Forno Rosso

Barese Pizza

We went to lunch at a place called Forno Rosso.  We saw this place a little while ago on Check Please. This is a brick oven pizza restaurant that has the distinction of being one of 2 restaurants in Chicago that have a VPN rating. VPN stands for Verace Pizza Napoletana - True Neapolitan Pizza.  This is an association from Naples.  In order to be certified with VPN a restaurant has to serve Neapolitan style pizza in a 900 degree oven. The pizza can only be cooked up to 90 seconds and must be made with only certain types of ingredients. There only about 500 restaurants in the world that have this certification.

We ordered 2 regular pizzas and a dessert pizza.

Capricciosa Pizza

1) Capricciosa - tomato sauce, artichokes, olives, mushrooms, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella
2) Barese - brocolli rabe, sausage, burrata cheese

The pizzas had thin crusts but still had a good texture (not cracker-like). The Barese pizza had a little more of a char to it than Nick would prefer. But over all we enjoyed all of the ingredients.

Nutella Dessert Pizza - nutella, strawberries and bananas
We had to try the dessert pizza because we love Nutella.  We made sure to box up some of the regular pizza to save room.  The dessert pizza was fun due to the ingredients but nothing overly special.

Nutella Pizza

Final thoughts on Forno Rosso:
Food - good pizzas.  If we lived closer we would go back.  Nick didn't find it that much different than other wood fired pizzas.

Service - in the middle of the day so a bit slow. But maybe they were going for a more relaxed European vibe.

Atmosphere - casual. There was a large group of people watching soccer matches on the televisions.

Bella Bacinos

Cauliflower Soup

We went to dinner at Bella Bacino's in La Grange.  A few years ago we went to its sister restaurant in Lincoln Park on a food tour and had a spinach deep dish pizza.  We were hoping to re-create that here and we wanted pizza because it was national pizza week.  But when we got there we realized they didn't have deep dish only thin crust cooked in brick ovens (so slightly different concept). We wish it were deep dish because there are a few other brick oven thin crust pizza places in the area already.



We ordered:
Cup of cauliflower soup - this was the soup special of the day.  It was creamy and tangy and reminiscent of a cream of potato soup (but different).

Duck Brown Butter Ravioli

Duck brown butter ravioli (also a special that evening) - Natalie is a sucker for duck entrees.  This dish was really good but the only critique is that there was a little too much butter in the sauce.  Otherwise the flavors of the duck, sun-dried tomatoes and basil were great together and the fresh pasta was scrumptious.

Pizza - Capricciosa - tomatoes, mushrooms, ham, artichoke, olives and mozzarella.  The pizza was a little burned looking on the edges (but that comes with the brick oven concept). We were expecting black olives but they were Mediterranean olives that had a strong flavor.  They kind of overpowered the rest of the pizza so we removed them and it tasted much better (more balanced) and ate the olives separately.

Capricciosa Pizza

Final thoughts on Bella Bacino's:
Food - go for the pasta not the pizza
Service - slow night because lots of snow outside so we were served promptly.
Atmosphere - good for families and wine aficionados.  Local vibe.

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.

Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co

We had heard about Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co on the Travel Channel's Pot Pie Paradise show. It is located in Lincoln Park a few blocks from the zoo. We ended up parking by the zoo and walking over. This restaurant does not take reservations so we tried to get there as soon as we could on a week night.  We were still met with a wait - we were told 20 minutes but it probably was between 10-15 minutes.



Pizza Pot Pie

                              The only "pizza" they offer is called a pizza pot pie.  It is not really like any other pizza we've tried before. They have a dough crust with a meat bolognese sauce, whole button mushrooms and cheese.  It is baked and looks like a pot pie coming out of the oven and then is inverted onto your plate at your table. They offer a small and large size.  We were going to order the larger size and split it but the server encouraged us to order 2 smalls instead (it is the same price either way).  It is probably much easier to invert the small ones than the large. The pizza was good but not the best pizza we've ever had. 

Small Chef's Salad

Despite the fact that pizza is in the restaurant's name, honestly the salad and the Mediterranean bread were the stars. We ordered a small chef's salad and it was more than enough for the 2 of us.  You also can get other salads that have cheese and meats on them.  The salad ingredients were fresh, but the homemade salad dressings they bring out were amazing. For all salads they bring out 3 dressings - Italian, sour cream garlic and sweet and sour poppy seed  Our favorite was the poppy seed, it was just really unique tasting.

The Mediterranean bread was a heaping plate of bread with great spices.  It tasted best while still warm so we ate what we could before the pizza came out.



Mediterranean Bread

They also over several grinder sandwich options. But we were there for the pizza so we really didn't even look at them on the menu.

This place is also cash only. Most cash only places are really inexpensive so it is not a big issue, but if you are in a group you're probably going to be spending much more than $20 so plan to bring enough cash.

Final thoughts on Chicago Pizza and Grinder Co:

Food - great salad and bread, unique pizza experience

Service - We were seated quicker than the wait time we were told.  We were glad to have gotten there earlier in the evening because when we left there was a huge wait. The food was pretty quick to get to us.  The salad and bread came out first and then the pizza came out later.

