Pizano’s Pizza & Pasta

Had heard some good reviews from friends so stopped by when our first choice nearby had a 1.5 hour wait. They could seat us immediately which was nice.
The hostess was very nice and our server was well intentioned but not destined for serving fame.
The drink I ordered, a special, was very tasty but the only reason for it being $ 11 was the amount of alcohol in it. Which is okay but I’d rather pay a little less for a drink that’s more well rounded.
We started with the garlic bread which was $ 6 – 7, which also seemed slightly over-​priced. Couldn’t taste any garlic, was just a slight step above the type of bread most restaurants put out for free…
We ordered the thin crust «Mark’s Special» which is similar to your typical margherita pizza and wanted to add sausage to just one side, but apparently that’s against kitchen policy. No add on’s to specials. Seems a bit snobbish for a pizza parlor. I’ve honestly never had an issue anywhere else adding toppings. For close to $ 20 it was not worth it, at all. Maybe Chicagoans have just never had good thin crust pizza? I’m not sure I would have even paid $ 10 for it. No flavor in the crust or cheese.
Very disappointed! Should have waited the 1.5 hours for our first choice…

I don’t know what’s more amazing about this place, the pizza or the service. You will NOT regret coming here.

The best pizza ! We always get the «Mark special» it is our go to! U can’t go wrong here everything is so good! And the service is amazing!

There is something I really love about this place. Not quite sure exactly what that is, but I’ve always had a nice meal here.
I generally get the angel hair pasta with meat sauce. I absolutely love the meat sauce. And it’s definitely enough for dinner and lunch the next day (or breakfast, if you can’t wait for lunch!)
My husband usually gets pizza, and we think it’s good. I’m not a fan of the flavor of their crust, but today, the whole pizza was delicious! We opt for thin crust because we aren’t too enthused by deep dish.
We usually also share a salad. The chopped salad has a funny flavor, but the house or Caesar are both good.
They have good drink specials on the weekends around brunch. Overall, we really enjoy this place and make a stop here quite frequently. It’s not terribly authentic, but the giant bowl of flavorful pasta is just perfect for me!

It’s funny because we had to drive out of our way to get to this location instead of the one down in the Loop where the manager is rude. At this location, however, we celebrated a friend’s birthday and the pizzas were perfect. Service was very attentive. The birthday girl had a wonderful time. The cookie they brought as a compliment to the table for her birthday was delicious and a very nice touch she appreciated.

So my wife and I were invited to a double date and the restaurant of choice was Folklore. We were excited to go in, only issue was that a reservation is recommended because we were not going to wait 2 hours to be seated.
We decided to cross the street and try Pizano’s. Grant it, I know that’s a significant difference between restaurants, but hey you may never know.
So we were greeted and shown to our seats and the atmosphere had a sports bar/​family restaurant feel to it.
Our waiter was friendly but his service was ok.
For starters we had the artichoke spinach dip. Right off the bat my wife noticed the dip was light in both artichoke and spinach. It was ok but not a barn burner.
We decided to try pasta, I had the Al Dino pasta and my wife had the goat cheese ravioli.
I asked if I can change the type of pasta and the waiter said yes but it’ll cost extra. I said fine so I opted for angel hair.
I had a cup of italian wedding soup and broth was sort of bland. The sausage was ok but kid you not, Olive Gardens soup is more flavorful. Freakin’ Olive Garden.
Finally we recieve our main course and my dish was ok. It didnt stand out and it looked like something I could have cooked up back home.
Nearly $ 20, the only reason I can think of in justifying the cost is the quantity, not the quality. Now I don’t mind paying for quality food but it wasnt there.
My wife’s ravioli had cheese but barely any goat cheese. It looked like a thin amount of cheese, sort of like a cheese slice from the supermarket. She said it was ok but not worth what she paid for since there was barely any goat cheese in there.
The food is edible. Not horrible but not quality.

I’ve been meaning to write my review on this place but keep avoiding it since I did not enjoy the experience or the food. Came in once to pickup a menu during working hours as I wanted to try some delivery options down the road. An older lady gave me the menu rather rudely, gave me an unwelcoming look and turned away saying nothing. I thought nothing of it. I come back months later to try the pizza with my wife and son, order a large pizza, appetizer, and drinks.
Let me first speak on the service. We asked for a high-​chair, but it comes after we were seated. They forgot to take my order for drinks and I had to flag the waiter to order it. But when I got up to go to the bathroom, I walk inside (I was seated outside), I was a bit lost. The same older lady from prior asks «Can I help you?», with a startling-​rude tone, to the point as if I felt I had to justify why I was in the restaurant, and I simply said «I’m ordering food here». She walks away without a word or apology, and doesnt bother to help point which way the bathroom is. I find the bathroom, get back to my meal, and continue to have dinner. This same lady comes back outside and greets the patrons and asks how the food is. She went to every table in the patio and doesn’t come to mine. This is all I can say about the service. Take what you want from the details I’ve provided.
As for the food, the pizza was rather tasteless. We ordered the vegetarion deep dish. Even though it came out the oven and not sitting in a delivery-​box, the crust was soggy, and less crispy than other deep dish I have eaten. The tomato sauce was bland. Many places use crushed plum tomatoes, but i didn’t get any of that zesty-​sweet taste of tomatoes you find from baking in the oven or compared to Lou Malnati’s or Art of Pizza.
I’ve made pizza from scratch for almost 25 years, and grew up in NY, lived in Chicago, and studied abroad in Italy, and I’ve eaten a prodigious amount of pizza in that time. But this was not worth the time or worth going back to. Its a shame, we live in the neighborhood and order pizza often. Plenty of better pizza options in Chicago worth checking out.

