About Steve
Steve Dolinsky has won 13 James Beard Awards for his TV, radio and podcast work. He’s currently the Food Reporter (aka “The Food Guy”) on NBC 5 Chicago. From 2003 – 2021 he was the Food Reporter for ABC 7 Chicago. His “Hungry Hound” reports aired twice a week, covering a range of food and drink-related topics. He also was Co-Creator/Host of The Feed Podcast with Chef Rick Bayless (which garnered a Beard award in 2015 for best podcast) and has written or filed reports about food for the Chicago Tribune, Canada’s Globe and Mail, and Public Radio International’s “The World.” In 2018 he published “Pizza City, USA: 101 Reasons Why Chicago Is America’s Greatest Pizza Town” (Northwestern University Press), the first book of its kind, documenting all of the available styles of pizza in the region, with rankings. The follow-up – “The Ultimate Chicago Pizza Guide” -contains recipes, history and much more.
Before joining ABC 7, Steve was Executive Producer and Host of “Good Eating.” The weekly, half-hour show aired on CLTV, the 24-hour cable news channel owned by The Tribune Company. He produced and hosted 52 shows per year for 8 years, garnering six Beard Awards for his work there.
You can follow his eating adventures on Twitter and Instagram @stevedolinsky, and read his blog posts at stevedolinsky.com
About the Book
Steve Dolinsky had seen one too many “7 Hottest Pizza Places in Town” listicles online, when he decided to take the task upon himself. Rather than rely on dubious, biased pizza reviews, he made it his mission to tackle as many places as he could in the city and suburbs, all while documenting the good, the mediocre and the downright overrated. Over the course of a year, he managed to sample pizzas from 185 locations, whittling it down to his top 101 spots. The research led to two major epiphanies: first of all, Chicago is a “thin” town, since most of the pizzerias in the region specialize in “tavern-style” pizza that’s square-cut, thin and crispy. Second, the reason the Windy City is “Pizza City, USA,” is because there are 10 distinctive styles of pizza, rather than the paltry five they have in New York. In order to prove his point, Steve also tackled 60 places in the New York City region over the course of four months (documented here). “Pizza City USA” features Steve’s top 5 choices in every major category, separated by city and suburbs. His follow-up, “The Ultimate Chicago Pizza Guide” includes recipes, beer pairings, deeper reporting on some urban pizza myths and another 102 must-visit pizzerias in Chicago.
