Iconic Chicago Foods: Deep Dish, Hot Dogs, Italian Beef and More

Chicago’s signature foods are deep-dish pizza (credited to Pizzeria Uno, founded in 1943), thin tavern-style pizza cut in squares, the all-beef Chicago-style hot dog with seven toppings and no ketchup, and the Italian beef sandwich. The list also includes the Maxwell Street Polish, the plantain-bread jibarito, Garrett Mix popcorn, the Rainbow Cone and a bitter liqueur called Malört.

Food	What it is	Verified origin
Deep-dish pizza	Tall crust baked in a deep pan	Pizzeria Uno, founded 1943 by Ike Sewell and Richard Riccardo
Stuffed pizza	Deep dish with a second dough layer on top	Nancy’s Pizza and Giordano’s, mid-1970s
Tavern-style pizza	Very thin, crisp crust cut into squares	Chicago and Milwaukee both claim it, 1940s
Chicago-style hot dog	All-beef frank, poppy seed bun, seven toppings	1893 World’s Fair franks; toppings set on Maxwell Street in the Depression
Italian beef	Thin roast beef in seasoned jus on French bread	Made by Italian-American Chicagoans by the 1930s; Al’s Beef dates its stand to 1938
Maxwell Street Polish	Grilled Polish sausage, grilled onions, mustard	Credited to Jimmy Stefanovic, 1939, now Jim’s Original
Jibarito	Steak sandwich on fried green plantains	Juan “Peter” Figueroa, Borinquen Restaurant, Humboldt Park, 1996
Garrett Mix	CaramelCrisp and CheeseCorn popcorn together	Garrett Popcorn, founded 1949
Rainbow Cone	Five sliced ice cream flavors on one cone	Joe and Katherine Sapp, Beverly, August 1926
Malört	Bitter wormwood liqueur	Carl Jeppson, a Swedish immigrant, 1920s

Deep-dish, stuffed and tavern-style pizza

Pizzeria Uno, founded in 1943 by Ike Sewell and Richard Riccardo, is credited with inventing deep-dish pizza. Rudy Malnati, Uno’s original pizza chef, is also credited with developing the recipe. Malnati’s sons later opened Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria in 1971 and Pizano’s in 1991.

Gino’s East, another deep-dish name, was founded in 1966. Over the 1960s and 1970s, deep-dish dough grew to line the full sides of the pan.

Stuffed pizza came out of the mid-1970s, when Nancy’s Pizza and Giordano’s added a second sheet of dough over the fillings. It is deeper and cheesier than standard deep dish.

Tavern-style pizza is the everyday pizza for many locals. The crust is rolled very thin, baked crisp and cut into squares, a habit that let taverns without plates serve it on napkins. Chicago and Milwaukee both claim the style from the 1940s.

The Chicago-style hot dog

A Chicago-style hot dog is an all-beef frankfurter in a natural casing, served on a steamed poppy seed bun. Most locals do not count a dog as Chicago-style unless it is all beef.

The standard toppings, which Vienna Beef calls the “Chicago Seven,” are:

Yellow mustard
Bright green relish
Chopped white onion
Tomato slices or wedges
A dill pickle spear
Pickled sport peppers
Celery salt

Ketchup is left off. Its sweetness is said to overwhelm the other toppings, and many hot dog stands treat the rule as part of the dish.

The roots go back to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, where immigrants Emil Reichel and Sam Ladany sold all-beef franks. Vienna Beef was founded in 1894. The full set of toppings came together at Maxwell Street carts during the Depression, including Abe “Fluky” Drexler’s five-cent “Depression Dog.”

Italian beef

An Italian beef is thin-sliced roast beef simmered in seasoned broth and piled on crusty French bread. You order it “sweet” (with cooked bell peppers) or “hot” (with spicy giardiniera), and a “combo” adds Italian sausage.

You also choose how much jus you want. “Dry” means little, “wet” means extra jus poured on, and “dipped” means the whole sandwich is dunked; each stand defines the terms slightly differently.