We had our son’s 1^st & 4^th birthday party at this Pizano’s and can not rave enough about this place! We had 50 adults and 20 kids in their party room, which is amazing with a retractable roof! The food was delicious and the staff there were so warm and wonderful! So accommodating. They even decorated the room for me! Thanks for everything Nora!

True story: my friends and I wandered into this place 4 minutes before the kitchen closed and ordered a pizza. After waiting a bit, a waiter came over to tell us our order hadn’t been put in before the kitchen closed. I whipped out my phone to find another pizzeria on Unilocal but the waitress saw the dreaded app and ran back to the kitchen and made them stay open.
I was not giving you a bad review, Pizanos, and I’m sorry we inconvenienced your staff. The pizza was damn good and obviously your service is impeccable.

My mother-​in-​law, my husband and I threw my brother-​in-​laws surprise 30^th bday party here this past weekend. I have nothing but wonderful things to say about the room we had, the food and the service! Nora was in charge and she was great. She made sure everything was going smoothly. The servers were great too– very friendly and quick with our drinks. We had the room in the back. Very large, big screen tvs, a full bar, tables/​chairs, a retractable roof, and and outdoor area also with tables & chairs. I think we had about 70 – 80 people there and it was never too crowded. Food was awesome. We did pizza as an appetizer, then two different salads, rigatoni with vodka sauce, chicken and sausage with peppers and cheese raviolis. Delicious! Thanks for such a great job on the party, Pizanos!

I really was looking forward to eating pizza from Pizano’s again. We ate at the Madison location a couple months ago and it was delicious. I recently ordered from the Division Street location and we were sorely disappointed. Our pizza arrived fast and hot, however the sausage was under cooked and it came with almost no tomato sauce. It just wasn’t as savory as the one we had at the Pizano’s on Madison. I wish I could give a higher rating but I can’t.

Came from Atlanta and wanted to experience real chicago deep dish pizza… this is NOT the place to come! Their deep dish was not deep dish by any means and it was served cold! When I told the manager about my true experience he followed with a free beer for me and my friend… Not a good chicago pizza experience! There are far too many choices to chose this place… Keep moving

Wow, what a sh*t-show.
Came here at 1:30 and didn’t get our food till almost 3. There were 5 other tables besides ours so wasn’t really busy. The waitress took our order down wrong. Some of the items didn’t even show up. One of the veggie items we ordered came with meat instead. It’s almost like the staff came in drunk and couldn’t figure how to get anything done.
Also, avoid the deep dish. It isn’t deep, it isn’t very good, and it takes 35 – 40 minutes to come out. I don’t know what’s worse, the anticipation or the taste.
I’m giving them 1 star because they have chairs and tables. That’s as good as it gets apparently.

To be fair I came here to see the hawks win game 6 of the Stanley cup so your mileage may vary. We had a group of 8 and got seated right away but it seemed like the servers and the kitchen were swamped. It took about an hour for our thin crust pizza to come out and about 20 – 25 minutes for a salad. I know on a regular night this probably won’t be the case though.
The pizza itself was solid. It had this great buttery crust that reminded me of a Lou Malnattis. That’s one of my favorites so they scored points there. Plus the price was right. For eight of us we split three larges and it ended up being a pretty cheap nIght out. Didn’t try their deep dish so can’t comment about that. If you’re in the area I’d say it’s worth a try.

I’ve been trying to get here for about 6 months now so we FINALLY made it!!! The location is pretty cool we didn’t wanna deal w/​parking issues downtown. We dined in on Saturday afternoon, after a funeral. We ordered Mimosa’s which were on sale for $ 3 bucks!!! Score there!!! We also got MaiTini’s which were tasty too. We got the thin crust sausage, pepperoni, & mushrooms pizza & an Italian Beef. The pizza was good, but the crust lacked flavor & the sauce wasn’t as extra as I like on my pizza. The beef was good. They even cut half & dipped 1 half for me which was nice! The wait staff was very nice & accomodating. I’m gonna go back & check out other dishes.

This place has a family feel! I loved the all the deep dish pizzas and the service was great!
I don’t remember the pizzas we ordered, but we ordered a few to share throughout the table and I enjoyed them all! We had a large party and they were SUPER accommodating!

