“I want people to come here and feel like they’re home,” says Cecily Federighi, one half of the pizzaiolo couple behind tavern-style hotspot Pizz’Amici. Cracker-thin and carved into handheld squares, Chicago’s lesser-known pizza tradition is the antidote to the city’s much-maligned deep dish stereotypes.
As lore goes, post-Prohibition tavern owners would ply customers with free pies to keep them drinking. These days, Cecily and her husband, Billy, carry the tavern-style torch. What began in the couple’s Ukrainian Village apartment, where they honed their recipe and built a cult following through the account @eatfreepizza, now has a brick-and-mortar home at Pizz’Amici.
The Federighis refurbished a former West Town barbershop, outfitting it with checkered black-and-white hardwood floors, a Carrara marble counter, and family photographs dating back to the 1930s, including a shot of Cecily’s grandmother on her wedding day. Behind the bar, a custom painting by artist Muriel Montgomery depicts Billy’s late Uncle Sil—the restaurant’s patron saint—puffing a cig.
Family influences run through the menu, from Sicilian-American classics like housemade focaccia and tart caponata to Billy’s mom’s signature beef-and-pork meatballs. As for the pizza: dough undergoes a weeklong process of fermenting, sheeting, and curing to get the crust shattering crisp beneath each player’s choice of toppings. Billy goes for sausage and giardiniera, while Cecily favors a pepperoni-hot honey pie. Trust us, get both.
