Lou Malnati's Pizzeria

we got lou Malnati's all the time in Carpentersville, and the food has always been great. But tonight's pizza was amazing. Not sure if we were just hungry, but it was exceptionally delicious. Always our go-to.

I had heard a lot of mixed reviews when it came to the chicago style deep dish. Lou Malnati's completely changed that opinion. Their classic deep dish is as good as it gets. Their deep dish is not about overwhelming with the cheese but finding the perfect balance between a crunchy savoury crust, the marinara sauce and a healthy amount of delectable sausage.

The calamari was crispy and pretty fresh plus the bloody mary was okay at best. Both of those would be a solid 3.5/5 but the pie was a 6/5 for sure! Must try for all

I leave a 5 star review because of the service, not the food.

Shane, the manager, is the perfect employee any company would want to hire to manage their establishment. He was extremely accommodating to a misplaced order a gentleman next to me (comp'd his boneless chicken wings), and gave me the free bone-in chicken wings.

I ordered the personal pizza with mushrooms, pepperoni, and jalapeños. I was not impressed with the pizza. I would give their pizza a 5.5 out of 10, and that's being generous.

The bartender was amazing, the servers were amazing, and I give this place five star review because of the service, not the food.

This downtown location was booming on a Saturday night in the summer, but that did not stop them from providing some fairly quick service on a pizza for us. I actually did the take-out, and was glad we did since it was so crowded and our hotel was just across the river.

The whole family has a mixed reaction to deeper dish Chicago style pizza, and Lou Malnati's seems to be the favorite with my daughter and wife since it comes across as not as thick as competitors in the area, which is fine. We always end up stopping here and at one of the competitors when the whole family comes to town. Solid pizza, good service.

The pizza at Lou Malnati's is perfect comfort food. I had the Malnatis Chicago Classic with butter crust. It was good! I ordered a medium, but honestly a personal pan would have been enough. The medium was pretty large, but made for good leftovers the following day!

Has nice outdoor seating. Our waiter was attentive and gave us good suggestions.

Went with the personal size create your own pizza and upgraded to butter crust. The crust was not too greasy and had a good crunch. Good selection of vegetarian toppings.

I was able to finish the personal size by myself but was very full after.

I heard great things about Lou Malnati's gluten free deep dish pizza, but we were pretty disappointed. My husband ordered garlic bread (not gf) and said it was extremely basic--a baguette with cheese that wasn't even warmed all the way through. We got the Chicago Classic gluten free deep dish pizza. The cheese and topping were great, but the issue was the crust. The bottom was cooked but possibly too much as it was tough and extremely hard to chew. But then when you looked at the cross-section, the upper layers of the crust were not cooked, still doughy, which added to how hard it was to chew. Like the cooked part was just a few steps away from being charred that you really had to chomp down to bite a piece off. And then the doughy part was so chewy. I ended up pulling the toppings and cheese off to avoid the crust. At that point, we should have gotten the crustless one.

Our waitress wasn't very attentive. We never got refills on water until the end when we asked, but even then it was hard to flat her down since they were so busy. The upper level was also very crowded with a large party in the middle of the room where everyone had to squeeze by to deliver food or use the bathroom. At least the Prosecco was good, but it's pretty hard to mess that up.

This is an absolute must in Chicago! The food is soooo good! We had 5 people and ordered one large pizza, along with the spinach stuffed bread and it was more than enough food. Service was excellent and the atmosphere was casual and fun. The inside is huge and plenty of seating available. Highly recommend! My fav deep dish pizza in the city!

I'm not a fan of a lot of bread but when in Rome...like how can you come to Chicago and not try deep dish! This spot had hella reviews. So I pulled up and was excited to try it. The service started off well, the waitress was attentive. But I was a party of one and when it started getting busier, I started getting ignored.

The pizza took a long time to come out. I ordered a personal pan classic add pepperoni. When it came out, it wasn't piping hot as I noticed other tables getting their food after eating mine. I was disappointed; the crust on the pizza was good, but the rest of the pizza was not. I didn't like the big edge to edge round sausage patty at all. I low-key feel like my pizza may have been leftover from the lunch crowd.

I finished as much as I could bear, then I received the check. After being annoyed with the food, the waitress told me she used my credit card for another table, so I had to spend my time waiting for them to fix this. She told me to call back if it didn't work, but fortunately no issues because then I would've pissed if I had to spend even more of my time fixing that error.

The in-restaurant experience is not even the worst part. After leaving here, I went to the Navy Pier. I barely made it to the restroom in time, this food had me sick! I thought I was going to miss my river tour behind not being able to leave the bathroom!

I feel like this restaurant and everybody who gave a positive review owes me my money back plus extra for the bathroom experience!

There is a back story. 30 years ago, I came to Chicago to visit a friend. I picked up a frozen pizza to take back home with me. When I arrived at our apartment, I put it into the 400 degree oven just like I was I instructed. My newly married husband was so excited to see me that he distracted me from the pizza. It had only been in the oven for 10 minutes when the fire alarm went off. I quickly opened the oven door and the entire top was charred. I vowed to one day make it back for the real deal. On special occasions, we would have a frozen pizza delivered to our apartment, so I was excited to see if there is a difference between frozen and fresh. Very happy that I can check this off of the bucket list. The frozen is good, but it tastes better fresh out of the oven.