DevilCraft Gotanda — Restaurant in Tokyo

Ok. I am a traditionalist when talking about Chicago-style deep dish pizza. You might call me a pizza conservative. But not a pizza fascist or pizza reactionary. Not yet at least.

The pizza was not bad. I thought it was pretty reasonable. But they were somewhat underseasoned. But objectively speaking, not bad. The sides were executed well. Apparently the chili was really good but I didn't have any since it has beef. The beer selection is very good, and apparently many of the beers are quite good. But I don't drink beer, and there were only 4 types of non-beer alcoholic drinks to choose from. 2 reds and 2 whites. Also, none of the beers were from Chicago breweries. I think it's not cool to use Chicago as a customer-grabber but then show no love to the city itself. Actually, none of the American beers came from east of the Mississippi, which was a huge shame. Perhaps this is a result of the rotating taps, but as a "Chicago" place, shouldn't a Chicago beer be a default on the menu? Again, the food is not bad. And props to them giving props to Abe Froman, the sausage king of Chicago that doesn't keep his appointments.

But this is not authentic Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Let me tell you why:

-The first slice should be served directly to each customer's plate by the server. This did not happen. They should use the metallic spatula technique to cut the remaining cheese from the single piece from rest of the pie (see point below). This also did not happen. -The standard condiments provided should be crushed red pepper, parmesan cheese, black pepper, and sometimes oregano. They provided crushed red pepper, tobasco, and habanero hot sauce. -There should be no visible toppings of any kind on the top of the pizza, as the toppings should be placed between the cheese layer(s) and the sauce layer. This place serves pizza with visible toppings on top of the sauce. -After cutting the pizza, the cheese should be stringy and solid; so stringy that it's necessary to use the metal spatula to cut off the cheese from your slice of pizza that won't let go of the rest of the pie. This place has cheese that is not stringy. Rather, it is somewhat liquid, and not very stringy. -When removing the piece of the pizza, the cheese, toppings, and sauce should be visibly neatly layered and also very stable when viewing it from the side. The cheese and sauce/toppings here seem to slide off much easier than it should, perhaps as a result of the runny cheese. The sauce is also more liquidy than it should be. -The pizza should not be able to be eaten with your hands. Rather a fork and knife are required. This place cuts the slices such that it's possible to eat the slices with your hands. -After 2 slices, most people should be completely full. This place doesn't meet this requirement. We had 4 large pizzas between 5 people, as well as a few sides. -Chicago-style pizza should eat more like a quiche, a pie, or a casserole than a pizza. This ate more like a pizza.

So, long story short, if this place had not marketed itself as a place that serves "Chicago pizza", but rather just "deep-dish pizza", then I would have rated this place much, much higher. But because of the hype, I expected something that was way different from what I was promised, and so that's why I had to rate this much lower than what it might have gotten otherwise. Basically, come here for a very good beer selection, and some reasonably good-tasting pizzas. But don't expect anything authentically Chicago, whether in taste, appearance, or character. It's more "California"...

I've been a frequent patron of the Hamamatsucho branch of DevilCraft for a while. Owners got it all right with their Gotanda iteration.

The Chicago(ish) style pizza was great, unlike the Hamamatsucho branch where the dough is either under kneeded or over flowered resulting in a powdery taste, it is both crunchy on the outside and doughy on the inside. Just the right amount of cheese and a load of meats that any carnivore will appreciate.

DevilCraft has always had a great rotation of craft beers and the IPA was, as always on point.

The relatively small space is well laid out and well lit, the service can be excused due to only being open for less than 10 days but even here there was 1 server who was beyond excellent, anticipating customer needs and quickly sorting out a minor mess created by other server staff.

All this excellence is underlined by the utterly reasonable prices. My future DevilCraft needs will be met here at their Gotanda branch (until I try other new branches that I hope...

Okay. So I am on the fence about this place. I mean we tried a few of their beers while we waited and honestly I was not impressed. I didn't think there was a lot of variety in the beer, but since I'm not an expert on what can and can't be brewed, I won't go into that. Let's just say I did not enjoy the beer a lot. The pizza (it says on the menu can take up to 1 hour at busy times) we were told would be 40 minutes. It took about 30 i think. The pizza was okay. We tried the devil craft special but I was disappointed. It was supposed to be filled with veggies and meat, instead I found myself unable to taste anything but tomato and cheese. Because I like deep dish pizza, I'll probably be back to see if they can redeem themselves. But just once more. I suggest it's okay to try if you are looking for something different. The servers and the service was great though and the wings were very decent. Be prepared to wait a loooong time if you didn't make reservations. That's just an FYI....