America loves to get extra with just about everything, and few foods exemplify the country’s reputation for both excess and reinvention like deep-dish pizza. Decades before today’s over-the-top food trends, a Chicago restaurant took the classic cheese-sauce-dough combo to new heights... literally. In 1943, The Pizzeria (now known as Pizzeria Uno) debuted a behemoth of a pie bound by a towering crust, and boom — the Windy City’s fascination with deep-dish pizza began. Decades later, devotion to this Chicago staple has spread far beyond the confines of the city. These Food Network-approved restaurants across the country offer their own take on that tall, buttery crust encircling a molten mass of cheese, toppings and sauce. Just be sure to have a knife, fork and plenty of napkins on hand, because a foldable slice this sure isn’t.

Chicago native Dave Lichterman reps his home city hard with deep-dish pies inspired by the favorites he loved growing up. Take the addictively crisp, cheese-encrusted edges, for instance. "The cheese edge is a combination of Maillard browning and caramelization, a trick I learned from watching the late master Burt Katz," Lichterman says. His dough recipe nods to Papa Del’s pies in Champaign, Illinois, where Lichterman attended college. "The dough itself is spongier, sweeter, more brioche-like than most Chicago-style pan pies." Building upon the ideas of others may well be a practice he carried over from his background in software engineering, an industry known for fostering innovation through collaboration. The resulting pies have made Lichterman, who started the business as a delivery-only operation in 2015, a pizza heavyweight in his own right.

Deep-dish lovers, 312 Pizza Company has your number. When a trio of Chi-Town transplants couldn’t find any Chicago-style pizza that passed muster in Music City, they decided to start cooking their own. "We make our dough and sauce every day from scratch and use a very high-quality flour that is never bleached and never bromated," says co-owner Staci Bockman. Their roll of the dough has paid off, with enough demand to open a second locale just four years after their first space (which was featured on Buy This Restaurant) opened in 2014. Though they also serve thin-crust pizza, Chicago-style dogs and sandwiches, the dish that dominates is the deep-dish pie. Carnivores can’t get enough of The Capone with its meaty medley of sausage, pepperoni, bacon and Italian beef.

Co-founders Francisco "Patxi" Azpiroz and Bill Freeman really know how to "dough" for it. Before the first Patxi’s Pizza opened in 2004, Azpiroz spent nearly two years tinkering with pizza recipes that he and Freeman repeatedly taste-tested before deciding on their ideal version. That dedication has paid off for the pair, who have since opened more than a dozen locations in three states. They source naturally cured meats and hormone-free cheeses from artisanal purveyors that include Creminelli Fine Meats, Fra’ Mani and Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co. Mounds of stringy, melty mozzarella, nitrate-free meats and fresh veggies come encased in a crisp, flaky crust that’s slathered with homemade sauce.