Chicago Soho House offers wood-burned oven pizza, open to the public
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Chicago Soho House is so large, with so many eating options, it only makes sense to open up the first floor to the public. As you enter, walk to your left and up a short flight of stairs to what has quickly become a must-visit on the city's Neapolitan pizza map.
Both of the wood-burning ovens get a workout at the new Pizza East, located on the northern end of the massive new Soho House in the West Loop. But there's something unique about these Neapolitan pies, and it begins with the flour.
"Comes down to the flour we've managed to find here, which is a North American wheat and a European wheat that's combined, and then it's milled in Italy, and then it comes back here and we're using it in this restaurant," said Chef Kyle Boyce.
The dough gets a three-day fermentation, which develops all kinds of character in these thin pies. Hand-stretched, each one is painted around the edge with some olive oil and kosher salt. Toppings range from the basic tomato sauce and buffalo mozzarella for the house margherita to vegetarian-friendly ones with eggplant, marscarpone, pesto and tomato. They all get to spend just a few minutes inside the brick-lined infernos.
Pizzas are moved constantly to ensure even cooking and that lovely, blistered edge. Even "white" pizzas - layered with cream, long stalks of broccolini and handfuls of homemade sausage - show an attention to ingredient quality.
"We make our own veal sausage mix, spicy pork mix," Boyce said. "All our produce is very seasonal, everything comes in daily, it's a very much, start to finish, everything done from scratch process."
It's not all pizzas of course, there are more than two dozen other items on the menu, like assertively seasoned clams sauteed with a bit of spicy nduja sausage and sea fennel. But the Italian-focused menu - heavy on the bread and focaccia - is meant to be shared.
"Come in with your family, your friends, sit down, have a couple of dishes, share everything on the menu," Boyce said. "It's very much a home away from home that we try to create in this space we've got here."
Pizza East
Soho House Chicago
113-125 N. Green St.
312-521-8000
