The Secret Behind Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

Deep dish vs. New York Style. Who wins? We headed to Chicago to learn how to make a classic deep dish, and learned all the secrets from one of the minds behind Lou Malnati’s Pizza. I can’t decide which I like better…let me know in the comments below your favorite style of pizza.

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I’ve never had deep dish pizza. I hear it’s wonderful. After a quick Google search to find the world’s best deep dish pizza, it became obvious: Chicago is the place to go. However, it turns out people are crazy about their deep dish pizza. I found

All sorts of foul language and aggression online, all about pizza. So naturally, I wanted to go find out what all the fuss was about. After searching for quite some time, the name that came up most was Lou Malnati’s. So today, we’re headed to Chicago

To find out some of the secrets behind what people say is some of the best deep dish pizza on Earth. Remy, remind them to like the video. Let’s go! We are here in Chicago standing just outside of Lou’s. Let’s head inside. Hey, Rick Malnati. How are you? Welcome to Chicago. Can we head in?

Let’s go to the kitchen, baby. You’ve never had a deep dish pizza and you’ve never made a deep dish pizza? Never had it, never made it. I’m so excited to be able to show you how to do something. Is this the kitchen? This is the kitchen. Am I allowed in?

Yes but you might want to take off your sweatshirt. It’s white and you’ll get tomato sauce all over yourself. So being from the east coast, you’ve never seen stuff like this, right? Never in my life.

These aren’t cake pans these are pizza pans and it’s not that they’re dirty. These are covered in flavor. It’s a Patina, right? Exactly, and it gives it the flavor that you want.

And these are incredible. I mean, these are like works of art. How long does it take you to get this much built up on this? This looks like a five-year pan. So another thing you’re not going to know when you

Come into a deep dish classic pizza place is the ovens that we use. If you’re going to be in the kitchen, will you put something on? Look like you’ve been here before. You don’t see this in New York. That’s a lot of ovens.

These are bread ovens, so each piece is going to take 25 minutes to bake. It’s like cooking bread. I’ve walked through all sorts of restaurants. I’ve walked to three Michelin-star restaurants… I don’t know about stars, but we got four Michelin tires. I’ve never seen this many ovens in one place. Ever.

It’s all about big in Chicago. Alright, what’s next? Let’s go make a pizza! So is this is a competition? Everything is a competition. I actually feel that way too. So that’s perfect that we see eye to eye. Where’d you go to college? Harvard.

Do you know how you know when a guy goes to Harvard? They tell you. Okay, let’s make this pizza. We’ll pan it out. Like pizza dough? Yeah, it’s like bread. Pan and push. Push it to the side. Now you get a little speed,

Then when you get it there you pull it up 90 degrees. Pull it up tight, you don’t want fat sides. So, how’s that? Well, I think mine’s better. Can you tell me about the dough? These are secrets that if I tell you, I’m going to have to kill you.

I promise I will not be starting a pizza restaurant in the next, at least couple of years. The way you’re pushing it out you’re never going to start one! Is the classic Chicago deep dish just cheese? Do you eat just cheese? No, no.

We’re going to make a classic Lou Malnati’s deep dish cheese and sausage pizza. So, different than New York, our cheese is on the bottom. Will there be cheese on the top too? Just some parmesan. Grab a stack of Mozzarella cheese. That is a thick stack of cheese.

Okay, now, we’re putting this on like a puzzle. Interlock them. We’re going to put one layer of cheese on the bottom. That is the most cheese I’ve ever seen on a pizza. You have to learn how to work a little faster. Hurry up, Nick. Now we’re putting sausage on them. Grab a wad.

Big old wad of sausage. That’s good. Now it’s going to be like toothpaste. You’re going to make a roll in your hand, almost like a sewing machine. I’ve never used a sewing machine. Okay, do you know what sewing machine looks like? Yeah! You know it goes down like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so I’m putting it down. Oh my god. Follow instructions! Get it in your hand like this. Put it like this. As you put it, you push it down, right? There you go. Now, this is going to cook in. Okay. We want it more to the side.

Okay, so we’re essentially putting a layer of meat around the entire pizza now as well. Is that correct? Where did you go to college? Harvard. Yeah, of course we’re putting a layer of sausage around the whole pizza. I mean that’s self-explanatory. Oh my god. We’ve got some work to do here.

Do you think this is way too much sausage? I think that’s way too much sausage. What if I like it that way? Manny, tell him. Do I like it thick? He likes it thick. Does he like extra sausage? Do I? I think he does sometimes. Okay go ahead, keep making it.

Arturo, I need your help. I’m having a hard time over here. Watch this! Faster, come on, Arturo! You’re faster than that. Arturo is going to build this thing as fast as he possibly can and we’re going to start the timer… now! So, I mean, not bad. This was you. This was professional.

If you were to send this pizza out after it was cooked, I don’t think the guests would complain. They might not come back. They might not complain. Now, when you put tomato on. That’s a lot of tomato. See, these whole chunks of tomato? We package our own. They’re from California and

We want to push this to the edges without getting it on the dough. After that, sprinkle a little oregano and parmesan. That could be oregano. Orega–what? Oregano. And now we’re ready to put this bad boy in the oven.

I am going to just keep it simple. I’ll go with some onions and some peppers. Those go well with sausage, right? So let me just tell you. We put a lot more on that. I might go a little bit of this to finish. Oh, you’re not going here. You’re getting tomatoes.

