Uno Chicago Grill - The Real Deal?

In 1943, football legend Ike Sewell created the first Uno's and called it Uno's Pizzeria. This was the birthplace of deep dish pizza. I wasn't around in 1943, but I assume the quality of that pizza must have been infinitely better than what the international franchise Uno Chicago Grill perpetrates on its unwary customers.

There are two ingredients you absolutely must get right if you want to make a great pizza - the sauce and the dough. These elements are especially important in a deep dish pizza, since the bread is thicker and the sauce heavier. Also, deep dish sauce contains big chunks of tomato. If those tomatoes come from a can, the entire pizza is instantly an abomination.

Pizza Hut's sauce is pretty disgusting, but at least they seem to have their own recipe. The sauce used by Uno's today tastes suspiciously like Hunt's brand. Their menu claims their dough is "hand crafted and made fresh every day," but I have no doubt that when they say "made," they mean "taken out of the freezer, unwrapped and thrown in the oven." It has the lifeless taste and limpid texture of the prepackaged, preservative-packed pablum that is all too common in franchised pizza places.

The topping selections for a true Chicago style, deep dish pizza are so plump and tasty you don't want to order more than one or two. Uno's offers "The Works" - prepackaged and bland tasting pepperoni, sausage, mushroom and peppers - and, trust me, it doesn't work.

It's sad that the originator of deep dish pizza has cheapened its own product to this extent. If you ever want to try deep dish done right, visit Bricks Chicago in Lincoln Park because, unfortunately, Uno's, unfortunately, has become a mockery of its own creation.

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