Who doesn’t love a delectable slice of pizza? Fortunately, with dozens of restaurants serving up delicious pies throughout Southeastern Wisconsin, there are plenty of options for everyone. Whether you prefer thin crust, stuffed crust or something in-between, you’ll enjoy this tasty sampling as we dive into five local favorites that have let us in on their stories behind the slices!
Dan Biagi of Larducci
20 S. Washington St, Elkhorn
262.723.6668
larducci.com
Larducci has been selling handmade pizzas for more than 20 years!
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What is the history behind Larducci?
Prior to opening Larducci, I worked at a restaurant in Chicago and observed people making hundreds of pizzas a night, all by hand. I was impressed by that and taught myself the basic fundamentals of pizza making. From there, I decided to come back to my hometown of Elkhorn, where I was fortunate enough to find a good location and opened Larducci in 1997.
What style of pizza do you serve?
Our pizza is all thin crust. We make everything by hand—we don’t even have a mixer. The majority of our pizzas are rolled out with a rolling pin. We also source some of our ingredients from local vendors. Our Italian sausage, Italian rope sausage, Canadian bacon, and andouille sausage is made by Hometown Sausage Kitchen in East Troy, and all of our mushrooms come from River Valley Ranch & Kitchens in Burlington.
What are some of your popular or specialty pizzas?
Our Shrimp Scampi pizza is one of our best sellers. We use American Gulf Shrimp with a garlic butter base, and when it comes out, we hit it with lemon and parmesan. Another premiere pizza is the Larducci Veggie #1, which has eggplant, zucchini, squash, asparagus, and leeks. It looks beautiful, it’s tasty, and it’s very popular.
Chad Bittner of Next Door Pub & Pizzeria
411 Interchange N, Lake Geneva
262.248.9551
nextdoorpub.com
A local favorite, Next Door Pub & Pizzeria makes its pizzas on a stone hearth.
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What is the history behind Next Door Pub & Pizzeria?
We purchased the restaurant back in 2005 from our next-door neighbors. It was a Lake Geneva staple dating back to 1973, and we wanted to essentially start an evolution of the Next Door Pub. We’ve added-on multiple times, and we’ve gutted out every section of the restaurant. This is the locals’ place to meet and eat. We pride ourselves on taking care of our locals, providing a family-friendly environment with family-friendly pricing, and I think that’s really the key to everything that we do here.
What style of pizza do you serve?
We have a thin, cracker-style crust, and our pizzas are stone-hearth fired. Everything is done from scratch. Every day we make all of our own sauces, grate our own cheese, and cut our own vegetables. Our sausage is also custom-made for us in Chicago and brought up fresh—it’s never frozen. A lot of our suppliers are local, which truly makes a difference!
What are some of your popular or specialty pizzas?
We have our famous Geneva Meat Monster pizza, which is one of our staples, and it has sausage, pepperoni, ham, bacon, and cheese. We also recently added a cheeseburger pizza to our menu. It’s topped with our “Pub secret sauce,” hamburger meat, bacon, onions, and pickle slices, as well as cheddar and mozzarella cheese. That one is really just blowing people away.
Joeleen Gallegos of Jojo’s Pizza & Pasta
308 State Highway 50, Delavan
262.728.5656
jojospizzadelavan.net
Jojo’s Pizza & Pasta is a family business that loves its customers so much, there’s a pizza named after one of them!
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What is the history behind Jojo’s Pizza & Pasta?
My husband, Ramiro, has worked in the pizza industry for over 20 years. We were working at a small pizzeria in Williams Bay, and decided that we were going to open one ourselves. We found this location for rent in Delavan, so we came here, started fixing the place up, and opened in July of 2011. It’s a family-owned business and has been a really neat adventure for us.
What style of pizza do you serve?
Our pizza is Chicago style. We serve a Chicago thin crust, a pan and a stuffed crust. Everything we offer is homemade including our crust. We use fresh, quality ingredients and we cut our vegetables in-house. We’re here to give our customers a good quality product and we want to serve food that everybody loves.
What are some of your popular or specialty pizzas?
One of our specialty pizzas and a customer favorite is our Garbage Pizza. It has pretty much everything on it including sausage, bacon, ham, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, black and green olives, and hot peppers. We also have a pizza called The Howie, which was named after a customer. It’s made with barbeque sauce, sausage, bacon, and mozzarella cheese. We started it from scratch, and had Howie tasting the pizzas that we would come up with. Of course, this is Howie’s favorite pizza now!
Luis Sierra of Luis’s Pizza
W3410 S Lake Shore Dr, Lake Geneva
262.248.6810
luisspizza.com
Luis’s Pizza makes two different recipes for pizza sauce to match with the seasons.
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What is the history behind Luis’s Pizza?
I’ve lived in the Lake Geneva area for 25 years and have been in the food and restaurant business for more than 20 years. This restaurant is something I decided to do for my family, so I could teach my kids how to run a food business. We bought this place in spring of 2016 and have completely changed the menu and the name to become Luis’s Pizza. We run a true family business.
What style of pizza do you serve?
We offer thin crust pizza and regular pizza crust. I make two different recipes for pizza sauce—a light, fresh recipe for summertime and another one that’s a little heavier, with rich flavors for the winter months. I use imported peeled tomatoes from Italy and in the summertime, I add some local tomatoes from farmers around the area. And I use Wisconsin cheese!
What are some of your popular or specialty pizzas?
Our Margherita pizza is really popular because it is light and flavorful with red sauce, tomato, fresh basil, fresh spinach, fresh mozzarella, and balsamic glaze. Our Meat Lovers pizza is another popular one that is heavier and has mild sausage, pepperoni, gyro, and Italian beef. People really like it!
Ron Mikrut of Upper Crust Pizzeria and Pub
262.279.2233
N1070 Co. Hwy H, Pell Lake
With Chicago roots and two styles of pizza, Upper Crust Pizzeria and Pub has delighted customers for decades.
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What is the history behind Upper Crust Pizzeria and Pub?
2019 begins our 60th year in the restaurant business. It started as Ronnie’s Dog House in Chicago in 1959 in the Pilsen neighborhood with a hot dog push cart, which still can be seen at our restaurant. We had a summer home in Pell Lake, and we made the move to live here full-time in the 1970s and have been here ever since. We opened up the business right away and here we are today—I’d do it all over again!
What style of pizza do you serve?
The biggest part of our business is our Chicago-style thin crust pizza and our Sicilian-style pizzas. All of our dough and ingredients are prepared fresh daily. We have 16 thin crust pizzas on our menu named as “Our Favorites” plus 23 different Sicilian-style pizzas. We don’t just make pizza—we make pizza better!
What are some of your popular or specialty pizzas?
Our best-selling pizza, and the pizza I like best, is our Chicago Style with sausage, mushrooms, onion, and green peppers. That’s popular in both the thin crust and the Sicilian style. More and more customers are trying our Sicilian-style pizzas and really loving them. We also have our pepperoni pizza and sausage pizza that are customer favorites.
By: Kristi Thom
Photography by: Matt Haas
