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Best Pizza with cracker-type crust?

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OK- I love pizza with that cracker like, crispy, kinda burnt crust. I've only had it at two places - Barnabys (I know there is one in Niles and Schaumburg) and Vito and Nicks ( South Side on 95th street - the Joliet and Lemont versions are a bit lacking).

Does anyone know of any other places that make pizza like this? I'm in the close western suburbs, but I travel all over the place in the city and burbs, so location is irrelevant.

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  1. Pat's Pizza, 638 S Clark or so. Carryout/delivery only.

    Marie's, 4127 W Lawrence. Beautiful retro decor.

    Candlelite, 7452 N Western. Not my favorite cracker crust, but not bad. They used to have good garlic fries, don't know how they are now.

    Any of the aurelio's locations will give you a cracker crust, but they'll also give you a very sweet sauce. Not always to my taste, but sometimes I'm in the mood..

    And finally, try the pizza at Coal Fire near Grand and Racine. It's not the crackery pub pizza we're otherwise talking about, but I think you'd like it.

    1 Reply
    1. re: gleam

      Pat's - decent . . .

      Marie's and Candelite, dead on. Candelite order extra crispy . . . and yes, great garlic fries.

      As for Coalfire, love the crust . . . love it!

    2. Although I love Barnaby's, I wouldn't quite call it a cracker-crust, but its thin and tasty, IMO the best location is in Northbrook, for some reason they just do it best there.

      Since the others I know were posted already I wont be redundant, so here are a few more places going North into the burbs & nearby WI:

      In Waukegan, The Quonset does an OK version of a cracker-crust pizza but its not one of my favorites, its not bad, its just not great.

      In Pleasant Prairie close to the IL border is Ruffalo's, they have a good cracker-crust pizza, but sometimes they aren't consistent.

      And if your area travels take you even further north into lower Southeast Wisconsin, you should really consider Villa DeCarlo in Kenosha which is similar to Barnaby's and especially drive out the way to hit Wells Brothers in Racine. Wells is absolutely the best cracker-crust I've ever had, I've speculated without fact that they could be one of the places that invented the cracker-crust style since they've been doing it since 1926 at the same location, but who knows for sure? If you give credence to any of those foodie lists, Wells Bros. was named one of the top 100 pizzas in the nation last year.

      2 Replies
      1. re: abf005

        Who did the pizza list and where can I find it?

        1. re: fryrose

          As I said “if you give credence to such lists” then here you go:
          Wells Brothers is listed:

          #3 of 10 in a 2006 list by USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destin...

          #6 of 10 in a book called "Everybody loves Pizza" by Chicago magazine dining editor Penny Pollack and deputy dining editor Jeff Ruby; the full list is on NY’s Slices website: http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives...

          I’m still looking for that top 100 list, but seem to locate it, If I remember right, they were listed on that one somewhere around the mid 20’s.

          In my book, they were my favorite cracker thin crust long before I even knew about the lists!

      2. Oh, and if you make it all the way up to Milwaukee, try Zaffiro's.

        1 Reply
        1. re: gleam

          gleem: I might have to hit that one myself!

          Since we are talking Milwaukee, I might as well mention the Palermo's pizza too-- Now I can us back into the Chicago area by saying that I've had the Palermo's frozen cracker crust pizza before (Available from Garen Fresh Market) and thought it was ok for frozen but I would really like to try the real deal.

          Is it me? Or am I right in thinking the Wisconsin folks tend to make a thinner cracker style pizza in general anyway? I can't think of time when I ate pizza up there and it wasn't thin or extra thin.