Albano’s Pizzeria

Pizza Stop #42:

Albano’s Pizzeria
5913 W. Roosevelt
Cicero, IL
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In for todays review, we have “Albano’s Pizzeria” in Cicero, IL. This one has come recommended quite a few times not for their pizza, but for their “giant pizza puff” which is what they are well known for.

I unfortunately cannot comment on the service or atmosphere here as I ordered this one using a Uber Eats coupon I had.

Here I ordered their “Giant Pizza Puff” with pepperoni and a medium Sausage pizza. Both items were priced about average.

Many places in the city also sell these “giant pizza puffs” but most call them either a calzone or panzerotti but they’re all basically just a medium pizza folded in half. I’ve yet to have a bad one so this was what I was most excited to try.

As expected, the pizza puff did not not disappoint. This one was honestly one of the biggest I’ve had so far and was REALLY packed inside. I’m guessing it was at least 3lbs with most of that being just the cheese and fillings inside. I I forgot to put something next to it in the photo so you can get an idea of the scale / size of it, but this thing was about the size of a football, if not a little bigger.

The cheese in this one was very flavorful and the sauce while not the most exciting, worked well and tasted good. Unfortunately there was very little pepperoni’s inside compared to other restaurants I’ve had these at. I got pepperoni in a few bites, but for most part it seemed like it was mostly cheese. Still not a bad thing as it tasted great, but thats just not what I paid for.

While not an issue with the product itself, I always prefer to get these baked. When deep fried the dough seems to soak up too much oil and gives the whole thing a really overwhelming greasy flavor. Not just here, but everywhere I’ve had them fried. Bake it and it’ll taste a lot more like a pizza is supposed to. I did not see the option online to do it baked but perhaps in store they’ll give you the option. If they do, thats definitely how I’ll recommend getting it.

I picked up a pizza as well because I figured since they’re well known for their pizza puff, their pizza must be good too right?

Nope. Wrong. This was one of the worst pizzas I’ve had on my journey so far. Everything in it was just so flavorless and bland. I’ve had $1 slices that tasted better than this pizza. Shoot, 7/11 pizzas are packed with flavor compared to this. There is not many pizzas I won’t eat, but this was one of them. I assure you I really tried to power through it as the last thing I like doing is buying food and letting it go to waste. However, every bite was filled with such disappointment that I just couldn’t eat anymore. My wife and kids didn’t like it either and all only ate a single slice or less. Sadly more than half of the pizza sat in my fridge for a few days till eventually it just went in the trash. I’m not sure if they seasoned the pizza puff differently or if perhaps the ingredients just worked in larger quantities, but it was rather surprising to get a great pizza puff but such a poor quality pizza.

The rating on this page will reflect the pizza but I wanted to point out that I will give the pizza puff a solid 8.8