Pizano's Pizza & Pasta — Restaurant in Chicago

05/15/21: I called an order for pick up and was told my food would be ready in 40 minutes. We came by the restaurant 45 minutes after my call and I was told by the older gentleman at the hostess stand that our order didn’t go through the system. He was the same man that took my order earlier. He told me that it was busy at the restaurant and that they were getting a lot of call in orders. Let’s say, we were annoyed with not having food ready. We ended up eating at the restaurant instead and basically ordered the same food we wanted to go then now for dine in. We first got the bruschetta. It was terrible. The tomatoes were flavorless and unripe. The bread was barely toasted. Next came the angel hair pasta with meatballs and marinara. This dish was good. The sauce and meatballs were nice. The two meatballs were smaller than described by the server, so that was disappointing. Next came the individual sausage deep dish pizza. Fiancé liked the pizza more than me. I’ve had a few deep dish pizzas and this one was a little bland. The crust was more hard than crispy. There wasn’t any real flavor with the crust. The cheese, sauce, and sausage were just ok. We all got a chocolate chip cookie for 2. The cookie with whipped cream and ice cream was pretty sweet, but good.

One of the managers wanted to give us 1/2 off our meal, because of the phone order fiasco. We politely declined since we know restaurants are all struggling and didn’t want to be total jerks. We gave them the benefit of the doubt. The service is the reason I’m giving Pizano’s 3 stars. The food on this occasion was half meh and half good. I probably would give them another try if I’m around...

What trip to Chicago is complete without some deep dish pizza?! Now I know that there are a bunch of joints more famous around Chi-Town, but I was only here for one night and without a car, so cut me some slack. Being in around the Loop, there were not too many good deep dish pizza joints around me, so with the power of Yelp, I managed to find Pizano's. When I came in, granted it was 2:30pm, had just one other group of customers here. That didn't bother me because that meant that the service should be much quicker.

Now onto the food. For lunch, what better to order than a deep dish pizza? I know that some people have raved about their thin crust, but coming from NYC, I've had my fair share of thin crust. I decided to order the vegetarian deep dish pizza, which had your usual pizza veggies on top. The pizza took the normal 20-30 minutes to cook, and once the waiter brought the pizza out, I knew it was time to rock!

This was a pretty hefty sized pizza (Medium), and I knew my stomach was about to get rocked. First of all, the crust was amazing. Just that perfect amount of crunch, with a nice hint of butter inside. Toppings were just as I expected, with the cheese complimenting it in an amazing fashion. The pizza dough wasn't too mealy either. As far as the pizza sauce goes, it was good, but not among the best ones that I've tasted. Nonetheless, a pretty solid pizza.

Pizano's, I'll probably come back to you if I stay around the Loop again. You didn't let me down, and was able to give me a solid lunch. The Loop doesn't have many options to choose from, so this is a nice sight to see...

To say the food here is bland would be an understatement. My girlfriend and I ordered wings, toasted ravioli, cesar salad, and a thin crust pizza. Let's start with the wings; I got the "oh my god" wing sauce, which is supposed to be their hottest but had no heat at all. The wings had absolutely no sauce and we're not crispy or flavorful. I asked for blue cheese but got some type of soupy ranch concoction with tiny chuncks of what seemed like blue cheese crumbles.

The toasted ravioli was okay, not much flavor at all we're kind of soggy. The marinara that it came with was way too chunky and was not good for dipping. The only thing that stuck to the ravioli was the oil from the marinara.

The Cesar salad was the biggest rip off. I expect a $14 salad to have a little bit of flair but it was literally just romaine, absolutely flavorless, tiny croutons, and super runny Cesar dressing that tasted more like Italian than Cesar. Definitely no anchovie in their dressing.

The worst thing was definitely their pizza. I've never tasted a pizza so flavorless in my entire life. The crust had no salt or seasoning at all, and had a weird crumbly texture and was very hard to chew. I think this might be my least favorite pizza I've had for a long as I can remember.

It's just such a shame, the place looks so nice and homey, inside and out and that's what made me give them a try. I just can't, for the life of me, understand how their food is this subpar. There are so many great Italian and pizza restaurants that are so much...