Forget Batman versus Superman, or the Packers versus the Bears. The greatest rivalry of our time is New York- versus Chicago-style pizza.
Why? Because people are absolutely rabid about it. Unlike superheroes or sports teams, everyone has an opinion about pizza, and they're going to share it with you, often very loudly and angrily.
We're equal-opportunity pizza eaters because all pizza is delicious, but it sure is fun to watch people flip their lids (hello, everyone in the comments section!).
That's why a couple of recent TikToks from mega food influencer @jordan_the_stallion8 caught our attention. He has almost 10 million followers, so practically every video he puts out, like this secret McDonald's french fry ingredient one, goes viral. This time, he waded directly into the Chicago vs. NYC pizza debate and handily declared a winner.
"I said that New York pizza was better than Chicago pizza because I couldn't imagine pizza tasting good with sauce on top," he said in the first Tiktok he posted on the subject. Honestly, that's a new reason we've heard for anti-deep dish bias. Usually, it's something about how deep dish is actually a casserole, how you shouldn't have to eat pizza with a fork, or some other nonsense.
Then he gets a little prickly about an unnamed commenter who told him he's not "allowed" to try deep dish because of that statement, and defiantly goes to try it in Chicago for the first time himself. "I haven't even planned a hotel yet, I'm going straight for the pizza," he says before we see him seated at a restaurant with a deep dish pizza in front of him. He raises and slice with one hell of a cheese pull, and we're drooling as much as he must be.
Is Chicago-style pizza better than New York-style pizza?
He picks the slice up (weird with deep dish but whatever), takes a bite, and his eyes roll back in his head. "That's the most delicious thing I've ever tasted in my life. Yeah it's better than New York, I'm sorry," he says. "I'd like to issue an apology to the people of Chicago, your pizza's way better." On behalf of all salty Chicagoans, we accept your apology.
@jordan_the_stallion8 #stitch with @Jordan_The_Stallion8 #fypシ ♬ original sound - Jordan_The_Stallion8
What's the difference between deep dish and Chicago-style pizza?
That's a swift and decisive victory for the Midwest, but he's not done. In a TikTok he posted a couple of days later, he explains that a very kind security guard named Reese set him straight about the pizza Chicagoans eat most often. "'Thin crust pizza is true Chicago pizza, deep dish pizza is for tourists,'" he was told, correctly. According to Chicago-based food site The Takeout, deep dish is more of a once-a-year food for locals.
Cue the jump cut to him munching on thin, square-cut tavern-style pizza with a cracker crust. "People told me to try parlor pizza in Chicago," he says while holding a slice. "I cried halfway through. I can't go back to regular pizza. I'm not leaving Chicago."
If you watched that while nodding knowingly like we did, you're probably a Chicagoan, or spent a lot of time there eating pizza. It's always nice to see someone learning things that Midwesterners have known forever. (It totally has nothing to do with throwing it in the face of smug New Yorkers, we swear.) Thank god the Chicago vs. New York pizza debate is now settled definitively and forever, and there's no need to yell about it anymore. Right?