After three months of pizza tastings, it was time to branch out from our usual New York or Neapolitan style pizzas and head over to Chicago. There aren’t a huge amount of Chicago-style pizzerias in Seattle, but we’re starting to hear about them more and more. Maybe they’re like the new cupcake or macaron.
We declared a meeting at Paxti’s in Ballard after a long week of work for the both of us. Apparently it’s a chain in Colorado and California, but there’s only one in Washington so we didn’t feel like we were eating mall food. Upon arrival, we grabbed a bottle of wine and learned that the deep dish pizza takes about 45 minutes to prepare. Perfect! They have thin crust pizza too so we ordered a prosciutto and arugula pizza to be both our appetizer and salad.
The beautiful pepperoni and pineapple deep dish pizza greeted our table right on schedule and we had at least three minutes of pure joy as we tried to wrestle the stringy cheese and the rest of the slice onto our plates.
Kerri found the thin crust pizza just ok – it could have been even thinner and she would have liked the prosciutto flavor to come through stronger. But it was better than waiting with nothing for 45 minutes. It’s hard for Kerri to not compare all deep dish pizzas to Uno’s. This one was quite delicious but she liked the cake-like crust of Uno’s better. She’d definitely come back for a small one for a change from the normal New York or traditional pizzas though. 
For Sara, this pizza was the comfort food she needed after a few stressful work weeks. The wine helped too; she loves when they have plentiful new world wine options. Though she found the thin-crust prosciutto and arugula a little dry, she liked that the prosciutto was cooked. The deep dish wasn’t as filling as other deep dishes she’d had. It was different to Giordanos or whatever that place in in Chicago is, but the sauce wasn’t as chunky and the pizza tasted more fresh. It’s nice to know this place is here, but she probably craves Italian or NY style more.
“I like it, I don’t love it, but that’s a good thing because I won’t gorge myself but it does all the right things.” – Adrian de Booy, the night’s special guest commentator.
We had differing opinions on the +/- of each pizza, but concluded on thesame slightly above average rating. We give this pizza a 3.5 out of 5.
Seattle Pizza Coalition 