No. 1 pizza in the Second City has arrived in Bricktown

Thin crust pizza rises from the deep-dish oasis of Chicago

On Friday, Rendezvous Pizza became the 405 diningscape’s only purveyor of Chicago’s most popular style of pizza. Before you go planning to dive into a deep-dish pie, understand Uno Pizzeria is where tourists eat in the Windy City.

“This is the people folks in Chicago eat every day,” I was told by Rendezvous founding partner Buck Warfield. “Deep-dish is what you and I eat when we go to Chicago.”

Besides the 40-minute cook-time and limited variety, deep-dish pizza is just too heavy for weekly consumption among mere mortals. According to Buck, Chicago’s hardcore pizza lovers choose this this style, which favors a thin crust and is cut into squares and triangles that will fit on a cocktail napkin.

My Pizzabout partner Rob Crissinger was with me, and he Buck hit it off right away. As I wrote before, I’ve never met anyone that loved pizza as much as Rob, but Buck is a close second. As he sampled Rob and me through six different kinds of pie, Buck said on more than one occasion: “This is a good day’s work.”

He was right.

Chef Klaudya Barcenas has done it again, mastering yet another crust to go along with her exemplary Detroit and New York iterations. First a pastry chef before embracing the savory side, her development as a chef has been a joy to witness.

“Klaudya is the easiest chef I’ve ever worked with,” said Warfield, who’s developed food-service businesses since the late 1970s. “Her talent is unbelievable, but she is so humble the way she goes about her business. It’s been a true pleasure since she came on with us.”

The new Chicago thin-crust pizzas are available only at the Bricktown location for now, but Buck promises it will be available at the Quail Springs location by month’s end.

We tried simple pies topped with chopped pepperoni, Soppressata and sausage — though the sausage was turbo-charged with a light dusting of fennel. We had supreme-style blends of toppings, too. In the end, the crust hit me right in the cosmic tuning fork. The toppings were great, but after that initial crunch they were all gravy.

Pizza fans won’t want to miss this version. In two weeks, you’ll be able to read how Rob and I rated Rendezvous along with The Wedge Pizzeria in the next Pizzabout installment.

Paid subscribers can read on and be first to learn about a secret menu item at Rendezvous, some promising barbecue and transcendent pinto beans in Tulsa, and who among paid subscribers won gift cards from Rendezvous Pizza, The Ranch Steakhouse, Rococo, Western Concepts, and Birdie’s by Chef Kevin Lee.