September 26: Windy City Pie

I was off on vacation Friday (lunch was at Cowiche Canyon Kitchen in Yakima, if you're curious), but while I was out, my co-workers provided me a list of a dozen future options. High on that list is Harbor City, where I planned to go get dim sum today.

The best laid plans often get intercepted by pizza.

Another co-worker of mine has been raving about Windy City Pie since before our move to Pioneer Square. For the last several months, they've been selling pizza out of a parking lot near their industrial kitchen on Airport Way. Seattle Times food writer Tan Vinh describes it as "something akin to a drug deal. It requires driving under four overpasses on a tortuous path to an unpropitious ’hood and ends on a street corner where you exchange dough for pizza dough."
Somehow, this place without a storefront won the Times' tournament of pizza, beating out 31 other contenders for best pizza in town.

 

You've gotta order well in advance, confirm via e-mail, and essentially know the drill. It's all changing next week, when they're getting kicked out of their current space by an Amazon meal delivery service and moving somewhere up in the Interbay neighborhood. A 40-minute bus ride will make future meals unlikely, but today, I was the co-pilot for our shady-looking street deal, bringing back a deep pie to share with two others.

Is it the best pizza in town? As I noted in my review of Delfino's, Chicago-style pizza isn't my favorite. But really, the best pizza is whatever pizza is in front of me. And Windy City's pizza was... heavy.

Unlike Delfino's, the thick cake-like crust is the primary substance, and does an excellent job soaking up the fats from the toppings above. The pepperoni was sliced razor thin, making it hard to distinguish from the copious tomato sauce. The candied bacon was the star of the show: strewn heavily across the pie, chewy, smokey, and well worth picking off of my plate as it toppled off the slice. The sausage was difficult to find -- I think I saw three chunks of it in my third of the pizza. No matter, because I'm not a big fan of sausage.

Windy City's reviews frequently mention the caramelized cheese on the crust as a big factor as to why their pies are so good. I expected to see cheese that snapped off the edge, but under all the tomato sauce, cheese was hard to find. The outer edge was charred, but so dark that it was difficult to tell if I was looking and tasting cheese or nearly-burned cheese-saturated crust.

Regardless, I scarfed down my third of the pizza. It's sitting as heavy as the crust, but it sure hit the spot. As a non-fan of Chicago-style pizza, I think it was OK. Slices from Pizza Professionals are closer and a bit more to my liking, but I enjoyed Windy City as well.

Windy City Pie
Undisclosed location, moving soon, check their web site
⅓ of the Meatza Pie, $9.13 (⅓ of $27.38)