What an amazing highlight on our visit to Chicago! After briefly catching a tour feature on a morning show, my family of three decided to give it a try and we were not disappointed. Steve served as our "doughcent" and his energy was contagious. He was passionate, knowledgeable and engaging. Even my 12 year old enjoyed it. We kicked off our adventure at Labriola for a perfect deep dish. After introductions and a bit of Chicago history in a small private area in the back, we tasted our first slice and were even able to check out the oven. There was a vegetarian option, which I appreciated and sausage for everyone else. Everyone appeared to really enjoy it. I really thought it would stand as my favorite, until we arrived at Stop two - Paulie Gee's. Oh em gee- my favorite of the day. It was so unexpected, but so good. The crust was the star of the show and as a bonus, we received a special appearance from owner and chef Derrick Tung. Our third stop was Pat's, where we enjoyed more great history and a generous servings of tavern style pizza- very very thin, but flavorful. My favorite was the veggie (artichoke, spinach and peppers), but I like the cheese, too. Owner Gina Pianetto and her team were very attentive and gave us a quick background Ian's overview of the restaurant. Our final stop was Robert's Pizza and Dough Co. for delicious artisan style pizzas - wild mushroom for veggie lovers and a fennel focused pizza with fennel salami and braised fennel. Chef Robert came out and gave a wonderful background and how he got started. Another phenomenal pizza. The mushrooms were super high quality and beyond delicious. The crust was great. A wonderful wrap up to the tour. I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone visiting Chicago. Perfect size group. Intimate, but enough to enjoy opportunity to meet other. Perfect stops, timing and comfortable transportation. Bravo Steve - well done! read more

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The knowledge our guide had about pizza, its history, and Chicago's history made the trip interesting and memorable. The pizza choices were spectacular. Hard to say no to another piece when they taste that good. Couldn't recommend the tour more. Six stars! read more

We love pizza and learning about a city and its style of food so this was a perfect type of tour for us. Megan was our guide and did a fabulous job with explaining both pizza styles and city trivia. The bus tour started at a delicious deep dish spot and then we toured several others during the trip. In total we got more than enough of each style plus we could take any leftovers! Each spot was unique both in pizza and restaurant flair and a tour of the kitchens allowed an inside look into how their pizza was made. We were impressed with the various styles, the creativity but mostly the tastes were amazing! Well worth the time and cost!! I would highly recommend this tour if you want to know the real foods of Chicago!! read more

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Just finished our pizza tour with Brittni. Our tour was so small and intimate and Brittni was a lovely companion! Our stops included: * Labriola for Deep Dish * Roberts's for Artisan Style * Eatily for Neopolitan Style (my fave) This was a walking tour and it was informative and delicious! A must do while visiting. read more

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I'm from nyc and I've never been one to compare ny pizza to deep dish. It's not comparable. It's like comparing lasagna to raviolis. Apples to oranges. I've been a fan of Steve dolinsky for a while. Anyone who will introduce me to new places in the chicago area is always great. Since I follow him on Facebook, I became aware of his Pizza city tour so I signed my family up for the one on Saturday. Our first stop on the Pizza tour was to meet at Labriola. There we had deep dish. All along the tour we were given interesting info about the origins of particular restaurants or particular style like tavern pizza. The deep dish was phenomenal. I normally get Lou Malnati but I round definitely go out of my way to go there. Second stop is artisanal Pizzeria Bebu. My husband and son really enjoyed this place. My daughter and I did too but we really loved stop 4 best. Stop 3 is Pat's pizza for tavern style cracker crust. The place was really nice and service was friendly. I just don't like that style of pizza. Last stop Dante's Pizza for ny style slice. This place was phenomenal. We will make the trek out here when we want ny style pizza. This tour was so fun! I highly recommend it. Totally worth the cost. Not even sure if Steve makes any money. There's so much pizza and we had a bus take us around. #pizzacityusa read more

Super nice owners and our tour guide Mike was larger then life in many ways. We'd come back just for him. His knowledge was amazing. He knew all's the ins and outs and delivered his advice and introspective viewpoints like a professional. It was easy to sign up and the air conditioned bus was superb and clean. The driver Mike was also perfect. We'd actually like to take other tours w this company in other cities if possible. Ask for Magic Mike. read more

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I can not say enough about this tour! If there was a higher rate then 5 stars i would give that! this tour was amazing! The pizza facts, history of Chicago, locations we stopped at were all perfectly thought out and shared. We travel just to eat and this was by far the best food tour we have been on. Steve is an incredible guide and was truly a joy to listen to. Do yourself a favor and take this tour!!! read more

