Want “The Bear”? These restaurants serve food from Chicago to Washington

For thick-crust pizza, few other places are as beloved as DC Chi Pie, whose owner Grant Thompson fell in love with the pie and then learned to make the fluffiest, richest version of the pie himself. District amid pandemic. Today, banners above the takeout counter at his modest Capitol Heights shop and on his website not-modestly declare it “the best deep-crust pizza in the DMV,” and the Post’s Tim Carman is inclined to be d ‘agreement. As he wrote in his 2022 review: “This tart was a dense, perfectly round puck, its thick, towering crust resembling castle walls that had to be scaled. The sauce was, in the traditions of thick-crust pizzas, evenly distributed over the surface, and a row of overlapping pepperoni slices formed a cool strip down the middle of the pie, each circle blackened on the part of the sausage exposed to the heat oven. This thing also had weight, like the weight of a good frying pan. You could feel its quality in your hands.

Della Barba Pizza in Capitol Hill doesn’t just serve Chicago-style slices (although, of course, there’s a lot of debate about whether the iconic Chicago slice is a deep-dish pizza or a tavern-style pizza) ; it also offers a thin New York-style crust in addition to the slightly denser “Nonna” style and the even denser Detroit style. In keeping with the requirements of deep dish pizza, Della Barba prepares its crust with cornmeal, a major contributor to that signature moistness and flavor. Choose your style, then choose from its long list of toppings, ranging from classics like pepperoni and cremini mushrooms to more unusual options like charred kale and shaved fennel — and yes, it has pineapple, too.

Josh Saltzman and Chris Powers, co-owners of Shaw’s Ivy and Coney, recently named one of Washington’s best neighborhood bars, are among Washington’s loudest and proudest Midwesterners. The multi-level space is Windy City from top to bottom, but the Post team favors its Detroit-style Italian Beef-Za, which fuses two favorites into one perfectly hearty bar dish—or a classic Italian beef sandwich if you prefer the original. If you’re perfectly fine without beef, it also offers a giardiniera pizza; or you can opt for a Chicago-style hot dog, among other Midwestern options. And, for bonus points, it has happy hours and deals almost every day: Mondays are half-price pizza, Tuesdays are half-price Italian beef sandwiches, and every day it offers its “Chicago Handshake,” an $8 pint of Old Style or lager paired with a shot of Malort, a Chicago liqueur flavored with anise and absinthe.