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Christopher Borrelli
10:17 a.m. CDT, March 12, 2014
NEW YORK
A year ago, the hottest slob food in Manhattan was the cronut. Perhaps you heard about it: Created (and copyrighted) by SoHo's Dominique Ansel Bakery, the cronut, an unholy and addictive union of croissant and doughnut, proved so popular to trendy New Yorkers that waits for the innovative pastry stretched past three hours. A small black market on Craigslist even sprang up to deliver fresh cronuts at inflated scalper prices. A year later, however, fickle New York has moved on, and the cronut, while still somewhat popular (though replicated now at bakeries nationwide), is facing an unlikely slice of competition: Chicago deep dish.
Yes, the pizza that many New Yorkers love to claim is not pizza has become one of the most sought-after dishes in lower Manhattan. Actually, only two blocks from Dominique is the heartbeat of the frenzy: a small, tin-roofed, tavernlike storefront named Emmett's, opened in late November by Lake Forest native Emmett Burke, who, at 31, decided to leave behind his stressful life of high finance and introduce New York to the pride of Chicago. Smart wager: Emmett's is so hot right now that, on a Sunday night I put my name in for a table at 5:30 p.m., sat down about 8:30 p.m. and received my handsome (if undistinguished) pizza at 9:30 p.m.
Emmett's is so popular that, even in the dead of this winter, an eager crowd can often be found milling around outside, curious to learn about this strange, magical species of pizza that takes 50 minutes to bake.
CHRISTOPHER BORRELLI
Today, though Emmett's pizza would be generic in Chicago (the crust is stiff, the sauce just OK), the demand is high: Weekend waits have hit four hours; the night that I visited, Emmett was fielding calls every few minutes, patiently explaining they could take no more orders that night.
He began saying this at 7 p.m.
Frankly, he looked overwhelmed by New York's curiosity, struggling to explain to some customers that deep-dish pizza takes longer to bake than normal pizza, surrounded by others who stared google-eyed at his creations, snapping pictures of the pizzas with their phones, even taking selfies with their giant pizzas.
Coincidentally, Emmett's opened the same week that Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" launched into an infamous rant against deep dish, calling it "tomato soup in a bread bowl!"
Emmett said Stewart has not been in yet: "But weirdly, I met him. I saw him coming out of a pizzeria on Bleecker Street with Bruce Springsteen. So I went up and handed him my cell phone and said, 'Hey, Jon, can you take a picture of me with Bruce?'"
(He did.)
10:17 a.m. CDT, March 12, 2014
NEW YORK
A year ago, the hottest slob food in Manhattan was the cronut. Perhaps you heard about it: Created (and copyrighted) by SoHo's Dominique Ansel Bakery, the cronut, an unholy and addictive union of croissant and doughnut, proved so popular to trendy New Yorkers that waits for the innovative pastry stretched past three hours. A small black market on Craigslist even sprang up to deliver fresh cronuts at inflated scalper prices. A year later, however, fickle New York has moved on, and the cronut, while still somewhat popular (though replicated now at bakeries nationwide), is facing an unlikely slice of competition: Chicago deep dish.
Yes, the pizza that many New Yorkers love to claim is not pizza has become one of the most sought-after dishes in lower Manhattan. Actually, only two blocks from Dominique is the heartbeat of the frenzy: a small, tin-roofed, tavernlike storefront named Emmett's, opened in late November by Lake Forest native Emmett Burke, who, at 31, decided to leave behind his stressful life of high finance and introduce New York to the pride of Chicago. Smart wager: Emmett's is so hot right now that, on a Sunday night I put my name in for a table at 5:30 p.m., sat down about 8:30 p.m. and received my handsome (if undistinguished) pizza at 9:30 p.m.
Emmett's is so popular that, even in the dead of this winter, an eager crowd can often be found milling around outside, curious to learn about this strange, magical species of pizza that takes 50 minutes to bake.
CHRISTOPHER BORRELLI
Today, though Emmett's pizza would be generic in Chicago (the crust is stiff, the sauce just OK), the demand is high: Weekend waits have hit four hours; the night that I visited, Emmett was fielding calls every few minutes, patiently explaining they could take no more orders that night.
He began saying this at 7 p.m.
Frankly, he looked overwhelmed by New York's curiosity, struggling to explain to some customers that deep-dish pizza takes longer to bake than normal pizza, surrounded by others who stared google-eyed at his creations, snapping pictures of the pizzas with their phones, even taking selfies with their giant pizzas.
Coincidentally, Emmett's opened the same week that Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" launched into an infamous rant against deep dish, calling it "tomato soup in a bread bowl!"
Emmett said Stewart has not been in yet: "But weirdly, I met him. I saw him coming out of a pizzeria on Bleecker Street with Bruce Springsteen. So I went up and handed him my cell phone and said, 'Hey, Jon, can you take a picture of me with Bruce?'"
(He did.)
So screw Jon Stewart. You can't resist.
My favorite line was
Today, though Emmett's pizza would be generic in Chicago (the crust is stiff, the sauce just OK), the demand is high:
It's only a matter of time.
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