A Closer Look at Content Creator Dave Portnoy

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By Ron Signore

The year 2020 brought us a lot of content creation. The rise of Tik Tok, more live streams of basic messaging and things of the like. We also saw a rise in popularity to an already famous content creator in Dave Portnoy. Portnoy is the American Dream in my opinion. Sure, he can be controversial with messages of mixed ideologies. However, his rise came from the genesis of Barstool Sports. Within that platform of common joe information, mainly geared towards the likes of male readers and listeners, he also started a drive to promote a love for many Americans that resides on the great debate of best Pizza.

Portnoy has grown his travels, or time within quarantined pandemic times, to evaluate pizza from different places around the country. This popularity led to the creation of the “One Bite” app you can find on the app store on Apple and Android based devices. The name is conveniently tied to what has become a catch phrase in, “One bite, everyone knows the rules,” as Portnoy takes a bit of whatever fresh pizza he is tasting and provides a score between 1-10. Portnoy defines his scale significantly to be overly critical and not very generous. In fact, to illustrate, I am not sure there has been a 10. The number of scores in the 9’s and 8’s is limited as well. The primary focus of geography is within the Northeast, specifically New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, which has taken a popular debate typically being “Chicago Style or New York Style” pizza to mainly focusing off the branches of what New York Style pie is the best.

Anyone can look at the One Bite app and determine locations to scout and try highly rated pizza. I admit, I have gotten in on the craze and passed the enthusiasm on to my daughters. It is extremely cute, even though I am biased towards everything they do or say. But I feel like not enough people really understand Chicagoans with their pizza. Many view Chicagoans to live off the likes of Deep Dish pizza in the form of Lou Malanati’s or Giordanos (which is actually stuffed pizza). For those unfamiliar, basically that type of pie is a very thick doughy based pizza where the crust walls rise to almost form a bowl and the cheese and other ingredients are piled within that dome and then covered with sauce. Frankly, it is delicious and extremely filling.

The problem is that type of pizza for the majority of those of us raised in Chicagoland is usually reserved for special occasions or trips out. The fact is that I myself can attest to having more Deep Dish Pizza from Lou’s specifically more times in the 5 years I have migrated away from Illinois than the previous 30 years of my life.

The truth is we tend to flock to two other types of pie more religiously as a region that can be of the thin crust variety or almost like a double dough or pan type thickness pizza, which is still significantly thinner than the likes of Deep Dish. And while the likes of NY Style are cut like a pie in 8 slices, our pies are typically cut into many squares.

One day I will break down my favorite deep dish pies, but today I want to give an idea of the more typical pizza’s in the region and my favorites from each.

The beauty of Chicago, like New York, is that there are many family owned pizza parlors. Some have become more popular to either grow into multiple locations of even franchises. Two of those that have become staples in the Chicagoland area to be recognized more nationally are those like Aurelio’s or Home Run Inn.

Aurelio’s is typically that thin crust style pizza. While they offer a deep dish, it is rare to look around the restaurant and see deep dish on the table. What makes Aurelio’s special is their sauce. I have been going to Aurelio’s since times I couldn’t remember during an infant stage of life, back before it was really franchised. Aurelio’s used to have this cheese blend that hardened over time and the typical request to have it cooked well done allowed for a slight browning of the cheese. The finishing touch was a drizzle of sauce across the pie in multiple directions and the sweet savory flavor blend between the cheese, sauce, and our personal favorites in sausage and onion, would always have you leaving thinking you should have eaten one piece less.

Home Run Inn, however, is more of a cheese-based pizza. Slightly doughy-er crust that magically has some flakiness to it with each bite, has just enough sauce to bring out the tanginess of the cheese. The cheese is cooked to reflect little brown spots across the top of the pie and almost always perfectly aligns with each bite until you get to the crust only. This has become somewhat of a “treat” with the limited locations around, but deep Chicagoans that have migrated west of the city look for this staple as well.

The most common pies in the thin crust arena around Chicago have tended to fall from the Rosati’s or D’Agostino’s chains. Both a little more par baked and common Friday night neighborhood go-to pizza places. Sauce is ok, respectable, but where these places like many other Chicago pizza places conquer is within the ingredients. Fresh Italian sausage and fresh vegetables allow for a filling and delightful meal with a respectable crisp to the crusts.

While we have had our share of those places in my lifetime, we have tended to stay towards the thicker style pizza, yet not quite deep dish. Within the last decade, we were introduced to Beggar’s, which has become more of a franchise in the region, through trips back and forth from Indianapolis. The dough is a little thicker and the sauce is a little sweeter. Their slogan is “We lay it on thick,” so the benefit to Beggar’s is filling up with thick savory and fresh ingredients to fill you up. The sauce, while sweet, is not as thick in comparison to Aurelio’s but drives an addicting flavor that you are usually in a state of mind that wishes there were a bulldozer to remove you from your current position.

The ultimate state of shame for myself comes from our favorite family-based pizza chain. Growing up in Berwyn, IL, there was a staple that has expanded as each son opened a new location or two. This pizza is the perfect combination of thick, fresh Italian ingredients, cooked cheese blend that allows for bubbles and brown on top when finished and a sauce that puts the pie together. The original location was on 16th Street in Berwyn, just east of Harlem Ave. We now refer to that as the original Salerno’s. Salerno’s had opened a few other locations around Chicagoland and the suburbs surrounding the immediate Chicago area. The funny thing was that each location had a little bit different spin off the original recipe. You can identify which brother owns which location by the similarities in taste. The closest Salerno’s location to touch the original location is in Hodgkins, IL. It is a very valiant replica of their mother’s sauce and dough recipe. Oak Park has a location that is just a matter of blocks from the original location that has a similar taste but is heavier on the cheese than the sauce blend. I get texts and pictures weekly from one of my best friends who frequents the Grand Ave location in Chicago. Honestly, last night’s reminder from him is what prompted me to follow up on another story this week around Lou’s. We had a location in Saint Charles where I went to high school, but frankly, it was the farthest from the original recipe for the longest time. Recently, I went back, and it has very much more aligned to his mother’s original recipe, and so we frequent that when I go home much more often than we did over the years I was living in the area.

If you are from the area, or have visited, please list some of your favorite pizza spots. I will make efforts to try them. As a fat kid, I love pizza, I rarely discriminate. I avoid the Domino’s and Pizza Hut’s of the world as much as possible but am very open to learning of new places I may not have tried. I have made every effort between living in Tennessee, Ohio, Indianapolis, and frequent travels to my in-laws in South Bend to try every place I possibly can. I will document some of those in the future.

Mangia!

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