Earlier this year, Windy City Pie beat out 32 other pizzerias to be named the Seattle Times Readers’ Favourite Pizza. Pretty impressive since they’d only been open a year at the time! We first heard about this pizza way before this blog was even born from Vancouver-based Backstage Rider, but we hadn’t ventured out far enough to get it because 1. traffic 2. we were saving it for winter because takeaway pizza tastes best on rainy days 3. I have some sort of issue where my personality has trouble accepting recommendations in a timely manner. However, news came that Windy City was getting kicked out of its commercial kitchen space along with many other businesses and we had to act fast.
Windy City Pie has some very tempting speciality pizzas and toppings that you can’t find everywhere (like candied bacon), but because it was just the two of us who showed up, we stuck to our standard to make sure our tasting was fair. Early in the week, I ordered our pepperoni/ half pepperoni pineapple (around $20). A few days later, Kerri cruised the Mini over to Sodo after work for a 6:30 pm pizza and cash exchange at a secret street corner specified via confirmation email.
To complete the drug deal themed evening, I made Kerri pick me up on a corner next to Aurora. En route to her apartment, her car basically turned into a pizza sauna and if I wasn’t hungry before I was starved by the time we hit the bridge.
Upon cracking open the box at home, the pizza was amazingly still warm, though a little less so after its photoshoot. Neither of us spoke during slice number one. They say a specialty pizza from Windy City that’s heavier on the toppings can usually feed four hungry adults. To give a you some perspective of how well this pizza matched our cravings, we had to cut ourselves off to save a slice for a guest reviewer later.
Kerri found this to be a really good pizza, although she still can’t stop comparing everything to Pizzeria Uno back home. Apparently she finds there’s a difference in the crust that she prefers there. However, she still appreciated Windy City’s 
light and fluffy crust and enjoyed the plentiful melted cheese. As usual she yearned for more pepperoni to match the strong flavour of the sauce. She’d love to know what it’s like in a restaurant setting but doesn’t know if that’s in this business’ plans for the future.
For me, it’s hard to judge deep dish style pizza when we’ve only eaten at one other Chicago-style pizzeria in Seattle, but I still know don’t have any complaints about this one. I am also sure I preferred it to pizza I’ve eaten in real Chicago. Windy City Pie is also known for its carmelized crust, which I was a bit apprehensive about but actually found delicious. I had in my mind the crust would be like the burned cheese bits that I found to be a bit sickly at Dino’s, but this was entirely different and amazing how it was still so soft. Sopping up the sauce with the crust ended up being my favourite part of this pizza. I also found that it wasn’t as rich/ overfilling as other deep dishes I’ve had. My only regret is that we could only try one pie that evening and in hindsight, we could have piled on a few more toppings. If we hadn’t been trying to save two slices I think I would have managed to eat the whole thing in one sitting.
Overall, we rated this pizza a 4, officially tying it in the hall of fame with our other favourite Seattle Pizzas.
Windy City is being forced out of its current kitchen but has an announcement soon, hopefully news about its relocation. Winter is coming, and this will be a perfect pizza to keep you warm. UPDATE: Windy City has indeed announced its new home!
Seattle Pizza Coalition 