Floriole Bakery Offering Amazing Pizza - Chicago

To call Floriole's pizza transporting is no effusive hyperbole.

On a recent Friday evening at the Lincoln Park bakery, we bit into a slice of potato pizza and felt, for a moment, as though we were at the dearly departed Great Lake. As with the lauded Andersonville pizza restaurant, which closed earlier this year, pizza at Floriole is artful, rigorously local and, at its best, revelatory.

Bread baker Rachel Post is the mastermind behind the pies, fermenting her dough overnight for substantial flavor and chew. The pies are only available Friday and Saturday nights, when the bakery stays open until 9 p.m. with a petite menu of salads and pizzas.

White pizza ($20) is as delicate as starch-on-starch can be, with petals of shaved potatoes atop garlic-lemon crème fraîche, tarragon and chives, finished with a drizzle of beaten egg yolk and a scattering of pickled ramps. It was as unusual and unexpected as it was delicious. Red pizza ($24) is a more conventional composition, layered with fresh ricotta, thin swaths of mortadella, and a crown of arugula dressed with olive oil and lemon.

The perk of dinner in a bakery is that a sweet ending is guaranteed: Finish with a warm fruit galette with a scoop of ice cream ($8).