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Food · The pizza war · Take No. 009

New York slice or Chicago deep dish?

A thin, foldable triangle you eat walking, against a two-inch casserole you eat with a fork. Both cities will fight you about it. We've picked a side.

The case for each side, then the verdict. Then the floor is yours.
The case for

The New York slice

Thin · foldable · by the slice · since 1905

  • 1905Lombardi's opens in Manhattan: the first pizzeria in America. The slice is the original.
  • 1Fold. Grip it, fold it, eat it standing up. It's food engineered for a city that doesn't sit down.
  • $1The dollar slice, the most democratic meal in America, still (barely) alive.
vs
The case for

Chicago deep dish

Thick · layered · sauce on top · since 1943

  • 1943Pizzeria Uno invents the deep dish. Eighty years of knowing exactly what it is.
  • 2 inOf crust, cheese, sausage and sauce. One slice is dinner. Two is a nap.
  • 40 minBake time. It makes you wait, which is how you know it's serious.

Cast your take

——
The verdict

It's New York. Deep dish is a great casserole. The slice is pizza.

Deep dish is delicious. Nobody at this site is pretending otherwise, and the sauce-on-top move is genuinely clever. Order it when you're in Chicago and have two hours.

But pizza is bread, sauce and cheese you can hold in one hand, and only one of these is that. The slice is faster, cheaper, more portable and more copied around the world. New York, and the fork stays in the drawer.

Disagree? That's what the buttons are for.

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