Kari's Rating 9.25/10…read more
TLDR:
-2 types of pizza, tavern = thin, Artisan = doughy
-Opens at 4pm-Can have a line when opening!
-One of my personal favorites for pizza in River North!
Came with a friend for dinner around 4 PM and man was it crowded as soon as those doors opened. It had been my first time there and I'm more of a lover of pizza that has a little bit of dough, so we started off with the crispy calamari appetizer, and then went straight in with the artisan style vodka, pizza while adding Italian sausage.
Calamari was pretty good, it was lately battered, and not very oily which I appreciated. It came with a lemon as well as some kind of mayo, dipping sauce. It was very delicious and light and came out relatively quickly after ordering.
I was trying to see room as the pizza was the absolute star of the show-The cheese came almost the ends of the perfect puffy and doughy crust. Although, the middle of the pizza was thinner than the artesian, puffy crust, yet you could taste everything when you took a first bite. The combination of cheese, sauce, banana peppers, and the Italian sausage was incredible. Now, normally I would think vodka anything would be a little heavier, but it actually was a perfect light bite pizza.
We seated in the secondary dining room and it had a very interesting layout, but it was very trendy and modernly decorated. I can't believe how packed it got considering we went in on a Monday. We left around 6:30 and the place was almost fully packed, including their first entrance seating.
I fake to the bathroom as I was paying the check, and it was interesting considering the bathrooms were only one stall per gender, which is very unlike River North considering the bathrooms, usually take up a significant portion of the restaurant layout-but who knows, maybe they didn't have the space?
We finished off our early lunch with a tiramisu and it didn't come out traditionally looking like a tiramisu, considering it came in a bowl almost as a pudding. It was coated in a dusting of cocoa and chocolate crispy rice balls, but was surprisingly not very coffee flavored. I don't personally like the strong coffee taste into tiramisu-and I found it absolutely delightful, although I would consider it more of a vanilla tiramisu than a traditional.
Overall, a very positive experience, the servers were relatively attentive, the prices were moderate for pizza in River North, appetizers and dessert was relatively good as far as pizza goes in Chicago and I look forward to returning sooner than later!!