Pizzeria Due Not - a Chicago PAN

I'm going to start with the "Where Not to Eat" of our trip to Chicago. Hold onto your hats.

Chicago is well-known for its deep-dish pan pizza, and I was greatly looking forward to sampling a pie. Having done a little online research, I confidently suggested to my husband that we head to Pizzeria Due.



You may be familiar with Pizzeria Uno. We were; they're all over the place around here. It's not difficult to find "Chicago-style" pizza here in Massachusetts, but we wanted the real deal, not a chain. Hence, our selection of Pizzeria Due, which is a mere block away from the (we believe) original Pizzeria Uno.

We were more than a little surprised that Due had almost the exact same logo as Uno. There were people waiting for a table, but we went in to put our names on the list. We were told that the pizza would take 45 minutes to cook, so she took our order when we put our names in. We ordered their signature pizza, an "Uno," with veggies, sausage, and pepperoni - when we put our names in for a table. Between the logo and the name of their signature pizza, I began to be more than a little suspicious about Due's origins.

We were seated outside about twenty minutes later, at one of the dozen or so tables set up on the street corner. The very first thing we noticed was that the edges of the sugar packets on our table were covered in tomato sauce. Lovely. The waitress came over to take our drink orders and gave us plates, napkins and cutlery. The plates we were given, I kid you not, were plastic and grungy looking. They were clean, but badly stained. As far as the napkins, well, they were cheapie paper napkins. No joke, they were the kind that you get in a big stack at the grocery store. They're fine for my kitchen table, but at a restaurant?

While waiting for our food, we read the blurb on the back of our menu, which solved the mystery of the logo and the specialty pizza: The guy who started out by opening Pizzeria Uno then followed up his success by opening Pizzeria Due.

Our Caesar salad was brought promptly. It was overdressed and had (Charles, you might want to skip to the next sentence) four of the mealiest wedges of tomato I've ever had the displeasure to eat. Come on. It's AUGUST. If there are good fresh tomatoes to be had in any month, it's August. *sigh* We had some entertainment during the salad course: we were treated to the rather vocal displeasure of the party next to us, two moms and their teenage daughters, whose spinoccoli pizza was brought to them COLD. They left shortly thereafter.

Our pizza was finally brought out, and it was completely and totally watery. We're not talking damp, we are talking a flood of near Biblical proportions on our pizza. If you're going to cover a pizza with veggies, the least you can do is sauté them a bit first. They obviously haven't figured this out, even though it's their "signature" pizza. It wasn't cold, but neither was it piping hot. The crust was horrible, flavorless and bland, just blah.

Meanwhile, as we were trying to eat our pizza, the waitstaff was haphazardly "cleaning" the table that had been vacated next to us. They cleared everything and gave it a cursory wipedown with a none-too-clean looking wet rag. While the guy was washing down the table, he knocked off the table the pizza pan that was holding the jars of oregano, pepper flakes, cheese, sugar packets, etc. The whole thing went face down onto the sidewalk, and the jars fell out. I quietly said to my husband, "Oh...no...please no...." But my worst fears came true: he simply picked up the pan, put the jars back into the pan, and put it back on the table. Though at that point it didn't really surprise me, it still absolutely horrified me.

After that, the table remained empty for several minutes, despite a growing line of waiting diners. Meanwhile, the friendly little sparrow that had been hanging around hoping for crumbs hopped right up onto the newly-washed table, drinking from the watery puddles that were left on the table, and looking for wayward crumbs.

I ate a single piece of pizza. My husband, normally a bottomless pit, ate only two. Needless to say, we skipped dessert. When they came to clear away the remains of our dinner, the guy saw the half uneaten pizza, asked if we wanted it boxed up, and when he said no, he asked if he could have it.

One thing that stood out to us in our hour or so at Due was that the manager and staff were constantly offering apologies for one thing or another - cold pizza, a delay for a table, etc., etc. None of the apologies seemed particularly heartfelt. My take? Skip the apologies, do some work with your staff, and bring the caliber of your food and service up to par.

We left, vowing to salvage our night. We did, but that's a story for another post.