Thirteen of us went on the Bucktown tour to celebrate my birthday! The four restaurants featuring different style pizza were great. Among our group, there was no consensus as to which was the favorite pizza proving that everyone has different tastes. "Magic" Mike, our tour guide told us non stop history of pizza, Bucktown and Chicago as we walked between stops. The end of the tour was highlighted by an appearance by Steve Dolinsky giving more history of pizza and giving away Frango Mints. We plan to take another Pizza City tour in the future! read more

One word: Book this tour. It exposes you to some of the best pizza restos in North America if not the world. There's plenty written about Steve in the media and he is also a James Beard award winning journalist. Ask ahead to see if Steve will be doing the tour, as he also has staff (who I'm sure are well qualified) to do the tour. We visited 4 establishments -Forno Rosso, Bonci, Salerno, and My Pi. These are establishments of varying sizes, with Bonci being I think the only corporate entity and foreign entry (from Rome). Food was terrific and we were shuttled between locations in a 20-seater bus. Group consisted of educators, journalists, pizza geeks etc who were there to taste delicious pizza as much get a slice of Chicago's history through an important culinary tradition and meet the people who have shaped and are re-shaping it. Steve is also engaging and entertaining, also made sure everyone had enough to eat! Apparently Chicago has 10 styles, and we tried Neapolitan, tavern and stuffed, in addition to the Roman style pizza. We don't normally do food tours, esp in North America. This is one serious foodie who is passionate about the various culinary history of this food-obsessed city. We'd be booking other tours in the future with him. read more

As an avid pizza aficionado (insta @zazazaworldwide), this tour does not disappoint. Brittani was an awesome tour guide, very knowledgeable, laid back, fun and personable. We did the walking tour, visited 4 places over the course of the tour and more than got our money's worth. I want to do all the tours. Great for visitors wanting to experience more than just deep dish and great for locals getting to know different places. The mix of history, pizza, and friendship made for an unforgettable afternoon. Great value and highly recommend. I honestly felt the excitement of being at Disney World. Don't hesitate, book your tour. read more

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I did the bus tour, on a friend's recommendation, and absolutely loved it! I'm a native New Yorker visiting Chicago for the first time and this was one of the highlights of my trip. As a NYer who's had some of the best pizza the world has to offer, I never would have guessed that Chicago had legit, awesome pizza on par or superior to NY pizza!!! The tour guide, Steve, is extremely knowledgeable not only on pizza but food and places to eat in Chicago generally. We sampled 4 styles: deep-dish, tavern, artisan, and NY slice. Each style was delicious and unique in their own way. Steve was also very fun, nice, and engaging. HIGHLY recommend this tour, especially to anyone from outside Chicago! read more

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We attended the Bucktown/Wicker Park tour today and had a wonderful time. Mike presented pizza perfectly and demonstrated his passion for pie. Not only did we cover the range of styles Chicago has to offer, but also learned a lot about local neighborhoods and pizza history. 11/10 would recommend. read more

Pizza City USA - Food Tours Near Me

My friends and I went on the West Town walking tour and had a truly great and unique experience! Our tour guide Brittani was very knowledgeable on pizza (good subject to be an expert on). The pizza was hard to rank, as all spots were great in their own way. Each location offered a different style, served in a different atmosphere. Our group of friends was made up of visitors and locals, one of the locals being an aspiring pizza instagram food blogger (@zazazaworldwide). Everyone, visitor and local, loved the tour. We definitely recommend the tour to all! (Ask for Brittani!) oh and while I got you here, the instagram account @agirlandagarnish is worth the follow for a first hand view of all that Chicago dining has to offer! read more

Such a super fun, informative and delicious tour!! Steve is the absolute BEST tour guide I have ever met, just a fascinating guy that definitely KNOWS pizza!! I wholeheartedly recommend this tour. It's not to be missed!! read more

