Robert’s Pizza Lands 50 Top Pizza List

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Chicagoans love celebrating their own, and Robert and Dana Garvey have given the city plenty to boast about! Their pizzeria, Robert’s Pizza & Dough Co., was awarded 10th place by 50 Top Pizza. This marks the fourth year the Streeterville eatery has made it onto the prestigious list, and achieving 10th place ensures their recognition in Naples this September as one of “The Best 100 Pizzerias in the World” for the 2024 50 Top Pizza Guide. The accolade comes just as Robert’s Pizza kicks off its 5th anniversary year. It has consistently been named one of the 50 Top Pizzas in the USA, securing the #10 position for 2024, a significant leap from #27 in 2023. Additionally, they received the “Performance of the Year 2024 Robo Award.”

hey everybody Tom Barnes stories from the 78 in streeterville on the search as always for good pizza here in Chicago and I know a lot of people think about Chicago and deep dish that’s not all the kind of pizza that we have here uh in fact one of the 10 best pizzeria in the world is right here in Chicago Robert’s uh pizza and Dough Company right here on the Ogden slip and this is the Ogden slip right here if you’re not familiar it’s right off mcer court and that is Robert’s Pizza and do company I’m going to talk to the owner conveniently named Robert now for this story from the 78 out here in streeterville so let’s go and take a look at some of this award-winning Pizza all right so take a look at this pizza I mean it’s been over 20 years of a labor of love that has turned into Robert’s pizza and Dough Company and I’m here with Robert and his wife Dana how are you guys great great thanks for coming over absolutely congratulations on the wonderful award uh you landed in the top 50 here in the US but explain the whole thing because I don’t want to get in the way of uh your accolades here so it’s a 50 top Pizza it’s Italian organization that ranks pizzas all around the world just recently they ranked pizzas in the US the top 50 in the US and we came in at number 10 and we are incredibly honored and humbled to be in that list the pizza the pizzolas on that list are just incredible and it’s just for us it’s such an honor to be included in that that also puts us on automatically puts us on the list for top 100 if you’re 12 and above on that on the top 50 in the US you’re automatically on the top 100 in the world and we’re heading to Naples in September to pick up that award ah truly incredible and this is the uh your signature pie here your Rita piz this is the Rita pizza named after my mom so it’s the only Pizza that we make with Italian Buffalo mozzarella uh fresh basil and uh we use slle farm for our pork and we make our we make our own sausage uh but the real the real key to this pizza is that we take a fresh Plum tomato and we slow roast it for about 3 and 1/ half 4 hours and it caramelizes the natural sugars in the tomato and it just has this incredible tomato flavor so this really is one of one of my favorite pizzas though as I said I love all of our pizzas on the menu um so but this story started way back in about 1994 when you came to Chicago right and you you’ve done many things besides pizza as a profession I mean the pizza profession only what 5 years ago but you’ve been honing your craft for pizza along with your wife here who put up with the constant pizza making in the apartment for like over 20 years here in streeterville right yeah so this this has been uh kind of a labor of love for many years when we arrived here in ’94 9394 uh the first thing I noticed about Chicago is that there’s at least in down in in this neighborhood here there’s not a pizzer on every corner like I was used to back in back in New York and I love Chicago Pizza love the deep dish love the cracker but I needed a slice every day so I decided I’d make it myself I didn’t think it would be that hard well the first thing I learned is making good pizza is really hard and it took me eight years of obsessive baking I literally went through hundreds of recipes baked off thousands of Pies improvised and about 8 years in I spun this crust and said wow that’s that’s pretty good stuff so fast forward 20 years later we have a restaurant and Dana you’re responsible for the drive on the inside as far as the decor and also going on this ride with your husband about I remember you were talking earlier about walking through the neighborhood handing out pizzas in streeterville and people know oh that’s the pizza guy’s uh wife or the lady how how’d that go so the way that we were making a lot of Pizza in our apartment and in our building people knew we had pizza they would come up the back stairs knock on our back door and ask if they could get a slice so we started a within our own building we started a a small demand over the course of those 20 years but there was so much pizza Robert would go out at about 10:00 in night literally with two pizzas one in each hand walk down the street and talk to the valets and the doormen and anyone who was out um on the street in our community and asked him if they were interested in a slice of pizza and I thought he was kind of crazy you know going out at 10: 11:00 at night but sure enough um that was our own little focus group we didn’t realize it at the time but it was we got a lot of great feedback I you know had my own like community of like security because I you know every night or every other night Robert was feeding um members of our community at 10: 11:00 at night with the latest uh version of our pizza and we did modify that pizza for years and years and years in your apartment right in our apartment our kitchen was literally the laboratory um anyone who came to our home knew they were coming for a pizza dinner um and they came happily you know for these pizza dinners and we hosted dinners probably three or four times a week and we donated these dinners to charity events um and we were just doing this out of the sheer Joy of feeding people but also um learning that people