Recent Netflix favorite Emily in Paris features its titular character — played by Lily Collins — talking all sorts of trash about her home city of Chicago and one of its most famous pizza joints. When Emily Cooper (Collins) moves to Paris for a new job opportunity at a luxury marketing firm in Paris, she discovers that her new bosses aren’t fans of Chicago deep-dish pizza, with one comparing it to a “quiche made of cement.” That’s a solid dig, to which Cooper quips, “Oh no, you must have gone to Lou Malnati’s.”
Damn, Emily! That’s a Jon Stewart level deep-dish burn. One that Chicago pizza staple, Lou Malnati’s, is getting pretty deep in their feelings about. The chain’s current owner, Marc Malnati, issued the following statement:
“We’ve been serving Chicago’s favorite Deep Dish since 1971. When Netflix’s Emily in Paris writers chose to take a shot at Chicagoans and our pizza to try to get a laugh, it felt heartless and not humorous in the midst of COVID-19.”
To be fair to Emily in Paris, according to the Chicago Tribune the show was filmed over a year ago and written well before the coronavirus would wreck America’s restaurant industry. On the flip side, we’re sure if this was any other year Malnati would’ve come back with a deep dish sized quip — pizza makers love a good quip! As it stands, Malnati’s comments are a reminder that even as states continue to reopen and hospitalizations start to decline, our local restaurants and eateries are still struggling to get by.
So maybe grab a pie tonight from your favorite local joint (or one of ours).
