On the hunt for Pope Leo’s hometown deep dish in Rome

About this episode

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson travels to Rome to meet Pope Leo the 14th and search for deep dish pizza.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is traveling to Rome this week to meet with Pope Leo the 14th. Before he left, he repeated his now common catchphrase: JOHNSON: Everything dope, including the pope, comes from the greatest freaking city in the world. Well, that includes deep dish pizza, which the Chicago-born pope has a soft spot for. There’s plenty of pizza in Rome, but can he get his fix of the Chicago classic? WBEZ’s Mariah Woelfel and the Sun-Times Zubaer Khan are in Rome and visited several pizzerias to find out. HOST: LARA

People in this episode

Host: Lara

Guests: Mariah Woelfel, Zubaer Khan

Topics covered

• Pope
• deep dish pizza
• Chicago
• Rome
• travel
• food

Keywords

• Pope Leo
• deep dish pizza
• Chicago
• Rome
• Brandon Johnson
• WBEZ
• food

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: WBEZ, Sun-Times

Places: Rome, Chicago

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• Mayor Brandon Johnson will meet with Pope Leo the 14th tomorrow, in Rome. · May 27, 2026 · 4 min