Giordano's — Restaurant in Chicago

On my first trip to Chicago, I had had the pleasure of eating at the fantastically scrumptious Lou Malnati’s, and had heard from native Chicagoans that Giordano’s was the other popular option for authentic Chicago deep-dish pizza. In my opinion, those two restaurants should not be mentioned in the same breath, as Giordano’s could not hold the tiniest birthday candle to the service, quality, flavor, and price of Lou Malnati’s. In those categories, Giordano’s was a pale shadow.

Service: the front counter was staffed by no fewer than 4 hostesses who seemed bored and resentful to be there, and it was only maybe 5 o’clock and the dining room was still mostly empty. Our server was nice; that was about the best that can be said about the service. She told us that the deep-dish pizza would take about 45-60 minutes to come out, which was a bit shocking, given that when we sat down, the restaurant was not busy at all.

About an hour into our wait, our server came out to laughingly explain that the kitchen had dropped one of the pizzas and was having to remake it. The nervous laughter was understandable. What was not understandable was that AN HOUR AND A HALF after ordering, our pizzas – one deep dish with standard toppings, the other a thin crust with 2-toppings – finally emerged from the kitchen. The 6-person table across the way - who had gotten seated after us - had already gotten their 3 pizzas and all of their food AND had almost finished their dinner before ours arrived.

Quality: we had fried calamari, a house salad, cheesy bread, and the two aforementioned pizzas. The quality of the food was…okay. Nothing special. We’ve had similar quality at chain franchises. The calamari and salad were at least fresh. The mozzarella in/on the pizza was decent, though nothing special. What made it worse is that because they had to remake the thin-crust pizza, when both pizzas came out, the deep-dish one was only lukewarm. Why was that pizza held back in the window instead of being brought out immediately??

Flavor: utterly lacking in depth, seasoning, and any sort of finesse. Calamari was well-cooked, but apparently someone in the kitchen decided that simply hovering a salt shaker next to the deep fryer would be enough to salt the dish. The tomato sauce tasted literally like crushed tomatoes, with no layers of salty, herby, or sweet. The pepper and onion in the deep dish pizza were totally unseasoned. Most disappointing of all, the deep dish crust had almost no flavor. Just dough without the savory, buttery combination of crunchy and chewy I had raved over at Lou's (see my other review for a description of my ecstacy at that place).

The best part of the meal was the cheesy garlic bread – there was an underlying creaminess to the garlic spread under the cheese that was unexpected and very pleasant. Have you ever eaten at a restaurant where the best part of the meal was the BREAD? That is a terribly sad realization. In terms of flavor for the rest of the meal…nothing ever broke the threshold of mediocre. The only reason this review rises to 2 stars is because of the BREAD. Let's think about that for a second.

I’ve had better Chicago pizza at Pizzeria Uno, which is stunning.

Price: Apps, drinks, and pizza for 3 people, with a decent tip for our server: $120. No discount for the wait that was twice as long as anticipated, no apology from the server or a visit from the manager at the end to acknowledge the kitchen kerfuffle. That’s a ridiculous price for a dining experience and meal that was a step below mediocrity, so mediocre that each of us only ate one slice of pizza each and gave all of our leftovers to a friendly unhoused person a couple of streets over.

So here’s to the guy sitting on a chair outside the 7-11 on Michigan Ave.: I’m very sorry we didn’t choose...

I’m sure this is a one off due to a bad employee, and not so much about the food. We arrived Monday 5/6 at 4:00 and were promptly seated by the street side windows, it was steady but not slammed. Shortly after we were greeted by a friendly waiter who took our entire order; beer, appetizer, and deep dish pizza. He did inform us the pizzas take 45 minutes to cook. Knowing we had parking set to expire at 5:00, at the abutting parking garage, I felt we had time to eat and run. Just as we gave our order to the waiter the hostess (dyed red bangs for reference) came over and interrupted him and asked if we would like to be seated in a booth (under the Eat Pizza sign). We were satisfied with our seating but thought, ‘hey maybe she la being nice and wants us to have a good dining experience’, so we obliged and moved to the booth. A waitress came over and asked if we’d been helped and I told her we have our order to the waiter, assuming he had still entered it, so she walked away. About fifteen minutes or so go by and I still had not got my beer and my daughter wanted a root beer, but no waitstaff ever came back. I tried flagging down another waiter and asked about our order, he said he would try and find our original waiter, but had no success. At this point I went back over to the same hostess, who I had to wait for until she ended her personal conversation with another employee, and kindly expressed that she moved us to the booth but no waiter attended to us. She looked at me as of she had no clue what I was talking about and seemed uninterested in helping me. That is when the front of the house manager stepped in to handle it (Mike Wilcox doppelgänger). He asked me about the situation, so I explained. He said it gets confusing when customers ask to move. I assured him we did not initiate the moving of tables, rather took the hostess’ suggestion. He asked what my order was then worked to assign another waiter. We then had the original waitress from that section come over and ask us what our order was, and I explained. We then received our drinks and appetizer. Shortly after, another waitress came over and said she would be our server and asked what kind of pizza we ordered, and I explained again. Around 5:35 our pizza finally came out and asked the waitress for the check and to go box, as we would not stay to eat the pizza. I also explained the issue and she offered to talk to the manager. She came back with the check and a discount off of it for $9.95. We left and went to our car and exited the parking garage an hour later than purchased and got hit with a $22 fee to exit (original three hour parking cost was $12). Ling story short, what was the hostess’ motive to suggest moving us? And why did she not hand us off immediately to another sever? I think her poor performance should be noted, it ruined our whole experience of what otherwise would’ve been a nice late...

Last year, we tried deep-dish pizza in Chicago elsewhere and loved it. This year, we visited Chicago again from Seattle as tourists and were craving deep-dish pizza. After searching for the best places and reading reviews, we decided to try this restaurant.

We placed a pickup order for the Super Veggie and Chicken pizzas. However, the wait time was disappointing, it took an entire hour. Once the order was ready, we went to pick it up, but our cab didn’t arrive, and we were feeling hungry. We requested a table to eat a couple of slices but were told that since it was a pickup order, we couldn't dine in. We even requested to order something else just to use a table, but they insisted we could only eat a new order inside and couldn't consume the pickup pizzas there. This policy made us feel like we were treated as if we had brought food from another restaurant, which was very frustrating, especially since the place wasn’t busy and there were plenty of empty tables.

The staff at the front desk were not helpful or accommodating.

As for the pizzas, they were a total disappointment. The pizza felt undercooked, the cheese was kind of raw, and the tomato sauce was sour and overpowering. It didn’t blend well with the pizza, giving the impression of something half-baked. The veggies and chicken lacked any flavor and tasted bland. It felt like eating floury bread with loads of cheese and no real taste.

The experience was a waste of time and money. The reviews we relied on were misleading and ruined our visit. The restaurant claims to value customer feedback and satisfaction, but their actions don’t reflect this.

Overall: The 1-hour wait was excessive and not worth it. There was no way to track if the order was ready. The staff were not welcoming or accommodating. The pizza itself was just bread, cheese, and an overpowering sauce, nothing special.

If you’re looking for good deep-dish pizza, I’d recommend trying...