love pizza and everyone everyone came to our table with a pizza story or how they make their pizza and it just started a whole you know we entered a whole new community of uh sort of pizza um I don’t know fishing Autos I mean everybody had their their version and um and gave us a lot of great feedback over the years yeah you guys were Brave I mean you opened up a pizza place not only in a neighborhood that uh typically didn’t have many but you opened it up in a city that was you know famous for its Pizza during the P I know you didn’t plan on opening during the pandemic cuz that was already in the works but opening a restaurant in the pandemic in an unusual spot and you guys still made it work and not only made it work but you became famous for making it work because of the quality of the pizza that’s incredible well I was going to say that um we really just leaned in we were um we learned that either we had we had two options close yeah or go for it and we just leaned in and um and it was it turned out I mean the community was so supportive and that made it you know at least for Robert and our really we had a tiny team I think we had like eight people um shortly after right after the that March mandate we had the kitchen was operating and that was it for that period of time um and the community was just unbelievably supportive so it made it um it took a little bit of the sting out yeah and now here you are 5 years later celebrating your fifth anniversary with this fancy award that gets you to Naples is that right yes we’re in September we’re heading to Naples to to receive the reward for the top one one of the top one on the list of the top 100 pizzas in the world so that that’s clearly a tremendous honor but I’m just looking forward to going to Italy yeah I mean there nothing wrong with that right but I when we were talking before we got started here you mentioned the many things that you did you were the merchant marines and you did all these other things that pizza was like your hobby on the side that turned into a labor of love that turned into a passion or maybe was all there at the same time but either way what’s it mean to you now to do all those things you move to a different city a city known for pizza of all things to open and be recognized on this level that’s got to be something pretty special for you to take with you it is you know and we we are clearly honored and humbled to be to be in this position at the moment and you know the reception from the neighborhood from the city of Chicago has just really been incredible but sort of going to all of the different things that I did prior to opening a opening a pizza restaurant what I you know what I thought about a lot recently was that everything I ever learned goes into this restaurant so my my theater background um my my Marine engineering background my Hospitality background uh it all it all kind of lends itself because at the end of the day the restaurant business is theater uh and it it’s really about creating an environment it’s not just about the great food but it’s about creating an environment that people want to be in and it’s it’s very theater-like in that sense and every night the curtain goes up and you have to be ready yeah every night you have to be ready and uh willing to put on the happy face of serving customers and you know that comes with people telling you that this is the best pizza I’ve ever had they come back when did you realize that you had something that was kind of special here well you know when before we opened up the restaurant like a lot of people thought we were a little bit crazy to to get into the Pizza Market in Chicago cuz the Pizza Market there it’s there’s a lot of pizza here in Chicago there’s a lot of great pizza here in Chicago and we kind of felt that we had something special that would that would stand out that we’ be a little bit different but we had a lot of uh a lot of the chefs in Chicago had ended up with invitations to our house to come and try this pizza so we we had you guys we we had gotten you know we had gotten uh kind of the blessings of a number of the big chefs in the city and uh so it was kind of with that encouragement and with the feedback from the neighborhood that we were getting by uh hosting these parties Etc that we decided to kind of give it a shot but can I also say that we were pretty naive we didn’t know who some of these people were they were just friends of friends and they’re were like hey my friend so and so wants to come and try it or my friend is a chef and wants to come and try it and right when you say Chef in Chicago I mean that kind of means something because there’s a lot of uh there’s TV shows made after people who are chefs in Chicago I mean no I mean un I mean we were but because we didn’t um we were just making this at home it was not with an expectation of bringing it to Market sure so we were just happy to have people come and try it and give us their feedback and um and so we were pretty naive we I mean in retrospect we had an unbelievable um introduction to The Culinary um kings and queens of of Chicago without truly realizing it at at the time well and it’s definitely paid off considering what’s has happened in that five years and the friends that you’ve made I imagine and now this trip coming up here to Italy uh you have how many different pizzas do you have on the menu about 18 and then we put we put special 18 no small feet 18 is a lot so uh to make 18 pizzas well and to get awarded that that also says something for sure thank thank you and the prep work everything is made fresh so all of our vegetables all the sausages made in house we spend hours and hours every day just prepping everything for the pizza so uh you know most of the day is all about prep work and then when it’s you know dinner time or lunchtime it’s we all go into service but the hours and hours of prep is really pretty remarkable well and I also think it’s important to note that most of the cheeses we use for the most part are from the tri-state area they’re from um Wisconsin