Restaurant Name: Zachary's
Many pizza places outside of Chicago claim to serve Chicago-style pizza, and most are resoundingly incorrect in that assessment. Nothing beats a pizza made in Chicago, but take it from a former Chicagoan, Zachary's is the closest to the real deal: a true deep-dish pizza pie with a buttery, flaky crust, tons of mozzerella cheese (see photo), stuffed with anything your heart desires, and topped with tomato sauce and bits of real tomato. See for yourself in the photos.
The sauce could have had a little more spice and tang to better approximate the real thing, but ultimately I have no complaints, and I will be back for another visit.
The setting is a typical pizza joint, very casual and the staff is friendly. Actually, it feels a little less stuffy than its counterparts in downtown Chicago, where I sometimes felt as though I were a little underdressed for such world-class pizza. There are whimsical posters (see photo) on the walls in celebration of the art of pizza.
Favorite Dish: My friend and I shared a stuffed pizza. She's a weirdo who likes things like olives, pinapples and artichokes on her pizza, so we went half and half on our pizza. I got extra cheese and baked chicken on mine, which isn't exactly traditional for Chicago deep-dish (usually I'll get spinach but at the time of this writing, we're still in the midst of the e coli spinach scare). But it's California, it's acceptable to improvise. :->
We ordered a small-sized pizza (yields 6 slices) and we both stopped after two slices, taking our respective third slices home. Hmmm... come to think of it, if we hadn't been piggies that day we could have made sufficient meals out of one of our slices.
Take note that these pizzas take 30-40 minutes to cook so don't be in a hurry. However, you can take half-baked pizzas to go.
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Theme: Pizza
Comparison: about average
Prices: US$11-20
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Phone: (510) 655-6385
Address: 5801 College Ave., Oakland
Directions: There are three locations (Berkeley, Oakland and San Ramon) and we visited the Oakland one on College Avenue. It's within walking distance of the Rockridge BART station.
Website: http://www.zacharys.com/
Oakland
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on Oct 1, 2006
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