DevilCraft: Chicago Pizza and Beer in Tokyo (and a quick look at the other pizza places)

Last year, I wrote about DevilCraft, a restaurant in Kanda that specializes in craft beer and Chicago-style pizza. Well, I've been back a few times since, with several of my friends, coworkers, and students. I figure it's about time that I show you a few pictures.

The restaurant takes up three tiny floors of a building near Kanda Station. The first floor is a bar, while the second and third floors have restaurant-style tables. I tend to get a Hoegaarden at some point every time I go, and on this particular trip it was my first drink.

A handful of appetizers are available - waffle fries (below), buffalo-style chicken wings, veggies (above), salsa or avocado dip with tortilla chips, and gyoza - in addition to some snacks like nuts and edamame.

The fries are pretty good, especially since waffle fries aren't very common around here. Look closely at the above picture and you'll see all the beer taps in the background.

This is a hand pump, though I've never seen anything advertised as being served from a hand pump. [And then I look at their website as I type up this post, and notice that they do have a beer served from the hand pump.]

So, how's the pizza? Pretty good. Different pizzas give different results. The two most-expensive pizzas (deluxe at 3100 yen and Meatzilla at a whopping 3700 yen) have more fillings and thus come out more Chicago-style-ish. The ones with less variety of toppings/fillings seem to have a bit more tomato sauce instead of more of each topping. Normally I wouldn't mind, but it does make the pizza a bit more runny.

As the only Chicago pizza place in town (as far as I know), it's hard to compare, but the pizza and beer is good, and it's as authentic as you can probably get in Japan.

I've sampled some of the other pizza choices in Japan, so here's a quick rundown.

Pizza-La is a major chain here, just like Domino's and Pizza Hut in America. They serve unique pizza by American tastes, with toppings including corn and mayonnaise appearing randomly among the offerings (even on a "meat" pizza I picked up once). Japanese pizza is generally served on thin crust and the toppings are exotic by American standards.

Domino's Pizza has established itself here in Japan, and they serve fairly standard pizza. The only crust I've tried is the thinner Japanese-style crust, and the pizza didn't have very much flavor. Like Pizza-La, Domino's uses different ingredients from what one might find on an American pizza.

The other big delivery company is Pizza Hut, also transplanted from the US. They, too, offer pizzas with strange toppings, and their frequent fliers in my mailbox advertise their "Four" pizzas, with four different sets of toppings for each person in the family or group. They are quite strange combinations, and many of them come drizzled with mayonnaise. But they do offer a few pizzas similar to US style pizzas, and their pan pizza crust has pretty good flavor. They have filled-crust pizzas, with cheese or sausage, though I haven't tried those. The meat lover's pizza I've had a few times has a lot of toppings and is delicious!

Keep in mind that Japanese pizza sizes are much smaller. I'd eat 2-3 pan pizza slices and be happy in America, but it takes half a medium pizza to keep me satisfied here.

Sbarro offers authentic (at least, as authentic as Sbarro is in America) New York style pizza in Shibuya (and probably a few other places). The slices are a bit expensive but are larger - two slices are certainly enough for me here. They had Chicago style pizza slices the last few times I went as well, though they aren't really as thick as Chicago pizza is supposed to be.

As before, I'm always looking for more pizza places to try, so shoot your suggestions my way via comment or email!