Now Chicago Is Trying to Claim Cracker-Thin, Square-Cut Pizza

The pizza that is now "dominating menus from New York to Los Angeles," according to Bloomberg News, is a "crisp-crusted, tavern-style pie." Its "slim" crust "can be as crunchy as a Saltine cracker when it's done right." Yep, sounds familiar.

And that's not all. "It’s loaded with toppings — the classic is Italian sausage — that spill from edge-to-edge and over the sides of the round pie," writer Kat Odell continues. "It’s cut into small squares, perfect for balancing a beer in one hand and a slice in the other."

But if you're thinking the much-derided St. Louis-style pizza is finally getting the respect it deserves, guess again. Bloomberg is instead praising Chicago. Yes, really.

“Nothing is more Chicago than a cracker-thin pizza,” Windy City pizzaiolo Tony Scardino tells the publication.

Nothing is more Chicago???

It wasn't enough that Chicago took the railroad business, thereby dooming us to third-tier status, and three of the last four at Wrigley Field, thereby dooming us to fourth place in the National League Central?

They had to take our pizza, too?

Indeed, Bloomberg's story about the thin-crust pie that's all the rage in the nation's most influential food cities doesn't even mention St. Louis-style pizza. Which can only be an omission, because who is more committed to that whole Square Beyond Compare bit than the Gateway City?

Now, we should acknowledge that Chicago-style tavern pizza differs from our local product in one key way: They use mozzarella cheese, while we use a "processed cheese product." A.k.a. Provel. But there are plenty of places in town that offer cracker-thin pizza with a blend of cheeses, or even pure mozzarella, and they still call it St. Louis-style. There's no literally no reason we shouldn't get credit for the trend now sweeping the coasts.

But naturally we don't, and we won't, because we are the Rodney Dangerfield of cities, and our pizza will never get any respect, even when industry mavens grudgingly admit it's actually pretty awesome. That is the St. Louis story.

So never mind us. We'll just be over here balancing a beer in one hand and a square of pizza in another, because that's what we do in St. Louis. Even if no one else will admit it, and even if Chicago is now boxing us out again.


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