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Alfonso Tornabene, who opened Villa Nova more than half a century ago, is better known for his alleged role high up in the Chicago Outfit where he was known as “the Pizza Man.” Tornabene died in 2009 and the business is now run by his daughter, Mary Adamczyk, and her husband Sonny. Owned by the same family and in the same location for 55 years, this place puts out one of the best tavern cut pizzas in Chicagoland.
—Daniel Zemans from Chicago Tribune
Obsession with Sausage
Why are Chicagoans so obsessed with Italian sausage on pizza?
Sausage is the Np. 1 topping at Villa Nova in suburban Stickney, another practitioner of tavern-style thin crust. The pizzeria gets its fennel-heavy sausage blend prepared specially for it by the same meat shop it’s worked with since 1955.
Villa Nova is not shy with its application of sausage. In fact, it goes further than most. Each sausage pizza comes with golf-ball-sized pieces of Italian sausage positioned precisely on the thin crust in a grid pattern so that every square slice has a sausage right in the middle.
—Nick Kindelsperger from Chicago Tribune
Obsession with Sausage
Why are Chicagoans so obsessed with Italian sausage on pizza?
Sausage is the Np. 1 topping at Villa Nova in suburban Stickney, another practitioner of tavern-style thin crust. The pizzeria gets its fennel-heavy sausage blend prepared specially for it by the same meat shop it’s worked with since 1955.
Villa Nova is not shy with its application of sausage. In fact, it goes further than most. Each sausage pizza comes with golf-ball-sized pieces of Italian sausage positioned precisely on the thin crust in a grid pattern so that every square slice has a sausage right in the middle.
—Nick Kindelsperger from Chicago Tribune
Steve's Top Pick
In Stickney, just East of Harlem Avenue, Villa Nova produces the best tavern-style in the suburbs, which means a cracker-like crust beneath a blanket of part-skim mozzarella and pecorino romano, plus fennel sausage and deep-red pureed tomatoes. The dough rests overnight and pizzas are baked in a rotating deck oven until they emerge golden brown around the edges.
—Steve Dolinsky from ABC7’s Hungry Hound
