Chicago Pizza Goes Kawaii In Japanese Restaurant Group’s Goopy New Lineup

Chicago-style pizza

Whether it's deep-dish style like Uno's or stuffed like Giordano's, Chicago-style pizza literally stands out from the rest with its deep pie crust. Other than that, you can usually expect to find pepperoni, sausage, or other meats, onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, and maybe other veggies, a chunky tomato sauce and, of course, a generous portion of cheese, typically Mozzarella and maybe Parmesan.

Belinda Hankins Miller [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

While you can find authentic Chicago-style pizza at DevilCraft's three Tokyo locations, a completely different dish known as shikago piza シカゴピザ has been trending in Japan in the last year or so. While the name may sound a lot like "Chicago pizza," as Chicago Magazine noticed earlier this month, "this so-called ‘za is more akin to fondue," about the only thing it has in common with the Windy City original being plenty of cheese and a deep pie crust. And then, thanks to the current obsession with Instaworthy sweets and dishes, Shikago Pizza has recently gone wild on colors, offering up its pool of cheese in pink or black-colored pie crusts.

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Gosso goes kawaii

Enter Japanese restaurant group Gosso.

Official members of the Japan Cheese Fondue Association, Gosso is one of the driving forces in the fondue and cheese boom now taking over Japan. Therefore, it only makes sense that they should lead the way in innovations when it comes to the Shikago Piza trend.

PINK & WHITE ~ 撫子 (Nadeshiko)

Coloring the crust only gives you a small hint of color in your Instagram picture, so why not make the cheese itself colorful? That was probably the reasoning behind their latest lineup, beginning with the very kawaii hot pink colored "PINK & WHITE ~ 撫子 (nadeshiko)" (nadeshiko 撫子 can be used to describe the color pink):

Blending a natural coloring agent extracted from healthy beet juice into their premium Mozzarella cheese sourced from Hokkaido, cheese fondue sauce and meat sauce, Gosso created a one and only dish which they confidently state is eminently "movie-genic". It will set you back 1,580 JPY (tax excl.)

BLACK & WHITE ~ 漆黒 (Shikkoku)

Gosso also proposes "BLACK & WHITE ~ 漆黒 (Shikkoku)" (shikkoku 漆黒 means onyx, ebony or jet black). This Shikago Piza uses squid ink mixed into their Mozzarella cheese, cheese fondue sauce and meat sauce to achieve a very surprising, mottled black and white look. 1,580 JPY (tax excl.)

A more standard Shikago Pizza

If you don't want to go wild on unusual colors, Gosso also has you covered with their "WHITE ~ 純白 (Junpaku)" (junpaku 純白 means "pure white") version. Even though you could argue that the color is more yellow than pure white, that's a detail you probably won't care about after you dip a piece of golden crust into the dish's gooey fondue heart. 1,580 JPY (tax excl.)

Availability

You can enjoy all three Shikago Pizza dishes at any of the participating 21 restaurants within Gosso's cheese-centric restaurant chains including Kamakura vegetable and cheese fondue restaurant chain Garden Farm, Raclette cheese restaurant chain Terrace, cheese cafe chain 100％ CHEESE Café nino*nino, cheese restaurant CRAFT CHEESE MARKET and pizza-centric restaurant sora.

For the complete list of restaurants, see their press release here.

By - Ben K.

Tags:: Cheese / Chicago Pizza / Chicago-style pizza / Fondue / Gosso / Instagenic / Instagram / Instagrammable / Kawaii / Mozzarella / Parmesan / Pink / Pizza / Shikago Piza