Prince Street Pizza: Worth the Hype?
Prince Street Pizza: Worth the Hype?
There are certain restaurants where you almost feel like you’re supposed to love the food before you’ve even taken the first bite.
Prince Street Pizza is one of them.
The New York-born pizza shop has built a massive reputation around its thick Sicilian squares, crispy edges, sauces and those instantly recognizable little cups of pepperoni covering some of its most famous slices.
So when F’nAround found itself in Chicago’s West Loop trying and failing to get our hands on the J.P. Graziano collaboration, we figured there was an obvious Plan B.
Prince Street Pizza was right there.
And @mike_lemonjello was hungry.
From Prince Street to Randolph Street
Prince Street Pizza traces its beginnings to 2012, when it opened at 27 Prince Street in New York City. According to the company, its recipes come from generations of the Morano family and follow a pretty simple philosophy:
If you can put it on pasta, you can put it on pizza.
Since that original New York shop opened, Prince Street has expanded well beyond Manhattan, with locations around the United States and into Canada.
The company is particularly known for its Sicilian-style “SoHo Squares,” while also serving more traditional round pizzas and slices.
Prince Street says its sauces are made from scratch daily and that it goes as far as using a water-filtration process at locations outside New York designed to replicate New York water and maintain the texture of its dough.
That is some serious commitment to recreating a New York slice.
But reputation only gets you to the counter.
Eventually somebody has to eat the damn thing.
Mike Puts Prince Street to the Test
Mike went into this one without much concern for what the internet had already decided he was supposed to think.
His verdict?
It’s good pizza.
But is it worth the hype?
For Mike, not quite.
And that distinction matters.
There’s a difference between saying something isn’t good and saying the mythology surrounding it might have grown larger than the actual experience.
Prince Street has become the kind of pizza destination capable of producing serious lines. Mike’s assessment was basically that he’d happily eat the pizza again but he’s not standing in some ridiculous two-block-long line to do it.
Fortunately, this time we didn’t have to.
That probably made the pizza taste better already.
Mike Has Beef With the Pepperoni Cups
Then we discovered something potentially more controversial than saying a famous pizza place is overhyped:
Mike doesn’t really like those little pepperoni cups.
You know the ones.
The pepperoni curls upward while cooking, creating those tiny crispy-edged cups that collect grease in the middle and have practically become their own genre of pizza photography.
Prince Street’s pepperoni-covered Sicilian squares are among the things that helped make the brand recognizable.
Mike?
Not impressed by the cups.
Apparently there is a limit to what we’ll tolerate at F’nAround, and tiny bowls made out of pepperoni may be where Mike draws the line.
The Winner: Spicy Vodka
There was one slice that clearly stood above the others for him:
Spicy Vodka.
Prince Street’s Spicy Vodka combines spicy vodka sauce with fresh mozzarella and Pecorino Romano.
That’s where Mike found his favorite of the visit.
The sauce brings more personality than a standard cheese slice without becoming some ridiculous pile of toppings where you can no longer tell you’re eating pizza.
If Mike was going back for one thing, that’s the one.
Joe and Bella Would Like to File a Dissent
Here’s where the F’nAround review panel fell apart.
@joetba disagreed with Mike.
Joe liked Prince Street.
And, perhaps more importantly, Bella disagreed too.
Bella was firmly on Team Prince Street.
Admittedly, Bella’s standards for acquiring food may occasionally be influenced by whether someone is currently holding food, but we’re counting her vote anyway.
So the final tally wasn’t unanimous.
Mike: Good, but overhyped.
Joe: Good pizza.
Bella: Stop talking and give me more pizza.
And that’s actually what we want out of these reviews.
We’re not going to tell you something is incredible because TikTok says it’s incredible, because there’s a line outside, because the restaurant comes from New York or because everyone has already collectively decided what the acceptable opinion is supposed to be.
Sometimes Mike loves something.
Sometimes Joe loves something Mike doesn’t.
Sometimes the dog appears to have better taste than both of them.
We’re just going to eat it and tell you what happened.
So, Is Prince Street Pizza Worth It?
If there’s a two-block line?
Mike probably isn’t joining it.
If you can walk in, grab a few different slices and see what all the hype is about?
Absolutely.
Prince Street delivered a legitimately good pizza experience. The disagreement wasn’t really over whether the pizza was good. It was over whether good becomes great enough to justify the hype surrounding it.
For Mike, it didn’t quite get there.
For Joe and Bella, Prince Street fared considerably better.
And everybody managed to agree on at least one thing:
There wasn’t much pizza left when we were finished.
Mike ate it.
Mike judged it.
Mike pissed off Bella.
Another successful F’nReview.
Prince Street Pizza Chicago
Address:
939 W. Randolph St., 1W
Chicago, IL 60607
Prince Street’s Chicago location is in the West Loop on Randolph Street.
Hours:
Monday: 11:00 AM–11:00 PM
Tuesday: 11:00 AM–11:00 PM
Wednesday: 11:00 AM–11:00 PM
Thursday: 11:00 AM–11:00 PM
Friday: 11:00 AM–3:00 AM
Saturday: 11:00 AM–3:00 AM
Sunday: 11:00 AM–11:00 PM
Prince Street currently notes that Tuesdays are takeout pies/Uber only. Because restaurant hours can change, check directly with the restaurant before making a special trip.
Phone: (312) 647-2259
Website: Prince Street Pizza princestreetpizza.com
The company currently lists locations in markets including Chicago, New York, Brooklyn, Miami Beach, Las Vegas, Dallas, Los Angeles and Southern California, Toronto and others.
Full video review:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DclefF8RkUg/?igsi=MTdjdm5nZTZzazBwMw==
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