American Pies, Manchester

15 January 2022
https://americanpies.co.uk/

Let’s take a moment to acknowledge that the month of January is absolutely gross. Awful weather, everyone is in a foul mood, and all you’ve got standing between you and the next Bank Holiday in three months’ time is a mountain of post-Christmas credit card debt. What it calls for is something of a pick me up, which for me is an ocean of cheese and a beer to wash it down with. For Jane it is pizza. Always pizza. If Jane were to eat pizza everyday for the rest of her life, she would die a happy woman, albeit prematurely.

Jane has been pushing to go to American Pies since it opened last year. It is the sister restaurant of Brewski, a North American comfort food restaurant in Chorlton, south Manchester, serving a range of dishes including burgers, burritos and poutine. American Pies is the only place she has found on this side of the Atlantic that promises to serve real, Chicago-style deep dish pizza. In Chicago, pizza may be small in diameter, but it is big in depth. You get a bowl-like crust, the toppings and cheese go in first in vast quantities and the marinara sauce goes on the top. Is it a pizza or is it a casserole? Do we care?

In truth, it isn’t easy to come across legitimate Chicago-style pizza in the majority of the United States. Jane had only eaten it a few times in her life, which for a girl with a dad born in Aurora, Illinois, (a city in the Chicago metropolitan area) seems wild. I had never eaten Chicago-style pizza. Needless to say, we were excited to get to American Pies.

We headed to West Mosley Street right in the centre of the city, just a stone’s throw from Chinatown, and met our buddy Jenny who came to partake with us. She had her eye on their deep fried duck lasagne bites, which they plug as one of the big four things that you must try alongside the pizza, garlic knots and ‘doughritos’ (more about those later on). We were down for everything, because it was 15th January and we deserved a treat, damn it.

We arrived at the restaurant and were greeted by the first of two friendly, upbeat servers who showed us to our table. The restaurant had a modern feel, with a small bar, a number of fairly tightly packed tables and some fun neon signs. I particularly liked the one that said “Pies before guys”, which is a rule we should all strive to live by I think.

We decided to share an order of the mozzeralla garlic knots and the deep fried lasagne bites to start. The knots were huge - about the size of a fist, a knot of light, fluffy pizza dough, soaked in a rich garlic butter and smothered in a generous layer of mozzerella. They were great, and made us secrete garlic through our skin for days afterwards which is always a sign that you’ve had a good time. The lasagne bites had a golden, crispy breadcrumb exterior, and a soft centre with a very strong hit of duck flavour. I didn’t get much by way of pasta and cheese, particularly given that the bites were paired with hot honey for dipping. They put me in mind of a kind of Chinese prawn toast if there was duck instead of prawn.

The restaurant pushes its hot honey, or honey infused with chilli, in a big way - most of the pizzas come with it either drizzled over the top or on the side for a small extra charge. Jane and I are huge fans of hot honey - we have a bottle of it in our house and dress most of the take away pizzas we order with it.

And speaking of pizza… onto the main event. The pizza-casserole of our dreams. You can order pizza at American Pies in two sizes: 7” for one person or 10” for two or three people. Half full of garlic knot and fried lasagne, were we already flighting a losing battle against the pizza? Absolutely not. We decided to go for it and take home whatever we couldn’t finish for meals over the next couple of days. We ordered at 10” Spicy Sausage - the Chicago deep dish classic - and a 7” ‘Nduja and Goats Cheese to shake things up.

The Spicy Sausage was fantastic. The sausage came in chunks, like mini-meatballs, with a soft texture and a potent, fennel flavour. The mozzarella was creamy and rich, holding the pizza together in long strings when you tried to move a piece to your plate. And the marinara sauce had just the right amount of tang to cut through the mozzeralla. There was also a generous serving of red chilli flakes mixed into the marinara, giving a great warming depth, along with the chilli sweetness of the hot honey.

The ‘Nduja and Goats Cheese was also really good, and was a nice accompaniment to the spicy sausage pizza. ‘Nduja is a soft, spoonable type of sausage, deep red in colour and heavy in spice, hailing from Calabria in southern Italy and popular in Italian American cuisine. It paired well with the goats cheese. Jane had had some reservations about the goats cheese on the pizza, concerned that it would melt into the mozzeralla, losing its distinct texture and flavour, creating a tidal wave of “too much cheese” (to which I responded with a diplomatic “Don’t be ridiculous - there’s no such thing as too much cheese”). But I was pleased to be proven right, the goats cheese held its form, creating satisfying pops of strong, salty flavour.

Here’s the money shot.

Jenny very decently completed the restaurant’s set, ordering the “Pig” doughrito, a wrap of garlic pizza dough filled with “Grandad’s sausage” (we were understandably concerned, but it turned out to be the same fennel-rich sausage as featured on the pizza), smoked bacon, ‘nduja slaw and blue cheese, served with a creamy cheese sauce on the side. She said it was good, particuarly the fennel hit from the sausage.

Here’s what the interior of a Doughrito looks like.

In terms of drinks, the menu featured a wide range of cocktails and spirits, along with wine, beer and soft drinks. Jane and Jenny went for alcohol free options while I - the only one not driving - ordered lager. The beer menu was mostly restricted to lagers, presumably because pizza and lager are a marriage made in heaven, although there was also the odd IPA for people who prefer things a bit hoppier.

The food was delicious, but completely defeated us in quantity terms. I was confident that I could easily polish off four slices, the equivalent of one of the individual 7” pizzas, but I had to give up at two. Jane and I took home enough pizza to carry us through two further meals, which neither of us was remotely disappointed about.

Lunch at American Pies came to around £30 per head, which included tip. For the quality and sheer amount of food, this felt like good value. Jane and I have discussed the pizza we ate, debating whether it would be very similar to the kind of thing that you’d order at Giordano’s or Due in downtown Chicago. Honestly, we don’t know. But we can say that the pizza at American Pies is pretty damn deep and pretty damn good.

And what about the toast sandwich?
Jane - The Italian sausage. It put her in mind of the sausage her Grandma would use to make sausage bread when she was a kid. Fennel-filled, soft and delicious.
Sarah - All of the cheese. Mountains of delicious, melted mozzerella, holding together a delicious pizza. It probably took 6 months off of my lifespan, but I can live with that (for the time being, at least).