Review: Pieology - Hand-Crafted Deep Dish Pizza

Pieology's Hand-Crafted Deep Dish Pizza appears to be the chain's take on Detroit-style pizza. It's made with dough that's hand-pressed into rectangular deep dish pans and allowed to rise overnight and topped with cheese to the edge so that it caramelizes for some crunch.

I got one with 1-topping which came out to $8.99 ($6.99 for a 1-topping pizza plus a $2 upcharge for the deep dish crust).

I didn't know how much Pieology's pepperoni shrunk or I would have asked for a lot more of it. As it stood, I got only one or two lonely pepperoni per slice. It has a nice flavor and crisped up really nicely though.

The deep dish crust was a bit of a disappointment and felt like if I had bought a loaf of foccaccia and topped it like a pizza. The crust appeared to have been pre-baked and is topped and heated to order. As a result, it didn't feel all that fresh.

There was also an execution problem with my pizza where the cheese didn't go all the way to the edges where it would have caramelized and, even though the pizza seemed to have been in the oven longer, there wasn't any spots of burnt cheese on top. The cheese did have a nice oozy stretch to it, however.

Overall, Pieology's Hand-Crafted Deep Dish Pizza just didn't work out too well for me. The crust didn't feel fresh-baked like it should out of the oven and while the quality of the toppings were good, I got less of them than I would have on one of the chain's other pizza crusts (so I basically paid $2 more to get less pepperoni and cheese and more bread instead). I'll stick with Little Caesars for a Detroit-style deep dish pizza.