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A Tour Even Locals Should Take I was fortunate to have Steve as my "doughcent" on the Saturday bus tour. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I thought I knew my pizza. Having read his book and listened to the podcast, I give kudos to him for opening my eyes and educating me on the different styles. We started off at Labriola with their deep dish sausage. I was excited to go because it's tops on his list of deep dish, and it didn't disappoint. Better than Pequod's, and was my favorite on the tour. Next, we went to Pizzeria Bebu where we had artisan style pizza. Two different white pizzas: a white pizza with some jalapeno and the Carbonara. Some interesting toppings--I'll definitely go back and try others. Location is off the beaten path, and I probably would never have gone. Third was a Detroit style pan pizza at Paulie Gee's. I've had Jet's before, and while it's not my favorite style (the foccacia crust is too much), we had the style that won an award with some fresh ricotta topped with pepperoni and a spicy honey. Last, but not least, we ended at Pat's Pizza, which is the only place I had been to before. Great crunchy super thin crust, it's one of my favorite pizzas. We also got a tour of the kitchen and saw the oven and the way they let the dough sit to draw out the moisture. Very interesting. All of the pizzas were ready to go as soon as we arrived. The tour was well-organized, and we got some Chicago history and pizza history along the way. As the title says, I think even Chicagoans would appreciate the knowledge gained in 3 short hours, not to mention eating top notch pizza. read more

Had an awesome time on our pizza tour with Mike! Extremely nice guy and knows an insane amount about pizza. Really great afternoon, highly recommended. read more

If you like pizza and enjoy learning about it and Chicago, you gotta take this bus tour. Steve Dolinsky did a great job leading it. Don't hesitate, sign up!! read more

Did the Wicker Park/Bucktown tour with friends. The pizza was delicious and the owners of the restaurants clearly cared that we enjoyed our brief time at their pizza shop. But the star of the show was our guide, Mike. Mike is a unique cocktail comprised of pizza dough knowledge, blended with hilarious wit, shaken with an extraordinary talent for remembering people's names. I highly reccomend this tour company, particularly this neighborhood with Mike as your guide! read more

Great pizza tour! We went as a family ( me, my husband, 14 year old and twin 11 year old boys) to the Bucktown/Wickerpark tour. We had a great guide (Mike), really enjoyed to tour and loved to pizza. Highly recommend as a perfect way to learn more about a couple of amazing Chicago neighborhoods and enjoy some great pizza!! read more

The Bucktown/Wicker Park pizza tour was amazing! I learned so much about the different types of pizza here in Chicago and now know of some great places in my own backyard. We had a great time and can't thank our tour guide Megan enough for the fun tour and interesting insights! Would recommend to anyone visiting or living in Chicago. read more

Excellent tour! Very educational for pizza lovers. Glad to know Steve tasted over 180 pizza places so he could put his top 4 on this tour. Narrator Mike was great stepping in for Steve while he was in Spain. Highly recommend. My wife, son and his friend all thought it was an A plus. read more

I have been on the West Town, West Loop and Bucktown tours and they are all top-notch! All of the pizza information on the walking tours comes from Steve Dolinsky's (The Hungry Hound!) meticulously researched book. Aside from learning all about Chicago pizza in general, I was able to meet the managers and the owners of the pizzerias on each tour and was able to peek in the kitchens, see the ovens and learn about the process of how they make their pies. The dough-cents (tour guides -- their word, I wish I came up with it!) give neighborhood-specific information as well as general Chicago history. Another cool feature I noticed from going on three of the tours is that the guides tailored the tours to the composition of the group: more tourists and it's more general Chicago history; more locals and it's more neighborhood-specific. Highlight of each tour: West Town: D'Amato's massive 15'X15' coal-fired oven from 1912 and the crazy-long paddles they use to fire the za's West Loop: Four fantastic pizza spots in the highest-density restaurant row in Chicago -- a foodie's dream Bucktown -- Come for the pizza, stay for the guide! This was billed as the "hangover" tour -- I'm glad I wasn't, but it was friendly vibes and plenty of people were imbibing--the host was huge and hilarious and full of fun facts about a cool neighborhood. TLDR: Fun, informative and sooooo much glorious pizza! read more

This was a pretty rad tour. Four pizza joints, tons of cool history (even for us natives), and our tour guide Mike was funny, cordial, and changed some stuff up because there were kids in the group. Highly recommend!! read more

Pizza City USA - Food Tours Near Me

FANTASTIC PIZZA TOUR! I took the Saturday bus tour today and it was incredible. We went to 4 different pizza places and everyone of them was fantastic. Steve was an amazing host and an even better tour guide. I would recommend this tour to anyone visiting Chicago, and to anyone who lives in Chicago and is looking for something to do. I cannot wait to get to Chicago and go on the tour again read more

West Loop tour was fantastic. Four different types of pizza, great area to walk in, and a heart warming stop at JP Graziano's. Easy to book, right on schedule, informative and ridiculous amounts of tasty pizza. Can't wait to try the other tours they offer. read more

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I attended the west loop walking tour and had an absolute blast! The tour guides were incredibly knowledgeable and the pizza was absolutely delicious at all the places we stopped. The tour was extremely well put together and organized - each restaurant we arrived at was ready and waiting for our group with plenty of seating and attentive servers. Even the managers and owners of the places would come out and talk to us about and give us a history of the location and the pizzas we were tasting. I've lived in Chicago all my life and thought I knew a decent amount about pizza and the different types in the city... wow was I wrong. I learned so much and tasted so many amazing pizzas and left very happy and very full. I would highly recommend this to anyone that visits or lives in Chicago! read more

I highly recommend this tour. You'll eat 4 different styles of pizza and learn the history as well. You guide Mike was awesome!

