"A fun cookbook for any audience." --Booklist

Classic recipes for deep-dish, stuffed, thin-crust, and vegetarian variations.

Average Customer Review: ( 22 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.

They are, however, very good pizza recipes. My main criticism of the book is that some of the instructions are incomplete. For example, in the stuffed pizza recipe he tells you to put the sauce on top of the pizza without pre-cooking the pizza at all. In my experience, that always results in a doughy, partially-uncooked top crust. I prebake the pizza with no sauce for about 10 minutes, then add the sauce, and it's great. But Bruno should've told me that; I shouldn't have had to figure it out for myself.

Yes, I would like to get my hands on the actual Giordano's recipe, but these recipes still beat any pizza I can get here in Oregon.

12 of 12 found the following review helpful:

REAL pizzaDec 11, 1996

Ok. I'm a pizza snob (pizza elitist?). I'll admit it. It's
hard to live in or near Chicago for any length of time and
not become one. I recently moved from Illinois to the west
coast and have come to the conclusion that good pizza
doesn't exist out here. So, I've been making my own.

This book provides good recipes and recommendations on
ingredients. A definite must for transplanted Chicagoans.

27 of 32 found the following review helpful:

Not Restaurant RecipesDec 20, 2002

If you try these recipes, you will not duplicate pizzas cooked at Uno's, Gino's, Giordano's, etc. You will make a decent pizza (and I've had to experiment quite a bit to improve on Bruno's recipes), but don't be fooled into thinking that these are the real thing. And the basic deep dish recipe is just the same as the one you can get free at many sites on the internet. A better book is Evelyn Slomon's, but hers suffers, too.

8 of 9 found the following review helpful:

The BEST Deep-dish Pizza Book Ever WrittenFeb 08, 2008
By Brian Groover
If you want to make incredible (and authentic) deep-dish pizza, this book shows you in thorough detail exactly how to do it.

The first half of the book is full of pictures describing the processes of making deep-dish pizza in enough detail that someone who has never cooked a pizza can produce an outstanding pizza on the first try. The second half of the book is recipes from the Chicago pizza restaurants. It's hard to imagine the first half being any more clear, and the second half doesn't bore you to death with stuff you will know cold once you've read the first half and used it to make a couple of pizzas.

It is the perfect balance of educational detail and long-term utility.

I've had this book since 1983, the year it was first published. When I bought it, I loved deep-dish pizza, but hadn't a clue how to make it. I've used it to make more than a hundred different deep-dish pizzas, with never a flop yet. I've just purchased my THIRD copy, because I've used the first two copies until they disintegrated. My most popular is the Spinach-stuffed pizza, although the Greek pizza (with Kalamata olives, anchovies, feta and spinach) is my personal favorite.

One thing you won't find is innovations since 1983, but if you hear about something new, it's a snap to include it. It is the difference between learning a recipe and learning the theory. Get this book, and you'll be able to make the kind of pizza you want.

5 of 5 found the following review helpful:

My Chicago-Away-From-ChicagoNov 10, 2007
By Alex Riggle
I only lived in Chicago for 5 years, but I did pick up a taste for stuffed pizza. Heaven! This book, which I have had since about 1987, allows me to make "something like" out here in the pizza philistinia of Seattle. I'll never claim to make anything like The Nancy or my personal fave Edwardo's, but it isn't half bad.

Not sure about the tomato paste, though. Are we reading the same recipe? Canned tomatoes, chopped by hand (I use a pastry knife), all the way.

I echo the review that said you have to bake the crust a bit first to keep it from getting soggy. I've also done a bit of experimenting along the way, and think the sauce I have come up with improves on the one in the book, but any good cook should be willing to do that, I'd think. Tastes differ and all that.

Anyway this book has helped me keep my pizza sanity 1700 miles west of Mecca. Highly recommended.

See all 22 customer reviews on Amazon.com