Illinois Pizza Guide: Deep Dish, Tavern Style, and Quad Cities Style, and Where Each Is Done Best

Deep dish is the pizza visitors order once; tavern style, a cracker-thin round cut into squares, is the one Chicagoans order every week. Illinois also has a third style almost nobody outside the Quad Cities has tried, with malt in the dough and the pie cut into strips. Here is where each is done well, what a large costs as of October 2026, and what the wait is like.

Deep dish or pan, and which one deserves the line

Lou Malnati's is the version most people mean by deep dish: a butter crust, cheese on the bottom, chunky tomato on top. The company opened in Lincolnwood in 1971 and marked its 55th anniversary in March 2026 by selling large pizzas for $19.71 for two days, which tells you how much it leans on that founding date. A large cheese normally lands between $26 and $33 depending on the store, and the same pizza costs several dollars more on a delivery app. Every location bakes the same pie, so if the downtown line is out the door, a neighborhood store will serve you faster.

Pequod's is a different thing: a pan pizza whose cheese is pushed against the pan edge so it burns into a dark, salty rim. The original opened in Morton Grove in 1970 at 8520 Fernald Ave. and is still there; the Lincoln Park room on Clybourn followed in 1992 and seats about 200. Since the restaurant appeared on The Bear, the Lincoln Park wait has become the longest in the city's pizza business, and tables fill before dinner service starts. Two workarounds: go at lunch Monday through Friday, when a 7-inch cheese pan pizza is $8.95 from 11am to 3pm, or drive to Morton Grove for the same pizza with a shorter line. Lincoln Park stays open until 2am Monday through Saturday.

Giordano's stuffed pizza, which started on Taylor Street in 1974, is the heaviest of the three: a second sheet of dough goes over the cheese before the sauce. One slice is dinner. It is the right order for a group of six that wants leftovers and the wrong one for a couple with other plans that night.

The newer name is Milly's Pizza in the Pan, which bakes a limited run each day and sells out. Milly's left Uptown in 2025 for 925 N. Ashland Ave. in West Town, where a conveyor oven doubled output to 120 pies a day, and it runs a second shop in Lakeview. Hours have been 4pm to 8pm Wednesday through Sunday; order online in advance rather than walking up. It was a 2025 Jean Banchet Award nominee for best pizza, which in Chicago carries more weight than a national list.

Local note: deep dish is a 45-minute commitment from the moment you order. Every place above lets you order the pizza before you are seated or the moment you sit, and regulars do.

Tavern style, the pizza Chicago orders on a Tuesday

Tavern style is a thin, crisp round cut into squares (the "party cut"), with sausage as the default topping. Nobody in the city calls it "Chicago thin"; they just say thin crust. Vito & Nick's at 8433 S. Pulaski Rd. is the reference point. The Barraco family started in the tavern business on the Near West Side in the 1920s and settled at 84th and Pulaski in the mid-1940s; the restaurant now counts itself at 105 years in the thin-crust business. It is cash only, with no credit cards and no checks, and it does pick-up and dine-in only, no delivery. Open seven days, from noon on Sundays, with last orders half an hour before close. Order the sausage, skip the sandwiches.

The suburban answer is Kim's Uncle Pizza in Westmont, which switched from Sicilian and Neapolitan pies to tavern style in 2020 and has been the western suburbs' most argued-over pizza since. The rules are strict: one size, 14 inches; no online ordering, you call; no liquor license; and the last posted hours were Tuesday through Sunday, 4pm to 9pm, so call before you drive. Phil Vettel, reviewing it for Naperville Magazine, called it "the best pizza to hit the western suburbs since, well, maybe ever," and Chicago magazine compared the crust to loose-leaf paper. Both are fair.

Further south, Aurelio's has made thin crust in Homewood since August 1959, when Joe Aurelio Jr. borrowed $2,500 and took over a failing four-table pizzeria on Ridge Road. The flagship on Harwood Avenue opened in 1977 and is still the one to visit; the chain's other stores are fine but ordinary.

One closure to know about: if an older list sends you to Marie's Pizza & Liquors on Lawrence Avenue for tavern style, it is gone. The 1940 original closed in 2023, and the building was listed for sale in January 2025.

Quad Cities style, the one the rest of Illinois has never tried

Drive three hours west of Chicago and the pizza changes. Quad Cities style starts with a hand-tossed dough sweetened with malt (Harris uses molasses), a sauce with more spice than Chicago's, and toppings that go under the cheese rather than on top. The pie is cut into strips with shears, not wedges. Harris Pizza in Rock Island has made it since 1960 and calls itself the original, though Frank's Pizza in Silvis opened five years earlier, in 1955, so the title is contested. In a 2025 local poll, Uncle Bill's, run by a former Harris employee, beat Harris in the final, which gives you a two-stop comparison in one afternoon. Visit Quad Cities keeps a running explainer and listings.

The other Illinois-only pizza object is the pizza puff: a deep-fried, tortilla-wrapped pocket of sauce, cheese, and sausage sold at hot dog stands. Iltaco, which started as the Illinois Tamale Company in 1927, introduced it around 1976 and still supplies most of the stands in the city. It is not pizza, but it is on every Chicago hot dog menu, and you should try one once.

Downstate: Champaign-Urbana and Carbondale

Monical's is central Illinois' default pizza. It started in 1959 in a converted pool hall in Tolono, south of Champaign, and by 2025 had 58 restaurants across Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Wisconsin, about half of them franchised. It is thin crust, consistent, and the reason many downstate kids grow up thinking pizza means a thin pie.

Quatro's Deep Pan Pizza at 218 W. Freeman St. in Carbondale turned 50 in August 2025, which for a college-town restaurant is rare. The top seller is the Challenge: sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, and extra cheese on a deep pan crust. Hours run to midnight, which the Southern Illinois University calendar explains.

I could not confirm a Springfield pizza pick to the same standard, so none is listed here; Obed & Isaac's downtown does flatbreads from spent brewing grain, which is a different thing.

Before you go

• Deep dish and stuffed pizzas take 30 to 45 minutes to bake; order before you settle in.

• Vito & Nick's is cash only and does not deliver; Kim's Uncle takes phone orders only and sells one size.

• Pequod's Lincoln Park has the longest wait; the Morton Grove original and the weekday lunch special are the shortcuts.

• Milly's sells out most days; order online ahead.

• Marie's Pizza & Liquors is closed; cross it off older lists.

• Prices above were checked in October 2026 and will drift; menus are linked where the restaurant publishes one.

Quick answers

What is the difference between deep dish and stuffed? Deep dish is one crust in a tall pan with cheese under the sauce. Stuffed, which Giordano's made famous, adds a second thin dough layer over the cheese before the sauce goes on, so it is heavier and bakes longer.

What pizza do Chicagoans eat at home? Tavern style: a thin, crisp round cut into squares, usually with sausage. Deep dish is for visitors and special occasions; a 14-inch tavern pie is a weeknight order.

What is Quad Cities style pizza? A Rock Island and Moline specialty with malt or molasses in the dough, a spicier sauce, toppings under the cheese, and the pie cut into strips. Harris Pizza (since 1960) and Frank's in Silvis (since 1955) both claim it.