My group had such a great time on the walking pizza tour! Brittani was a great guide with a fun personality and a ton of Chicago and pizza knowledge to share! The weather was great and I loved being able to take short walks between the massive carb intakes! read more

This Pizza City USA tour was so much fun! We did the Bucktown tour and what a great afternoon. What a unique experience and loved all the different pizza we tried and the pizza history we learned. I would definitely recommend this tour! read more

Had a great time with Mike. Not only did we get to sample several delicious pizzas we learned a great deal about Chicago's pizza history!

Very awesome tour! Great way to see different parts of the city while also enjoying delicious pizza! Our tour guide Mike was excellent - very funny and knowledgeable. Would definitely recommend read more

Best pizza tour in Chicago. Got a chance to taste some best pizzas and learn about these pizza. read more

Took the bus tour yesterday and loved it. Steve and Megan were amazing guides, discussing different styles and sharing histories of the places we stopped at and of the city in general. We got to try 4 different pizza styles at 4 different places- Labriola, Pat's, Pizzeria Bebu, and Dante's. Each place had good pizza and trying the different styles with the guides explaining them increased my enjoyment and understanding of pizzas. All the places let us see he kitchen to learn a bit about how they make them as well as taste the final product. We left happy, but stuffed to the gills. When you go, be sure to pace yourself. We saw a few people who barely ate at the last stop because they were too full. read more

We had an awesome time learning about the different styles of pizza and the history of pizza in Chicago. All of the stops were great and Megan was the best tour guide. We are so stuffed. We'll be bringing our out-of-towners on the Pizza City tour! read more

I am lucky enough to have been on two tours, one walking tour in West Loop lead by what they call a doughcent (clever) and a bus tour lead by Steve himself. They were both really fun, unique, informative, tasty and filling. On the outside Chi Town may be recognised by its signature deep dish style pizza but as Steve said on his tour, "there are in fact 10 styles of pizza in Chicago." The tours took us through 4 of those 10 styles, each unique and tasty in its own right. It may be impossible to convince a die hard deep dish or thin crust lover that the others are better, but this tour certainly opened up my eyes to the variety of pizza and quality that followed along side. I was able to explore several pizzerias outside of my radar, that I will definitely be visiting again. The tour also teaches you about the history of Chicago and the neighbourhoods that the tours go through. The tours is also great because they are made for both tourists and locals. I highly recommend going with friends or whoever enjoys pizza! read more

I did the West Loop walking tour, and it was a great experience. The pizza locations selected flowed together perfectly, as I got to try many different styles of pizza - which I didn't even know there were so many unique styles going into this tour! It was nice being able to walk between locations so we could digest a bit, and the locations were all ready and eager to serve us their pizza and give us a great experience. It was my tour guide's first time giving the tour, which is why I'm giving a 4 rather than a 5 since there were a few kinks to still be worked out with the script and I also don't think we needed as much time as was allotted. But overall, I'm incredibly glad I went on this tour and would definitely recommend it to anyone who loves pizza! read more

Did the Wicker Park/Bucktown Pizza Crawl. Great walking tour. Excellent guide and great pizza. Learned a lot and had fun!

I highly recommend this tour to anyone who likes pizza! It's great fun for both locals and for Chicago visitors. Very informative - I didn't realize there was so much to know about pizza - and the tour guide Mike was awesome and entertaining. We ate 4 different delicious types and everyone in our group had a great time. I will definitely take this tour again and bring more friends. It's a perfect way to spend a day in the city. read more

Went on the pizza tour last week with my family! Had a great experience. Brian, our guide, was very friendly and knowledgeable. A must trip for any pizza lover. read more

I would highly recommend this tour, our tour guide Brian was very friendly and informative, we even had a game of trivia on the bus ride. He knew all about the places we were going to and the neighborhoods that we were in. The four pizza places that we visit were all good and all different types of pizza. All the pizza places that I had I would recommend, they are all places that I have never heard of before going on the tour and would go back to have again. read more