Pizza in Hanover Park

Taylor Street Pizza dishes out succulent Italian-American fare in a family-friendly sports-bar atmosphere. Gather friends to watch a football game or an emotional rerun of the Airwolf finale while noshing on a bouquet of crusty breadsticks or a platter of spicy or barbecue chicken wings. A large handmade pizza arrives doused in Taylor Street's signature tomato sauce and festooned with two toppings, including options such as canadian bacon, anchovies, eggplant, and giardiniera. Sips of fizzy, refreshing soda clear palates and extinguish spicy mouth fires. Diners can indulge in their delicious bounty in a Taylor Street Pizza dining room, carry their meals home, or request for it to be delivered to the inflatable ballpit of their choosing.

True Italian meals require the entire family. So to make corralling kin easier, Sir Nick's Pizza prepares and delivers their Italian and American dishes straight to dining rooms. The chefs can stock deliveries with grinders topped with meatballs, family-sized portions of meat ravioli, and the house's pizzas. They customize pies with up to three ingredients, or serve specialty varieties such as the SOB with sausage, onion, and bacon atop a barbecue sauce. Chefs also fry a range of vegetables into dippable appetizers, creating fried potato skins, breaded mushrooms, and jalapeno poppers. They cap off their primary fare by making traditional Italian desserts such as cannoli or American favorites such as chocolate chip cheesecake—the first dessert to be argued over on the moon.

Following in the footsteps of their father, the three Coli brothers aim to capture the flavors and traditions of classic Chicago cuisine with their slate of hearty comfort fare. Backed by a team of chefs, they forge Georgio's Chicago Pizzeria and Pub’s trademark deep-dish pizzas from a more than 60-year-old recipe, kept hidden to preserve its authenticity and hand-model-caliber hands. The hefty pies, along with their crispy thin-crust cohorts, were declared the best pizza in McHenry County by readers of the Northwest Herald, and helped the eatery garner a slot on Pizza Today magazine’s list of the Hot 100 Independent pizzerias in 2011. The brothers complement their acclaimed creations with a roster of pasta and sandwiches, dished up amid a sleek, upscale sports-bar atmosphere. Both locations are decked out in flat-screen TVs and reclaimed exposed brick.. The comfortable environs regularly play host to fundraisers and events, such as dinners that pair the Coli brothers’ prize-winning pizzas with a lineup of craft beers on tap.

Cousins Pizza Pub boasts a menu of specialty pizzas padded with sandwiches and salads. Appetizers such as fried zucchini ($6) and mini tacos ($6.25) introduce pizzas founded on a range of crusts including thin, double-dough, pan, and stuffed. The cheeseburger pizza protects its cargo from roving Hamburglars by offering a pizza disguise to beef, american cheese, mayo, lettuce, and tomato ($16.50–$24), and chicken alfredo pizza tops pies with grilled chicken and a cream sauce usually reserved for flavoring pastas and styling angel hair ($13.50–$20). The strip steak sandwich also offers an alternative delivery system for a forkable classic accented by onions and a choice of american, mozzarella, or swiss cheeses ($9.50), and the Julienne salad mingles turkey and ham with cheese and hard-boiled egg ($7.25).

Old Town serves saucy pastas, cheesy sandwiches, and pizzas in varying dimensions. Build your own medium cheese pie on one of five crusts: thin ($12.50); double dough ($13.65); or deep dish, Chicago style, or Sicilian-style stuffed, which has all four smaller crusts stuffed inside it ($15.40 each). Choose from one of Old Town's specialty 'zas, such as a medium veggie ($19.20), barbecue chicken ($17.90), or the meat-tastic Butcher's Block ($19.20). Pasta dishes are all less than $10, and include noodley hits such as baked lasagna and chicken parmesan ($9.55 each). Old Town also specializes in subs, burgers, and sandwiches ($6.25 and under), as well as fried panzarotti and baked calzones, otherwise known as Italian Hot Pockets ($7.50–8.95).

Zio Giovanni's hardworking pizza architects and pasta chefs tantalize palates with savory pies and mouthwatering plates of traditional Italian cuisine. Ladlefuls of house-made sauce drape noodles in tasty coats of rich pomodoro, tangy puttanesca, and creamy alfredo, as flavorful toppings such as plum tomatoes, peppers, and artichoke hearts crown toasty pizzas. The charming interior tastefully frames Italian feasts with cloth-clad tables and mirrored walls, while facilitating human-chess tournaments with earth-toned checkered floors.