I’ve been here a few times or of convenience alone, as it’s very close to my apartment. I’ve dined in once and otherwise, I’ve ordered online (my favorite because I dislike talking to strangers on the phone).
Maybe I’m a pizza snob as someone from the Chicago area who calls pizza his favorite food, but I’m not entirely impressed by the quality of Pizano’s pizza. It has way too much cheese and not enough sauce at all. The sauce is sweeter, which I do really like. However, it’s not very plentiful, which I do not like. Also, it’s kind of pricey to add on extra ingredients and they aren’t too bountiful, just like the sauce. The crust is decent – not too hard, a little buttery and crispy. It’s not my favorite, but it’s easily the best part about Pizano’s pizza.
The service was kind of off when we dined in once. The waitress was a little scatterbrained and not very attentive to us even though the place wasn’t very filled. My experience when ordering online was also a little confusing because it doesn’t tell you the exact time that it’s supposed to be ready for pick-​up. I had to guesstimate and it was ready when I arrived, though I worried a bit that it might not be piping hot.
I will definitely continue to be a customer here because it’s extremely convenient and is also the best pizza in my area. If this weren’t Chicago, I would consider it above average pizza for sure. The crust will keep me coming back!

I just started writing reviews and this is another place that I wanted to go out of my way to write about as soon as possible.
There are lots of great pizza places in Chicago and this review is going to seem geared towards the staff and atmosphere as a whole but the food is never disappointing, always on point and we have had much of the menu. The pizza, all styles, I find to be fantastic and I have never lived anywhere outside of the Chicago metropolitan area so I have eaten my fair share. I have had a wide variety — pequods, uno, giardanos, lou m’s, ginos, salernos, coalfire, etc. I would have no hesitation ordering Pizano’s among all of those.
To get to the main reason I am writing this review — as a couple with an 18 month old, this establishment has been a refuge for us. Whenever we needed to get out of the house, have some food and maybe a cocktail with our kid in tow, Pizano’s has been more than welcoming.
The owner/​manager, who I have seen written about in other posts has never been anything but genuinely sweet and so nice to our child. No exception with the staff as well. They let him run around, make a complete mess with his food, throw crayons all over, and have welcomed us back every single time.
We feel so comfortable coming over here and it has really been beyond helpful. I cannot say enough good things about this place. I think this place gets passed up sometimes because it is not necessarily artisanal or a vintagey neighborhood spot. But I think this is a great example of a neighborhood spot — somewhere you feel comfortable and welcomed. Highly recommend this spot and will continue to in the future.

Having passed by Pizano’s many, many times, my pizza craving eventually had to be realized. We came here a Monday evening and we were seated immediately. We noted that there weren’t many other people dining here.
Service: Our waitress was sweet and we were well attended to, but she was a little odd. It’s hard to explain or put my finger on it! There were no issues with our service, though. We were able to order soon after arriving and our food came out in the perfect amount of time.
Décor: We came here in December, so the holiday madness was in full swing. Pizano’s was no stranger to partaking in the madness – which I absolutely loved! There was a candle at our table and there were tasteful Christmasy decorations everywhere with a red theme. I’m not sure what the regular décor is at Pizano’s, but this place was definitely decked out for the season. Before we walked in, noted that it looked *awfully* cozy inside and we were not disappointed!
Pizza: I’m a big fan of pizza (my favorite is Lou’s) and I thought Pizano’s held a candle to other competitors in the city. We split a medium (serves three) and we finished it! The sauce stood out to me as being light and fresh. The crust was crispy and fluffy and fairly insubstantial. I didn’t feel guilty at all or overly stuffed after eating here, which is a huge positive for me. (Giordano’s slays me and is filled with regret.) We ate an affordable, delicious meal here.
Overall, I really enjoyed my experience dining here. I wouldn’t say this is the «best» pizza in Chicago, but I would certainly venture to say that it is worthy enough to be ranked in the top 25%. Pizano’s is a place I continue to pass by many times, so I can almost guarantee I’ll be back. Pizano’s is head and shoulders above other nearby pizza places in Wicker Park, such as Armand’s Pizza. If you’re in Wicker Park and you’re looking for deep dish or pan pizza, look no further than Pizano’s!

Went to Chicago with no idea about deep-​dish pizza, except that I had to try some. In the lead-​up to my trip, I asked friends who had visited before which place to try and received no consistent answer, so at that point I figure we’d just figure it out on the fly. That was essentially what ended up happening when we popped into Pizano’s Pizza late on a Friday night while perusing the late-​night dining options on Division Street, many of which were unimpressive.
Pizano’s was a veritable ghost town when we were seated. The friendly, approachable waitress let us bide our time deciding what to order, and had a few interesting suggestions too. My friend and I ordered a Mark’s Special (sliced tomato, basil and garlic) and an order of bruschetta, both of which were awesome. The pizza was really delicious and the buttery crust was memorably good. I also found Pizano’s beer and wine list to be terrific, and was particularly fond of the Southern Tier Pumking beer on draft.
Overall, I thought Pizano’s was a great option and I found it to be an excellent choice for deep-​dish, especially late night. With affordable prices and friendly staff, this is worth a try if you’re in the area.