Yummy Box Serves up Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza

Ahead of this year's Pizza Cup and Festival, we are serving up bite-sized details about this year's participants in a series we call Pizza Mania. This time we bring you Yummy Box.

If there's one thing we've learnt over the years of running the Pizza Cup, it's that there's no right or wrong answer when it comes to pizza bases. Maybe you like it thin and crispy. Maybe you prefer it charred and chewy, Neopolitan-style. Maybe you like to wallow in the oozy confines of a super-thick crust.

If you fall into that last category, then you will definitely like Yummy Box, specialists in Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. Established in Huilongguan in 2006, owners Nick Ran and Ivy Li originally concentrated on reproducing New York-style thin crust pizzas in Beijing. Following a trip to Chicago, they decided to tinker with their offering and include the deep and cheesy pies they had enjoyed in the Windy City, and have since expanded their empire to locations in Wudaokou and Wangjing.

If you're not familiar with Chicago-style pizza, last year the Beijinger editor Kyle Mullin described it thus: "[The] characteristically tall crusts hold about three times the cheese, sauce and toppings normally spread across a flatbread style pizza. The pies take longer to cook and are generally assembled in the opposite order of a typical thin-crust pie, with the cheese and toppings going at the bottom while the sauce is ladled on top."

Although we strongly recommend grabbing a few friends and heading over just for the deep-dish, we'd be remiss if we didn't tell you that Yummy Box's equally popular New York style pizzas come in 20 different flavors, each available as a 10, 16, or 20-inch pie. Toppings include four cheese, spicy chicken, and pepperoni, to name but a few.

The Chicago-style pies may seem pricey at RMB 148-168 for just nine inches but in reality, just one of these hefty offerings is more than enough to feed three hungry people. If you still have room left over, Yummy Box also serve a selection of salads and sides, including fries, potato wedges, and fried chicken. Dianping reviewers at all three locations rave about the Super Box Chicago-style pizza, filled to the brim with onions, Italian sausage, pepperoni, bacon, chicken, black olives, jalapeños, and mozzarella (try saying all that without taking a breath). All three locations also offer delivery within a 3km radius - see contact numbers on their website (yummyboxcn.com) or order via Dianping.

Did that whet your appetite? Then click here to continue nibbling all of our tasty Pizza Mania coverage.

Tickets are still on sale for our October 15-16 Pizza Fest (yup, that's this coming weekend!) at the Zaha Hadid-designed Wangjing SOHO. Tickets are limited so buy ahead to make sure you don't miss out! Click here to purchase.

Already have your tickets? Then make sure to plan ahead early by knowing how to get to the event venue. Click here to get directions via subway, bus, taxi, car, or even by bike!