Chicago is a pizza city. While deep dish, stuffed pizza, and tavern cut dominate the headlines, you can find any regional pizza style here if you look hard enough. Labels and gatekeeping be damned, if you make good pizza, whatever the style, you’ll find a home in Chicago.
That’s what Piece Brewery and Pizzeria has done for over 20 years in Wicker Park, and it’s the first stop of the night. They specialize in New Haven-style pizza, a chewy, thin-crust, coal-fired Neapolitan pie.
If you’re not from the East Coast, you wouldn’t be faulted if New Haven-style pizza wasn’t on your radar. But outside our Chicago bubble, it has a hardcore following. One of the standard bearers for that style is Sally’s Apizza, a historic and revered east coast pizzeria that Bill Jacobs, owner of Piece, grew up eating at as a young kid.
If you want to dive deeper, the NY Times and Eater have covered Sally’s extensively. But why the hell am I telling you so much about a storied pizza place in Connecticut? Well, it’s because Piece’s pizza is modeled after Sally’s. When Piece opened over 20 years ago, they went so far as getting someone who worked at Sally’s to come in and teach them how to make it here.
Over the years, Piece has crafted pizzas with their own identity, but it’s still sort of like a distant cousin to Sally’s, and it’s as close as you’ll get to it here in Chicago.
Let’s talk pizza logistics for a second.
– Diners have the option to build their own pie. Before choosing from the array of topping choices, you’ll first select the base: white (olive oil, garlic, mozzarella), red (traditional with tomato sauce and mozzarella), or tomato pie (no mozzarella and instead red sauce, garlic, grated Pecorino-Romano, and olive oil).
– Don’t want to customize a pizza? There’s room for movement with this menu. Order one of the pre-set options, such as Hot Doug’s Atomic Sausage Pizza or Honey Butter Fried Chicken Pizza.
– It’s also worth noting the size of the space. Whether a party of two or 15, Piece is spacious and can accommodate guests in one of its two rooms separated by a few stairs and balusters.
Before we move on to the next stop, you’ll note that in the title, “brewery” comes before “pizzeria” — it’s the most awarded brewpub in Chicago, according to its website. Since opening in 2001, it has won 28 accolades for its lagers and ales produced in small batches in Piece’s seven-barrel brewhouse.
While you wait for a table at Piece, make your way to the nearby six-way intersection and round the corner onto Milwaukee Avenue, where a few doors down on your right, you’ll see a vintage Old Style sign with an attachment reading “Revel Room.”
Once inside the dimly lit, cozy bar, you can take a seat at one of the large tufted leather booths overlooking the bustling street or the bar. Architecturally, the wall-to-ceiling window showcasing the bar’s name in red serif lettering is stunning and does a lot for the small space.
While you nurse your drink of choice, bathe in the red light and take periodic breaks from your conversion to allow your eyes to dance around the space: you’ll note beautiful 1930s Tiffany-style pendant lamps, a few VHS tapes on shelves, and a curious picture of someone who looks like John Wayne Gacy.
As you peruse the drink menu, one special aspect to The Revel Room is its community cocktail offering: a drink that changes monthly to raise money for different organizations, such as January’s benefactor The Resurrection Project, a nonprofit that plans, builds and manages affordable housing properties on Chicago’s southwest side.
Finally, while the space is small and not inherently a dance hall, it’s not just a chill hang-out spot either. If you make it here Monday or Friday night, the energy turns up a few notches when they host karaoke. It’s well worth it if you can time your visit for one of these nights.
For the last stop of the night, make your way back toward the busy intersection. On the same side of North Avenue as Piece, you’ll see a flower shop followed by a record store: You’ve made it to Dorian’s, a combo cocktail bar, live music venue, and record store.
The shop is small. It’s adorned with plants, old concert posters, black-and-white chevron floors, and a curated selection of records.
But there’s more than meets the eye. To the average passerby, a record shop is all they might expect of Dorian’s. And that’s what makes it so great. Unlike some bars nowadays that call themselves speakeasies but aren’t in any way remote or hidden, this one is.
Once you’re finished sifting through vinyl, a salesperson-turned-bouncer will ask to see your ID. From there, head into the listening booth and round the corner to enter the cocktail bar enveloped in shelves of records, wood paneling, and a spacious seating area.
Depending on the night, you might find a 9-piece funk band gracing the stage, or it might be just one person and a ukulele. Here’s their calendar.
On the menu, you’ll find a number of house cocktails with cheeky names — “Lost in the Supermarket” and “Lonesome Cowboy,” for example — plus a selection of wine, beer and cider, and spirit-free drinks.
If you’re in the sharing mood, they have a $65 cocktail served in a giant gauntlet and meant to be shared between 4 people. Getting one of these with your best pals is almost guaranteed to create a core memory. Years from now, you’ll be chatting with friends, and someone will say, “Remember when Big Jimmy tried to drink a four-person-sized cocktail all on his own? What a dummy; I love Big Jimmy…RIP.” It’s like one of those memories.