Atmosphere - a fairly small restaurant. There are only windows in the front so it is very dark inside.

View across the street - actually where the St. Valentine's Massacre occurred

Gulliver's Pizza

We went to dinner at Gulliver's Pizza in Oak Brook Terrace.  We saw this place on an episode of Chicago's Best, on their Roosevelt Road episode.

Pig Skins

Pig Skins Appetizer - basically potato skins with cheddar cheese,  green onions, bacon bits, pulled pork and bbq sauce, with sour cream on the side. It is hard to say this but they almost had too much cheese; we were really hoping for a lot more pulled pork/bbq sauce (a heaping mounds of pulled pork)   Nick got more pork taste from the bacon than the pulled pork.

Pan Pizza with sausage, pineapple, and jalapeno. This pizza in a pan was not quite deep dish but pretty thick crust. It was definitely spicy due to the jalapenos; the seeds were still there.

Pizza with sausage, pineapple and jalapeno

We wished we had only ordered this because it was much more appetizing than the Pig skins (but sometimes it is really hard to wait so long for a pizza to cook).  A medium was too big for the two of us alone - we took over half of it home with us.

Final thoughts on Gulliver's Pizza:
Food - Tasty; the pizza was good.  Can't say much more about the menu.
Service - Our drinks were filled u quickly.  The kitchen was very slow on getting the appetizer to us. We're not sure why it would be so slow we were one of the few tables there when our order went in.
Atmosphere -Lots of wood and tv's.  The bar was a hopping.  In an adjacent area to ours there was a kid's birthday party going on, which seemed kind of random; it didn't seem like a place that a kid would have chosen (compared to a chuck e cheese). If you wanted to take your time and watch a game this would be your place.

Re-creation of Bucktown/Wicker Park Food Tour

We ent on a Near North Food tour with Natalie's parents a few months ago. Natalie's parents tried the Bucktown/Wicker Park food tour back in September and recommended it. Since we were available on a Monday to do this re-creation (and the tour doesn't run on Mondays because one restaurants is closed on Mondays), we decided to re-create the tour ourselves. This way we could save some money and order the food we specifically wanted from the restaurants. The restaurants are all fairly close to the intersection of North Ave, Milwaukee Ave and Damen Ave in Chicago.

George's Hot Dogs

We of course had a Chicago Style hot dog.   It didn't quite have all of the traditional components (i.e. no sport peppers) and actually the french fries were the best part of the experience.  We still prefer Hot Doug's for a Chicago Style Hot Dog or for a totally difference experience with encased meats go to Franks 'n Dawgs.

Hot Chocolate

We didn't actually have the food there on this re-creation day because we have been there 3 times in the past (and because they are not open on Mondays). We highly recommend this restaurant. The dinner food is good but the desserts and hot chocolate are great. This isn't your average hot chocolate - it is super decadent and rich.  So make sure to save room for the desserts/hot chocolate even if you only order an appetizer as a savory dish.  Reservations are recommended as it is a small space.

Goddess & Grocer

We ordered 2 sandwiches - the Portofino Panini and the Caesar the Day wrap (southwest Caesar). The sandwiches were excellent.  They were outstanding because the ingredients were really fresh.  If we hadn't already planned on going to other restaurants that day we would have spent more time and money trying other things on the menu.  In addition to prepared foods to eat immediately (sandwiches, salads, pastries), it is also a high end grocery store.

One of the down sides is that there is not a lot of seating room - there is only one long table that seats 10 people inside.  However, it looks like most people take out their food so this may not always be an issue.  It looks like a busy lunch spot and the locals love to frequent it.  If we lived closer, we would probably visit all the time.  Keep in mind that it takes a little while to get your food, so don't go if you are in a rush.

Piece

Piece is a brewery and pizzeria. The pizza is unique for this area because it is not deep dish or thin crust.  It is considered New Haven style pizza.  We ordered a small pizza with Italian sausage and green peppers.   It tasted good but upon removing slices of pizza many of the toppings seemed to slide off the crust.

The atmosphere was probably the most interesting thing about this place - it is a large space with exposed beams and skylights.  It looks like it would be fun place to hang out for a sporting event with plenty of TV's all around.

Sultan's Market

We didn't actually eat there this time because we had already sampled their falafel sandwich from parent's tour back in September.  It seemed to be standard Middle Eastern fare. We have had enough middle eastern cuisine from living near Dearborn, Michigan that it isn't as unique to us anymore.

iCream

iCream has introduced a super innovative way to make custom ice cream.  We ordered our own unique flavor combinations of cinnamon/white chocolate ice cream with Nutella mixed in and coconut/raspberry ice cream with bananas mixed in.  We arrived right as iCream opened so we didn't have to wait long to get our ice cream. But because the process is fairly labor intensive it looks like on a busy day you would have to wait a while. But we think it is definitely worth the wait. The fun part of the experience is how they instantly create ice cream from jimmy-rigged kitchen aid stand mixers and liquid nitrogen. It is a tasty science experiment.

We enjoyed tasting our unique ice cream.  In fact Nick's choice of cinnamon and white chocolate with Nutella epitomizes Nick's favorite flavors.