What’s Buck’s Verdict on Chicago Deep Dish Pizza?

CLAY: Now, you unfortunately have got a cold, and you had to deal with it while you were in Chicago. But sometimes the way to deal with a cold is to feed it, and I saw the picture you put out. I believe it was on… Was it Friday morning that you put out a picture, or was it Saturday morning? I can’t remember which one.

BUCK: It was Friday afternoon. We went to Lou Malnati’s.

CLAY: I know I saw it and I immediately got incredibly hungry cause the pizza looked incredible.

BUCK: It was my first ever experience with deep dish, and they make it gluten-free, so I was very excited. I was excited until I read if I ate a whole one of those, it’s 2,000 calories.

CLAY: I actually would have thought more.

BUCK: That’s, like, the smaller. That’s the smaller size.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: That’s the personal size. So, I think it’s about 2,000 calories. Anyway, neither here nor there. No, it was great, but I felt when you talk about, like, “Hey, like, Lou Malnati’s,” I thought it would be like an old family place. But, Clay, they have like 70 franchises. This is like an enormous operation. I mean, it’s a smooth operation; they’ve got it all down.

But, no, that food was very good. I will say — and I actually had a listener to the show come up to me in the airport yesterday and he had a very good point about Chicago, so I’ll borrow from him. The food is world class, as in the best of Chicago food-wise can go up against the best of any other city, honestly, the top tier there.

But there’s… It’s not as big a city as New York, so you don’t have as many of them or as many options at that level. But the food’s amazing. Honestly, it’s a truly great food city. There are some food cities that are small, though, that punch way above their weight. I know people all shouting out what their city is. For me, New Orleans, Charleston, Nashville —

CLAY: Nashville’s got really good food.

BUCK: — all come to mind for smaller cities that punch way above their weight in terms of food. Chicago is obviously a huge city. But it was fun to go check it out.