Anthony Bourdain Couldn't Stand Deep Dish Pizza Until He Went To This Chicago Spot

Even years after his death in 2018, Anthony Bourdain remains a singularly influential figure among foodies the world over. The chef, TV personality, and author spent his career exploring cuisines across the globe, and was never averse to trying humble, home cooked meals. This is not to say that Bourdain was not snobbish in certain respects. In fact, he could be quite prickly in some respects. He hated burgers with brioche buns with a passion and didn't care for Nashville Hot Chicken. As you can probably guess, Bourdain's highly opinionated nature also extended to pizza. And as you can probably also guess, he had some pretty strong opinions regarding Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Simply put: He wasn't a fan. That was, until he tried one particularly delicious Chicago pizza joint. 

"I've always felt that the so-called deep dish pizza was a crime against food," Bourdain noted in his TV series, "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations" (via YouTube). He went on, noting that, "It wasn't pizza at all, I believed, instead some kind of Midwestern mutation of a pizza." Despite this, he decided to try a slice of Chicago deep dish at a suburban Chicago pizza joint called Burt's Place along with Louisa Chu, a Chicago restaurant critic and true believer in deep dish pizza. Upon trying a slice of Burt's pizza, he admitted that he had the dish all wrong. "I really understand it," Bourdain said. He continued, saying that "I think my problem was just calling it pizza. Whatever this is, I like it."

It should come as no surprise that Anthony Bourdain had a general dislike for Chicago-style pizza (not made at Burt's Place) considering the fact that he was a native New Yorker. So, of course, Bourdain preferred the thin, foldable New York slice. Bourdain's favorite New York pizza place was a Brooklyn staple, called Di Fara, which has served up big slices since 1965. Bourdain isn't alone, however, in his preference for New York style pizza over Chicago style. In fact, former Illinois senator and famous Chicagoan Barack Obama preferred the folding, thin crust over the casserole thickness of Chicago style. However, Obama does have a soft spot for the other Chicago-style pizza, a thin crust, tavern-style pizza.

Now, there are some who do actually enjoy deep dish pizza. Jeff Mauro, a Chicago-native, Food Network personality, and chef, loves the pizza style enough to have his very own recipe for the pie. Andrew Zimmerman, a chef and television host, also loves deep dish pizza. However, he doesn't consider it to be pizza, at least not technically. 

As to whether deep dish pizza is actually pizza, well, that question might never be answered, at least not definitively. It is a fun question to pose, say, at a dinner party though, along with the eternal question as to whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. After all, does it really matter? You can love it or you can hate it. You can even question its pizza merits, but like the second city itself, Chicago-style pizza will endure.