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closeWednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
Calabrio’s brings back memories of authentic Chicago deep-dish pizza
Calabrio's in Arlington serves up the real stuffed stuff: authentic Chicago deep-dish pizza.
Star-Telegram/Kelley Chinn
A stuffed pizza, top, and a deep-dish at Calabrio’s on Cooper St. Star-Telegram/Kelley Chinn
The place: Calabrio’s on Cooper St.
The food: Traditional Italian pasta dishes, Mediterranean and Chicago pizzas, salads, sandwiches
The story: With the first taste, we knew this was the real stuff, the real stuffed Chicago pizza. John and Sule Otuken are originally from Turkey, but they spent 15 years in the Windy City operating their own restaurant on the south side.
The couple opened Calabrio’s on Cooper St. on March 30, while John Otuken’s cousin Sam opened the Istanbul Grill just a few doors down.
The hits: We haven’t had real Chicago pizza since our last trip there in the late ’90s, and we’ve been craving it since then. The wait is over — Calabrio’s is just as good as our Chicago favorite, Giordano’s.
We decided to be conservative (you can get stuffed on stuffed pizza pretty fast) and ordered a small 10-inch special stuffed ($17.15). This is not something you can eat with your hands — this is a knife-and-fork kind of pie.
Shoved between two layers of dough were sausage, mushrooms, fresh green peppers and onions, lots of gooey mozzarella cheese, and a layer of sweet, thick marinara on top.
To be fair, we also tried the lasagna ($7.95) and were thrilled to find the same sweet sauce over the layers of pasta, ground beef and ricotta, Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. This dish is not for the faint of heart or the not-so-hungry; it’s a meal-and-a-half, at least. The lightly buttered crunchy roll that came with it was just as good and made in-house.
The real surprise was the Italian beef sandwich ($7.50), a huge, soft, homemade wheat roll, sliced in half and piled high with warm, tender beef seasoned with Italian spices. Way too big to eat with your hands or in one sitting, it was a lot of fun to try. Turns out, Otuken has his Italian sausage and beef shipped in from Chicago to get that authentic taste. It works.
The misses: The side of fries that came with the sandwich was adequate. The salad that came with our lasagna was also a miss with uninspired iceberg lettuce, chips of carrots, onions, a wedge of tomato and a pickled pepper. The house dressing was a bland, oil-based mix with some spices on the bottom of the carafe.
The setting: Tucked into a strip mall on busy South Cooper Street, Calabrio’s curving wall of windows makes it seem larger. Earth tones give it a peaceful feel. Besides the paintings of Italian villages, there are two faux balconies with a clothesline and real laundry hanging from them.
Good to know: It took us awhile to decide what we wanted, but we didn’t even get our salad for 30 minutes after placing our order. The rest of our food arrived 10 minutes later. The menu warns to allow 35 minutes for a stuffed pizza and 25 minutes for a deep-dish. They mean that.Yes, the pizza is worth it, but you need to plan ahead. Bring cards or an entertaining friend or call ahead. Our waitress kept our glasses full, but we were starting to get a little antsy by the time the food arrived.
A new lunch buffet ($4.99) 11 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays should help cut wait times.
The details: Open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-midnight Friday and Saturday. BYOB. Major credit cards, Press Pass discount.
— Amanda Rogers
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