Italian-American Chicagoans were making the sandwich by the 1930s, though its exact origin is unknown. Al’s Beef credits Tony Ferreri and says his son Al began selling it in 1938, while some historians credit Pasquale Scala.

The sandwich spread across Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s. National interest jumped after the 2022 TV series The Bear, set in a fictional Chicago beef shop.

Maxwell Street Polish

A Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or fried Polish sausage on a bun with grilled onions, yellow mustard and optional sport peppers. The sausage is a heavily seasoned Chicago-style kielbasa, usually beef and pork.

It is credited to Jimmy Stefanovic, a Macedonian immigrant who took over a family hot dog stand at Maxwell and Halsted in 1939. That stand is now Jim’s Original.

Both Jim’s and the nearby Express Grill moved to Union Avenue in 2005 because of University of Illinois Chicago campus development. As of July 2026, Jim’s had announced plans to move to Pilsen.

The jibarito

The jibarito is a sandwich that uses two flattened, twice-fried green plantains in place of bread. The classic filling is steak with American cheese, lettuce, tomato and garlicky aioli.

Juan “Peter” Figueroa introduced it in 1996 at Borinquen Restaurant in Humboldt Park, the heart of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community. The name is a diminutive of “jíbaro,” a word for a rural countryman.

Giardiniera

Chicago-style giardiniera is an oil-packed relish of chopped vegetables such as bell peppers, celery, carrots and cauliflower. The hot version gets its heat from sport peppers or chili flakes, and a milder version is also sold.

It is the standard “hot” topping on Italian beef and also shows up on subs and pizza.

Garrett Mix popcorn

Garrett Popcorn opened its first shop on Madison Street in 1949. Its best-known product is Garrett Mix, which combines the shop’s CaramelCrisp and CheeseCorn in one bag.

The mix pairs sweet caramel corn with cheese corn in a single bag.

The Rainbow Cone

The Original Rainbow Cone opened in August 1926 in a small shack at 92nd Street and Western Avenue in Beverly. Founders Joe and Katherine Sapp sliced the ice cream into slabs rather than scooping it.

From bottom to top, the five layers are chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House (vanilla with walnuts and cherries), pistachio and orange sherbet. The shop now operates at 9233 S. Western Ave. and marked its 100th anniversary in 2026.

Malört

Jeppson’s Malört is a bitter liqueur flavored with wormwood (“malört” is the Swedish word for it). Swedish immigrant Carl Jeppson sold it in Chicago in the 1920s as a medicine during Prohibition.

It is 70 proof (35% ABV). CH Distillery in Pilsen bought the brand in 2018, and production returned to Chicago in 2019 after years in Kentucky and Florida.

A shot of Malört is a local rite of passage, often taken with a beer as a “Chicago Handshake.”

Frequently asked questions

Who invented Chicago deep-dish pizza?

Pizzeria Uno, founded in 1943 by Ike Sewell and Richard Riccardo, is credited with inventing deep dish. Its original pizza chef, Rudy Malnati, is also credited with developing the recipe.

What goes on a Chicago-style hot dog?

Yellow mustard, bright green relish, chopped white onion, tomato, a dill pickle spear, sport peppers and celery salt, on a poppy seed bun. The frank is all beef.

Why no ketchup on a Chicago hot dog?

Locals say ketchup’s sweetness overwhelms the savory toppings. Leaving it off is a long-standing custom at Chicago hot dog stands.

What does “dipped” mean for an Italian beef?

It means the whole sandwich is dunked in the beef’s cooking juices. “Wet” usually means extra jus poured on, and “dry” means little jus.

Do Chicagoans really eat deep dish?

Many locals eat thin, square-cut tavern-style pizza more often. A 2013 Grubhub analysis found deep dish was only 9% of its Chicago pizza deliveries, though critics questioned that data.

What is a jibarito?

A sandwich that uses fried green plantains instead of bread, usually filled with steak, cheese, lettuce, tomato and aioli. It was created in Chicago in 1996.

Related guides

Sources

Last updated: October 31, 2026