Calling all pizza and beer lovers in Tokyo!
If you’re a fan of excellent deep dish pizza faithfully made in the traditional Chicago style, and you’re crazy about fine non-commercial beer from local and international microbreweries, then make a pilgrimage to Devil Craft.
This recently opened establishment is located just a short 2 minutes walk from the south exit of Kanda JR station. Devil Craft’s philosophy is to pair ‘full-flavored craft beer with legendary Chicago-style pizza’, and the menu (which is in both English and Japanese) certainly stayed very true to this.
My first visit to Devil Craft was on a cold, dark, rainy night, and the bright warm lights from within, and the friendly staff who ushered me and my party of eight inside instantly gave the place a warm and welcoming appeal.
The separate food and drinks menus were reasonably priced and provided thoughtful and expert details on each type of pizza and beer. Everything on the food menu, which is also vegetarian friendly, looked tempting but we decided to go for two Chicago-style pizzas; ‘The Big Cheese’ and ‘The Devil Works’, and a classic pizza; ‘The Greek’.
Chicago-style (deep dish) pizza is very chunky with a thick doughy crust, and the centre is deeper than classic Italian-style pizza (which is thinner with a crispy crust). This allows it to be filled with a very generous amount of cheese, tomato sauce and various other fresh toppings, and we ate our pizza with a knife and fork.
Even though it was a busy Saturday evening (and despite there being a warning that the deep dish pizza can take up to one hour to cook), our pizzas arrived fairly quickly and we dug into the sinfully scrumptious slices, accompanied by delectable beer, and a bottle of ‘The Velvet Devil’; a wickedly smooth merlot.
The craft beers we picked (among many others) to tickle our taste buds were: Stone IPA (California, USA); this beer was amber coloured and hop heavy, giving it a crisp, mellow bitterness with a strong Pine aroma, and Shiga Porter (Nagano, Japan); a mahogany coloured, cask conditioned beer that smelt and tasted like coffee and chocolate.
The craft beers on offer were sourced from many different breweries in Japan, from places like Tottori prefecture in the south, to Akita and Morioka cities in the north of Honshu Island, as well as brews from the US. The beer menu constantly changes to offer beer fans the chance to try limited edition rare beers which are difficult to find elsewhere in Tokyo.
With our bellies full and our palates satisfied we reluctantly left the refuge of the warm glowing premises to brave the stormy journey home.
I shall most certainly be coming back for more…
‘Craftbeer and Pizza…a match made in Heaven and served up in HELL!’ (Devil Craft)
(The Devil Craft website is available in English and Japanese. I recommend you call ahead to book a table to avoid disappointment.)
