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The Great Chicago-Style Pizza Cookbook
"A fun cookbook for any audience." --Booklist Classic recipes for deep-dish, stuffed, thin-crust, and vegetarian variations.
144 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1983
About the author
Pasquale Bruno Jr.
6 books1 followerPasquale N. Bruno Jr., (Jan. 8, 1933-Oct. 30, 2012). Pat served in the Air Force as a 1st Lieutenant, four years as a member of a flight crew, stationed in Europe and North Africa. He graduated from St. Michaels College in Vermont with a Bachelors degree. He began his career working for Sears, eventually moving to Chicago in 1967, where he became Corporate National Manager of Sears Home Appliances. It is also where he met his wife of 33 years, Gale Johnson.
Leaving Sears after 14 years, in 1978 he opened a chain of stores “Cook’s Mart” which sold gourmet cookware and houseware items. Pat invented the first pizza stone for home use in the early 1970s for which he held the original patent. He also invented about 25 different kitchenware tools, some of which still hold the coveted Cooks Illustrated “Highly Recommended” rating. He authored five books on pizza and pasta making. He was the owner of a cooking school “Cucina Paradiso” in Chicago, where worked with celebrity chefs Jacques Pepin, Diana Kennedy, among others.
Leaving Sears after 14 years, in 1978 he opened a chain of stores “Cook’s Mart” which sold gourmet cookware and houseware items. Pat invented the first pizza stone for home use in the early 1970s for which he held the original patent. He also invented about 25 different kitchenware tools, some of which still hold the coveted Cooks Illustrated “Highly Recommended” rating. He authored five books on pizza and pasta making. He was the owner of a cooking school “Cucina Paradiso” in Chicago, where worked with celebrity chefs Jacques Pepin, Diana Kennedy, among others.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 29, 2012
Nearly 30 years after it was published there is still one highly-regarded book about making that perfect Chicago-style pizza that remains just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago - and it is likely to remain as highly-regarded for the next 30 years or longer too. This one!
At first glance you may wrongly believe that this relatively-slim, black & white book is a bit of a white elephant and not worth its quite moderate cover price, yet you would be wrong. This is a veritable goldmine and peek behind the scenes into making a wonderful deep pan pizza. Of course, any budding pizza cook cannot fail to much advice about pizza baking, even if they are not looking to make that very special Chicago speciality.
Sure, compared to many books that are chock full of recipes or variations on a theme you may feel shortchanged, but what this book does and does very well is teach you the pure and simple basics. With this book's guidance you will have the capacity to make a quality dish and then, of course, you can expand and experiment to your heart's content if you wish. Quality wins over quality any day.
Starting out with a look at the key ingredients to be used with pizza baking and moving on to the equipment you need, the advice is clearly provided without jargon or the assumption that you are an accomplished chef or baker. Everything is given from the basic level upwards which is a great thing to find, even though the book doesn't assume that the reader is a small child.
When it comes to making the actual pizzas, it is great to get illustrated step-by-step instructions so you are effectively having the author behind you in the kitchen, guiding and encouraging you each step of the way. The illustrations, despite being black & white, are helpful for the wary and whilst colour would have been nice, the illustrations add so much that anything is better than nothing here. A wide range of traditional recipes are provided so you could be dining out on pizza for a while once you get up to speed with pizza making without the fear of direct repetition, no matter how tasty they might be.
The book ends with a roundup of a few Chicago restaurants that, despite being out of date in 2012, still provide a good background to what have been great Chicago institutions. In fact this reviewer has not been back to Chicago for nearly 20 years, but still remembers fondly and often the pizzas served in one of the named restaurants and wishes that his local pizzeria could even produce something that would be even close to it. Of course, now one can make their own, but...
The Great Chicago-Style Pizza Cookbook, written by Pasquale Bruno, Jr. and published by McGraw-Hill Contemporary. ISBN 978-0-8092-5730-0, 144 pages. Typical price: GBP8.
// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //
At first glance you may wrongly believe that this relatively-slim, black & white book is a bit of a white elephant and not worth its quite moderate cover price, yet you would be wrong. This is a veritable goldmine and peek behind the scenes into making a wonderful deep pan pizza. Of course, any budding pizza cook cannot fail to much advice about pizza baking, even if they are not looking to make that very special Chicago speciality.
Sure, compared to many books that are chock full of recipes or variations on a theme you may feel shortchanged, but what this book does and does very well is teach you the pure and simple basics. With this book's guidance you will have the capacity to make a quality dish and then, of course, you can expand and experiment to your heart's content if you wish. Quality wins over quality any day.
