Lou Malnati's Pan-Crafted Perfection

The magic of Malnati’s all starts with a pan.

But the journey from our kitchen to your table involves so much more: every Lou’s pizza is handmade from scratch to order, because pan-crafted perfection is worth waiting for.

Let's break this down.

Learn more about Lou’s pan-crafted pizzas from our flavorful patina and hand-selected California tomatoes to impressive tableside cheese pulls.

It all starts with a pan.

And these aren't your ordinary pizza pans.

As the foundation of thousands of deep dish and Chicago thin crust pizzas, these pans have seen it all. After weeks of “seasoning” in our kitchen, our pans develop a flavorful patina, making our pizzas uniquely Lou’s.

Next is the foundation: the dough.

Our secret-family-recipe dough is made in-house every single day.

Then our deep dish experts gently pat the dough by hand to form Lou's signature flaky, buttery crust.

True Chicago-style pizza crust is actually rather thin but sturdy enough to hold the delicious toppings. Ours is unmatched in flavor and taste!

Bring on the CHEESE!

You heard that right.

It may seem backwards, but our deep dish pizza is made with slices of mozzarella cheese that are placed directly on the dough. This is key for the ultimate cheese stretch.

Quality and consistency is vital to our recipe and we have sourced our cheese from the same Wisconsin dairy farm for more than 40 years.

Getting saucy...

Sometimes the simplest things are also the tastiest and our sauce is no exception.

Lou's exclusive blend of vine-ripened tomatoes is hand-spread over the cheese and pressed into the pizza.

Each year a team from Malnati’s goes to California and meets personally with the tomato growers. The finest vine-ripened tomatoes are then blended and canned exclusively for Lou Malnati's use.