There are many controversies over Chicago style pizza. Let's start with the main one. What do local Chicagoans eat? I see all the time people from the Chicago suburbs claiming that real Chicagoans don't eat deep dish pizza. Well I don't know if the live in Deerfield or if they live in Schaumburg but they certainly don't live in Chicago. While Chicagoans eat NY style, Quad Cities Style and Chicago style thin crust, there is still lots of people ordering deep dish. We had pizza in our house today which we ordered from Roots. Roots is known for Quad Cities style pizza. There are probably more pizzas being served by Roots in Chicago compared to all of the Quad Cities places. When it comes to Deep Dish the most famous of all is Lou Malnati's. We love Lou Mals. It not just because they use our chairs at some of their locations. My favorite Deep Dish place is called Pequod's. If you are in Chicago and haven't tried Pequod's you need to put in on your list. They have the best crust because they bake Parmesan into it. They also use some kind of spectacular giant sausage for their Italian sausage pizza. While it is possible to eat a Chicago slice with your hands, there is nothing wrong with using a knife and fork. This isn't New York.
There are the tourist places like Uno's, Due's and Gino's East. There are old standbys like Giordano's and there are local places that serve thin crust pizza cut into squares. Pat's South Loop would fall into the thin pizza made into squares.
My favorite thin crust pizza is from Barnaby's Northbrook. There are several locations. Make sure you go to the Northbrook location only. This was the pizza that I grew up with. They were one of the very few places in Northbrook that served beer. There were even fewer places that served beer and had the game on TV.