It’s really wet tomato sauce. What do you mean wet? How is it supposed to be dry? If you made a classic New York style pizza and you had this much liquid in the sauce for the pizza… That’s because there’s nothing to the pizza out there.

This is a meal. What you guys eat in New York’s more like a little bit sad. Just like that? I see. Now, when we push this out we don’t want to push all of the vegetables. But I don’t want it to touch the edge. That’s the best thing you did.

Well actually, I would almost say that it looks better than this one. I don’t know about better. You like to put a little extra on. Okay, so now we’re putting them in the oven. So, this is the burner. This is a hot oven. So this is going to

Cook the crust. We’re going to put them in there. How hot is this oven? Is it 500? 500. We’re going to put these in here. We’re going to keep them in until the crust starts coming away from the side. They’ll probably do it for 12 or 13 minutes. Got it.

Then we’re going to move them up here to the warming oven. We’re going to grab them, then throw them in here. This is cooking for about 400, and we’re going to do that for about 10 minutes.

So in my head right now, I’m comparing all this just to what I know about pizza, which is making a classic pizza. And you can put a pizza and it can be done in 4 to 5 minutes. And now we’re talking about 30 minutes for this. Do you want speed or do you want quality?

So this is the tool. It looks like a penguin, right? Now this was your pizza. You’re going to grab it. Don’t drop it. Now you’re going to pull it up. Move it up into the oven. How far back? That’s good. Now move that one without any help. Without burning yourself. Perfect.

You have to be careful there, huh? Well, this is what happens. You’re busy and reaching in here and yo u hit the side of the pan with your arm and you get burns. But everybody that works has battle scars. You can take your masterpiece out. This is mine? That’s yours. Got it?

Yep. Woohoo! Wow. See that? All that water I was talking about? You put about 7 tons of sausage on there. What do you think happens to sausage when you cook it? So, we’re going to take the spatula. We’re going to go around until we find a decent spot. We’re going to lift. Yep.

And then just pull it. Wow, that’s skill right there. Good. Move the clamp. Okay, you got it. Pull the pan away. Pull the pan away. Pull the pan! Atta boy! We need a knife. Do you like this? This is what happens when employees

Screw up around here. This is how we cut and we don’t want to kill the crust, so it’s kind of like a rounding motion. We want to cut all the way through. Wow. Show me you got this. Nice. Oh, that was good.

So when you came in, there were four young girls that were like– “Aaahh! It’s Rick!” I thought they were talking about me. It was about you. It was Nick. Classic misunderstanding. Hey, they’re from out of town and they’ve never had our pizza before. I’ll do the talking, you do the serving.

Alright, alright. I’m just going to smile… You’ve got to use the clamp. You bring it out like this. Like that. This is how we bring it out? Just like that, let’s go. Don’t drop it. I’m nervous. Rick, you’ve got to get in here with me. I’m shy. Look at this, he made it!

I told you I’d make a pizza. How was the other one? This is what all you guys ate? One piece is very filling. It’s true, like you said it’s a meal. This is Nick Malnati’s. We’ve adopted him now. Was that better than the other one they brought out?

Yeah, I feel like there’s good equality amongst the ingredients. Equality. Have you ever heard that word tossed around in here? I’ve never heard that adjective used, but I like it. The girls loved my pizza, but now it was time for the pros to make a few so we could

Try authentic Chicago deep dish. That’s done? Aaah, medium rare. This one? That one looks done. Pull it. Yank it. Manny you’re fired! It’s not my fault. Get out. So now that we’ve made our pizzas, can we taste them? Let’s go eat. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. Manny, look at that.

Looks better than what you dropped on the floor, Manny. So my first instinct, I’ll be totally honest, is to just go in. No! You can do that if you want to be a barbarian. We’ve got a nice crust. What are you doing inspecting it? Like what is this (beep)?

It’s to see if we got the crisp. Is it crisp? Yeah, it’s nice and crispy but it almost looks like it has a little bit more of a cakey-ish consistency. Oh, don’t say cakey. I don’t like cakey. Will you eat the pizza then give me your observation?

My mouth is filled with sausage. Sausage fest. Do you know what that is? Sounds like something that Manny’s into though. I was almost giving you a hard time about how juicy the pizza was before. I actually like how much liquid there is in there. Like that fat from the sausage, the fat from

The cheese, and the juice from the tomato; all of that makes for like a very juicy bite. What’s the gap? What’s up with the gap here? Oh, it’s the pizza you made. You want to get away from the cakey part.

It tastes buttery. It tastes flakey. It could use a little salt, if I’m being totally honest. However, I love the fact that the crust is really complex in and of itself. So now the big question: you’re dating a girl, are you taking her for a quick fix

In New York or are you taking her for that? That’s a really good question. You have to choose deep dish for that. You sit down over a meal. You’re going to take your best girl out? You’re taking her here. Oh, Manny’s on thin

Crust. One thing about Chicago pizza too is that there’s always some leftover. Take this home. Why not throw it in a box? Alright, I want to give Rick a massive thanks for letting us pop in today. We learned

How to make an authentic, and I think we can safely say, world’s best deep dish pizza today. Rick, it’s been a pleasure. You are the man! What about Manny? Manny, you’re fired.