• Daniel Zemans, locally of Chicago Pizza Club and nationally of Serious Eats, files for the latter on the pies of Gino’s East. He’s committed to their deep-dish — on the matter of thin-crust “I’ve never had it,” he says, “and doubt I ever will.”
• Elizabites goes to the Peninsula for the drinks (cushy chairs, nice nut mix) but stays for the $33 all-you-can-handle dessert spread, complete with live jazz quartet, on weekend nights. Crème brûlée in spoons!
• Matt B at Chicago Traveler proclaims the ten best pizzas of 2008. The winner? Aurelio’s Pizza, which — look, we’ll be honest here. We hate Aurelio’s. We realize a lot of people really deeply love it, but for a while we lived literally down the street from the original location, and we cannot shake the feeling that their sausage pizza smells like newborn babies. THIS IS NOT A METAPHOR. This is actually what it smells like to us. But then, we are moderately off our rocker. Also: It’s only October! Are we sure we’re ready to close the book on the year, Matt?
