Mangia Pizza

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The short of it: I am from Chicago and grew up on Chicago Pizza. Mangia Pizza is the real thing. It is phenomenal. Click here to skip the rhetoric and get maps and links.

Some background. I moved to Austin from Chicago. In the weeks before I moved, I over-dosed on the things I knew I would miss about Chicago: the Art Institute, Wrigley Field, the Lakefront, my friends, Downtown skyscrapers and architecture, Jazz Record Mart, and, most especially, Chicago pizza: the deep-dish, stuffed, pizza "pie" that I had never found outside of Chicago.

I had sampled many futile attempts at Chicago pizza throughout the country, including a chain of "Uno's" restaurants in Central Illinois, that never came close. It was just ordinary thick-crust pizza with the name "Chicago" carelessly slapped upon it. It seemed that there must be something in the tomatoes in Chicago that made Chicago pizza so unique, much like the peat in Scotland that makes Scotch so unique in the whiskey family.

Chicago is riddled with many FANTASTIC pizzerias with different recipes and flavor subtleties that all fell within an identifiable window of damn-good, fill-your-belly, "deep dish, stuffed pizza:" Eduardo's (North Side), Connie's (South Side), Lou Malnati's (North suburbs), Bacino's (Lincoln Park), Carmen's (Evanston), the original "Pizzeria Uno" (Downtown)....

Now, I'm not a pizza snob. Papa John's has its place, especially in college. True New York Style pizza rocks and fills a void, too. Pizza Hut, on the other hand, is nothing but horrible, disgraceful, disgusting GREASE ON DOUGH, no matter how many fancy marketing names they come up with.

But there is nothing like Chicago Pizza.

Although some mistakenly give Chicago Pizza a bad rep of being overly-rich, too fatty and just "too much," very few things satisfy your hunger like true Chicago Pizza. The all-you-can-eat BBQ plate at The Salt Lick is the closest thing to complete, abject culinary satisfaction that can give Austinites a sense of the feeling, but the Salt Lick "full" feeling is still too bloated and sometimes uncomfortable: pleasantly uncomfortable, if you know what I mean, but still somewhat uncomfortable. Chicago pizza is "warm-in-your-belly-&-comfortable" full.

For a year, I "suffered" down here. I enjoyed the two installments of "Chicago-summers" we have every year in Spring and Autumn (blissful, endless, 70-80 degree sunny days), and I loved my new home. But I would sometimes wax rhetorically about Chicago Pizza: so much so that I suspect my new Austinite friends felt somewhat intimidated and figured that Mangia would not match up, so they might as well not try. I figured the same, and did not stray beyond Papa John's, myself, figuring "why bother?" I even entertained visions of starting a pizza restaurant up here in Tejas with several different varieties of authentic Chicago-style stuffed pizza, if only to put some meat on the bones of my health-conscious Austinite friends down here. Power to the Pudge!

But then, during the planning of the UnExchange in 2001, I finally tried it. And promptly kicked the ass of all my Austin friends to that point (well, figuratively, at least) for enduring my legendary tales of Chicago Pizza without mentioning Mangia.

As I wrote, there are many styles and varieties of Chicago Pizza. Mangia represents one of the very best: the Eduardo's/Connie's variety; a rich, sweet-and-tangy tomato sauce, not overly heavy or identifiably greasy, a very identifiable blend of Mozzarella cheese, and a solid but light, non-buttery crust to hold the ingredients and balance out the flavor (help minimize the greasiness that cheese naturally brings) without getting in the way or otherwise interfering with the simple joy that arises from blending tomatoes, spices, and cheese with (...yes, the perfect amount of...) spinach and mushrooms.

Do not misinterpret this description as an insult that Mangia is a poser: "people who know" will understand that comparing Mangia favorably with Eduardo's and Connie's is perhaps the highest compliment a Chicago Pizza joint can receive from a native Chicagoan.

Treat yourself to a Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Mangia pizza. They have three locations, including one just a block from Austin Lindy's home at the American Legion, across Lake Austin Blvd. from Magnolia Cafe.

Mangia also has a website at www.MangiaPizza.com.

Lake Austin