So they are very picky but every mention of this place on the internet plus the tv spots have mentioned these "rules" so it really shouldn't come as a surprise to someone who has done their research. Burt's Place doesn't have its own website but we were able to find reviews on yelp plus a photograph of their menu - to give us an idea of the appetizer and pizza toppings options plus how much it would cost since we needed to bring cash.

We phoned in on a Wednesday for Saturday dinner. We ordered a salad, garlic bread and a large pizza with extra cheese, sausage and mushrooms. 

Super Salad - nice salad of romaine greens plus a few toppings.  Nothing spectacular but it is a way to say you are eating healthy at a pizza place.

Garlic Bread - this was really good and fresh.  We knew the pizza would be good once we ate this.

Pizza!

Large Pizza with extra cheese, sausage and mushrooms.  All of the reviews said to get extra cheese so we went with that.  This is literally the best pizza.  NICK SAYS THIS IS THE BEST PIZZA HE HAS EVER EATEN. The crust was perfect - it wasn't too soft or gooey or too crunchy.  It is a pan style pizza. The toppings were fresh and flavorful and the freshness of the ingredients pushed the flavor profile over the top. The extra cheese made for the perfect ratio of cheese, sauce and toppings. You can definitely tell Burt cares about his craft.  At this time in his life he doesn't have to have a restaurant; he does he because he loves it.

Final thoughts on Burt's Place Pizza:
Food - We loved the pizza.  We haven't eaten pizza since and it will be hard once we do. We would skip the salad next time, but do the garlic bread.  We love this place and would like to go very often - if it were just a healthier meal :).
Service - We got there about 1/2 hour ahead of our pizza being done time so there was plenty of time to eat the salad and the garlic bread. Burt cooks all of the food and his wife and another person serve all of the food.  All of the food came out as expected and they were very nice. We did see Burt when we were there.  We wonder what they do if he got sick?
Atmosphere - the restaurant is located in a residential portion of the suburb of Morton Grove - it almost looks like it doesn't belong. The building is very old and there are lots of knick knacks on the walls and shelves.  One critique is that the place doesn't look super clean, but just ignore that and enjoy the pizza.

Pizzeria Uno

You must understand that before Nick met Natalie that he knew very little about Chicago - just Bull's Basketball, the Magnificient Mile, and Deep Dish Pizza.  And of course the deep dish pizza that he had heard of was Pizzeria UNO's (mostly because it had become a nationwide franchise). He now knows there are many more deep dish pizza places and all of them claim to be the best.  But ever since we moved to Chicago, Nick has wanted to go to the original (flagship) location of Pizzeria Uno - even though there are a couple of suburban Chicago locations.

From this view you can see 80% of the restaurant 

We were warned when we tried to call ahead that it can be a long wait. They do not take reservations and instead once you arrive at the restaurant you can order your deep dish pizza with the hostess when you put your name on the wait list so that you have less of a wait for food once you get seated. We went to dinner at Uno's on a busy (but not too busy) Monday Night.  It was super warm spring weather so the wait was enjoyable. It was also torture as Uno had opened up its patio seating and the delicious smells of pizza were wafting our way and making our mouths water.

There isn't alot of space to wait in and it apears that this particular UNO location can't handle very large groups. (However, there is a Pizzeria Due that is located just a block away that looks like it is a bigger space.)  As a matter of fact with them opening up the patio seating it appears that they gained 30% more seating. We placed our deep dish pizza order with the hostess and were seated within 15 min - because it was just the two of us we jumped ahead of some groups of 3 and 4.

 Pizzeria Due just down the street

Nick decided that he couldn't wait until the pizza came and ordered a salad, and waited patiently, and waited and waited. Then we saw a table close to us that had been seated after us get their appetizers and salads. I guess the waiter forgot, which is weird because this is the only order he actually took from us - remember we placed the pizza order with the hostess, not him.  So by this time Nick was extremely hungry - so when the pizza did arrive we started eating before taking the blog photos (but we do have pictures of the already partially consumed pizza pie). We orderd a Numero Uno deep dish pizza, which included cheese, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers and onions.  It was good, but considering the weird service we can go elsewhere for deep dish that is just as good.  There are at least 3 other deep dish pizza establishments within 10 minutes of where we live.

 Numero Uno deep dish 

Final thoughts on Pizzeria Uno:
Food - Good, traditional Chicago style deep dish pizza.  If you are in the River North/Magnificient Mile section of Chicago it is a good option.  But other places you could consider would be Ginos' East, Lou Malnati's, Bacino's, and many others.
Service - Well this was a downer for us. I guess forgetting the salad made our bill lower, but it was very disappointing.  Considering Nick had waited so long to go to this specific location it was a let down. 
Atmosphere - the interior of the restaurant was much smaller than we had anticipated. We were kind of put in a tight corner, but that was fine with just the 2 of us.  For a larger space (and maybe less of a wait) you could try the affiliated Pizzeria Due just down the street.  It was great that it was a nice weather night to be able to wait outside on the sidewalk.  If it were cold, it would be really tight quarters trying to wait inside their entry area.

Gino's East

Nick's parents were in town and wanted to try a true Chicago tradition. So we went to Gino's East for deep dish pizza. We've been to the original locations downtown, but in order to save some time we went to the location near O'Hare airport. The location was fairly quiet compared to downtown, but that might have been because we went there on the night before Thanksgiving.

We chose to have a family style salad and a deep dish supreme pizza with a sausage patty layer.  For the non-Chicagoans, the sausage patty is layer of sausage spread over the entire crust so that you get sausage in every bite, instead of crumbled sausage.

Final thoughts on Gino's East:
Food - tasty, always want more and very filling
Service - attentive service as it was a slow night at the restaurant; they kept the drinks full and kept us informed on how long the deep dish pizza would take to make (about 40 minutes)

Atmosphere - casual, although sad we couldn't draw on the walls like in downtown Chicago