BEST OF CHICAGO
For those of you who aren't lucky enough to live in Chicago, we've gathered a few links that will take you to famous food from the windy city!
Pan Pizza, Italian Beef, and Vienna Hot Dogs are all available from these fine vendors.
Although it can be pricey, there's no doubt that any of these Chicago gourmet treats will make you happy.
Malnati's Tastes of Chicago Delivers Chicago Food Favorites
Considered the oldest family name in Chicago pizza, Lou Malnati's is as rich in history as it is in flavor. Lou got his start in the 1940’s, working along side his father in Chicago’s first pizzeria. Then Lou took his pizza expertise to the northern suburb of Lincolnwood, Illinois, where he and his wife Jean opened the first Lou Malnati's Pizzeria on March 17, 1971. Now, Lou Malnati’s has 30 locations in the Chicagoland area.
Every Lou Malnati's pizza is made to order fresh from scratch to the customers’ specifications. The pizza has become so popular, that for the past 20 years Lou Malnati's has shipped its pizzas all over the country. First started during the holidays to satisfy Malnati friends who had relocated from Chicago, the company now ships more than 250,000 pizzas throughout the year.
After shipping pizza for 10 years, Lou Malnati’s realized that these ex-Chicagoans craved many of their Windy City food favorites. So, to bring them the best Tastes Chicago offers, Lou Malnati’s started partnering with other fine restaurateurs in Chicago. Now, Lou Malnati’s Tastes of Chicago offers other famous Chicago foods, including Carson’s ribs, Eli’s cheesecake, Vienna Beef hot dogs, Portillo’s Italian beef, Garrett’s Popcorn, Long Grove apple pies and chocolates, and Manny’s corned beef.
Lou Malnati’s pizza remains the most popular item shipped, probably because deep dish pizza just isn’t the same anywhere outside of Chicago. Chicago-style deep-dish is the heartiest of the pizza varieties, and it is typically eaten with a knife and fork. The dough is patted out by hand and raised up high on the sides of a seasoned deep-dish pizza pan. True Chicago style pizza actually has a rather thin crust that compliments the delicious toppings.
The order the ingredients are placed on a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza is what makes it different from traditional thin crust pizzas. Slices of mozzarella cheese are placed directly on the dough. Then additional ingredients, such as mushrooms, onions and sausage, are spread on top of the cheese. The pizza is then topped with a fresh tomato sauce made with whole chunks of pear and plum tomatoes, and topped off with a sprinkling of cheese and spices.
Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria is a family-owned company that stresses consistency in quality, service, and food, offered in a unique environment by a staff that is committed to one another, the customer, and the community.
Eli Schulman believed that baking was an art. So when he created the very first Eli’s Cheesecake as the signature dessert for his award-winning restaurant, Eli’s the Place for Steak (a legend in Chicago for 39 years), his customers proclaimed it “Chicago’s Finest!” With the same care and dedication as Eli himself, the Eli’s Cheesecake Company, a family owned business, has been baking up cheesecakes since 1980. Each cheesecake is still handmade and hand-decorated at Eli’s Chicago bakery.
Although Eli’s has grown over the past 30 years, we still take our time to bake the highest quality desserts by slow baking in small batches, and allow the finest ingredients to develop to their optimum flavors - the key to achieving Eli’s unique taste and texture. Eli’s is proud to support its community, local farmers and small businesses. Our desserts are handmade with the finest ingredients like cultured cream cheese and Madagascar Bourbon vanilla and hand decorated by pastry artists.
At Eli’s Cheesecake World, a bakery, café and retail store on Chicago’s northwest side, you can treat yourself to the largest selection of Eli’s Cheesecakes and desserts available anywhere, featuring Eli’s “Sweet Imperfections,” delicious desserts that may have slight imperfections in packaging or decoration. Visit the cheesecake bar for cheesecake-by-the-slice, specialty coffee drinks, cookies, cupcakes, muffins and pastries made from scratch each day on-site. Eli’s also offers freshly prepared lunches with homemade salads and sandwiches, Monday-Saturday 11am-2pm. Bakery tours are available each week day at 1pm. Visit www.elicheesecake.com for more information.
Vienna Beef was founded in 1893 when Austria-Hungarian immigrants Emil Reichel and Sam Ladany introduced their family frankfurter recipe to their fellow Chicagoans at the legendary Columbian Exposition. The hot dog was a hit, and Vienna Beef was born. More than 100 years later, we’re still making our sausages the old-fashioned way, with premium domestic beef and our original recipe, made to the highest of quality standards and hickory-smoked for authentic flavor.
Today, Vienna Beef today is a whole lot more than hot dogs. Still headquartered in Chicago, we manufacture and distribute a wide variety of foods, from our flagship sausages and deli meats to soups, chilis, entrees, condiments, desserts and Kosher specialties. Yet no matter what we’re cooking up, we adhere to the same standards that have made us the favorite of hot dog afficionados from Chicago to Europe and beyond. We choose natural ingredients because we believe they really matter when it comes to taste-real cream for our soups, our own meats for our chilis, harvest-fresh vegetables in our entrees and condiments. And we pay just as much attention to the preparation. Most of our products are cooked in small batches, and our food safety process is state-of-the-art.
You'll find our products at supermarkets, quick-serve restaurants, hot dog stands, sports arenas and entertainment venues across the United States and around the world. We even ship our gifts directly to dog devotees and other food fans wherever they may live. Vienna Beef. It’s the taste of Chicago that knows no bounds.