Indiana um the state of Illinois um uh a lot of our shakery is made here in Chicago at Chicago salumi salumi Chicago salumi Chicago salumi Chicago um our um our mozzarella is from Wisconsin so I mean everything is pretty locally sourced um and I think that’s important you know to us as well absolutely and it’s important to people in Chicago because I feel like Chicago is that City that loves to hear about Chicago it loves to hear about people doing good about Chicago Chicago or using things from Chicago so uh all around great story and you have more than just pizza and I want to make sure we get to some of the food that you brought out here as examples of other things you have you want you guys want to run through what we have here sure so this is a Capra Capra salad it’s with an heirloom tomato uh Italian Buffalo mozzarella a little balsamic glaze and a Corto olive oil this is our Aon Chini every day we make a fresh mushroom risotto uh we roll it up we stuff it with a little bit of tasio cheese and then we make housemade arabiata sauce to go over the top of that and our meatballs it’s a beef and be meatball with a little bit of pizza dough breadcrumb uh housemade jarder and a nice marinara sauce over the top so and when you guys go to Italy for this this award ceremony do you have to bring the pizza with you do they just how’s that whole thing work for folks who who don’t know no actually we just get to go and enjoy and enjoy um we get to it’s in a theater um they gave us a Golden Ticket um that we’re supposed to present upon arrival and that’s as much as we we um I been asked to to bring with us fantastic uh and for folks that have never been here outside of the things we talked about why should they make the trk to streeterville to go to this pizza place you know we have we have a great it’s a it’s an incredible location it’s right it’s right on the OG Slip On The Water uh we have an amazing team I mean we do have a we have a great pizza but the team really makes this special it’s very much a neighborhood it’s very much a neighborhood location and we do have amazing pizzas with with with uh all fresh ingredients uh we didn’t we didn’t get a chance to really talk about our the uh wild yeast sourdough starter as I said this really is a Chicago Pizza uh everything I learned about making pizzas I learned in Chicago I learned how to eat pizza in New York but I only learned how to make it here in Chicago and it starts with a wild ye sour starter which I created 25 years ago but it’s wild yeast from the Chicago air that I managed to keep alive for 25 years that’s the base of the recipe I do a two that’s incredible 25 I mean yeah cuz it’s a living breathing thing right that’s right yeah wow so we’ve been together a long time uh and uh then I do a two to three day cold ferment on my dough and I do a very long ride so the dough has been out for probably five hours before we before we stretch it so it’s very delicate the result is I get a nice crispy chewy crust with an artisan bread flavor and it just makes her a great dining experience so and I mean it just speaks the the volume of preparation and detail to the work I mean nothing most people don’t do anything for 25 years let alone something that you didn’t see results outside of just like your apartment and your friends that were sampling it so to be able to see this result with your own business right here on the ogan slip which is like this little hidden like almost like a local version of Navy Pier the way it kind of jets out in the water even though you’re Inland it kind of gives you that Vibe but congratulations to both of you that’s like such a wonderful story and I’m so happy that again positivity putting Chicago on the map especially for something like pizza it’s great thank you well thank you um I was going to say one thing we didn’t talk about is we have an incredible bar program too which we haven’t displayed here but our craft cocktails are um another attraction too and we felt very strongly that we wanted to have a bar program that complemented our approach to pizza and so that’s another reason why I think people should check us out and for is it reservations should they do or is Watkins welcome how does that whole thing work Watkins are welcome but we highly encourage um reservations um especially summer um people want to be um outside and there’s a lot of people walking around so we really encourage people to um make reservations what’s the uh website that you’re look that you want people to go to a speak of the devil look at that on Q we got a beer rolling up here is that dovetail um that is dovetail that is a dovetail Chicago why don’t you talk about that relationship um uh so the website that um go to Roberts pizza.com um and uh we’re very active on social media um our handle is Roberts Pizza Co um but Robert pizza.com you can make a reservation um we have a great to go program if you are you know um wanting to pick up a pizza take home we offer that too and we do offer delivery within the Chicago land area and you do have craft beer right here out of Chicago as well right yes so um this is uh dovetail this is I think the dovetail pul um and we are um uh in honor of our fifth anniversary um we are also introducing a duvail pills right here on our dock um and uh it’s a way for us to celebrate um the Artistry of dtail we really love their process and um Robert just spoke about his process and there was just a lot of synergy there so we want to you know celebrate the artisans in our community that are doing a great job and that’s true Chicago Spirit helping each other out celebrating our accomplishments so well done to both of you and cheers and uh thank you for sharing your time and uh your pizza thank you absolutely all right that is the story from the 78 here in streeterville Tom Bary Chicago gmail.com if you have a story from the 78 suggestion or head over to the website stories from the 78.com again come on down to this part of streeterville on the Ogden slip it’s uh it’s kind of like a little mini Navy Pier for locals only