Starting out with a look at the key ingredients to be used with pizza baking and moving on to the equipment you need, the advice is clearly provided without jargon or the assumption that you are an accomplished chef or baker. Everything is given from the basic level upwards which is a great thing to find, even though the book doesn't assume that the reader is a small child.
When it comes to making the actual pizzas, it is great to get illustrated step-by-step instructions so you are effectively having the author behind you in the kitchen, guiding and encouraging you each step of the way. The illustrations, despite being black & white, are helpful for the wary and whilst colour would have been nice, the illustrations add so much that anything is better than nothing here. A wide range of traditional recipes are provided so you could be dining out on pizza for a while once you get up to speed with pizza making without the fear of direct repetition, no matter how tasty they might be.
The book ends with a roundup of a few Chicago restaurants that, despite being out of date in 2012, still provide a good background to what have been great Chicago institutions. In fact this reviewer has not been back to Chicago for nearly 20 years, but still remembers fondly and often the pizzas served in one of the named restaurants and wishes that his local pizzeria could even produce something that would be even close to it. Of course, now one can make their own, but...
The Great Chicago-Style Pizza Cookbook, written by Pasquale Bruno, Jr. and published by McGraw-Hill Contemporary. ISBN 978-0-8092-5730-0, 144 pages. Typical price: GBP8.
// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //
July 15, 2023
From what I remember researching once the first real book on pizza I think came out in 1981.
So the some of the books are neat historical curiosities and half of the books are really worth getting for people serious about no nonsense pizza making.
This one gets to be considered an okay book, and I think it might be one of the first to explain a lot of the different styles of chicago pizza, but a few people wouldn't recommend it today.
For a slim book, it'll disappoint some, and to others, they can still get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
I think I once wrote down about 4-6 books from the 1980-1988 period of the first wave of pizza books, as being pretty neat.
for the pizza historians, and die-hard chicago pizza people
you know who you are!
---
One website which died circa 2015 - Homemade Gourmet Pizza
had about 58 books on early pizza books, which I used for my book lists
I'd say that their ratings, matched my own views
and considering I lost that list once, it took forever to find it on the wayback planetary system
---
Homemade Gourmet Pizza
Rating 7 [very good]
So the some of the books are neat historical curiosities and half of the books are really worth getting for people serious about no nonsense pizza making.
This one gets to be considered an okay book, and I think it might be one of the first to explain a lot of the different styles of chicago pizza, but a few people wouldn't recommend it today.
For a slim book, it'll disappoint some, and to others, they can still get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
I think I once wrote down about 4-6 books from the 1980-1988 period of the first wave of pizza books, as being pretty neat.
for the pizza historians, and die-hard chicago pizza people
you know who you are!
---
One website which died circa 2015 - Homemade Gourmet Pizza
had about 58 books on early pizza books, which I used for my book lists
I'd say that their ratings, matched my own views
and considering I lost that list once, it took forever to find it on the wayback planetary system
---
Homemade Gourmet Pizza
Rating 7 [very good]
March 2, 2022
This book is a lot of things. Useful...ish. Historically interesting? Of course! Dense? Um, no. Clocking in at 200 pages, this book is awfully shy on content. There are a lot of photos, a lot of negative space... I've read Saveur magazine articles with more content than this book. It was okay, it was fun, it's a good primer for someone getting interested in pizza, but for anyone that already knows a bit about it, it's of cultural curiosity interest, nothing more. Oh, and I didn't realize until the very end that Pasquale Bruno, Jr, is none other than the late Pat Bruno, the Chicago Sun-Times' longtime restaurant critic! Just a point of interest, for you Chicago guys.
This book was cute, but not worth more than a couple of bucks, which, as luck would have it, is about what I paid for it.
This book was cute, but not worth more than a couple of bucks, which, as luck would have it, is about what I paid for it.
June 26, 2024
Could be better
I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately it fails. The book should show the weight in grams instead of measuring cups.
I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately it fails. The book should show the weight in grams instead of measuring cups.
November 23, 2020
Small, straightforward, nice pictures. Good detail, but I would sometimes like a little more tips and tricks.
March 21, 2013
Being from Chicago and living in Michigan I miss a "real" pizza. Every Friday night is pizza night in my house and this is an awesome book with many recipe versions. I still strive to make it like the best Chicago pizzerias and this book is the way to get there.
May 18, 2010
Excellent tips on how to make authentic Chicago-style pizza. With a few adaptations of your own, you can make them taste just like the restaurants that it highlights!
August 28, 2016
I'm vegetarian. I use this cookbook to make Chicago style pizza for my family. My husband and I work together (mostly because I hate working dough.) the pizza is not perfect but it is good!!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews