One interesting gift we received for Christmas was a Pizza Passport. (It was such a great idea, I bought one to give as a gift, and also received one from someone else.) These are nifty little "passport" sized booklets made for a number of major US cities, listing the prominent independent pizzerias in the metro area. For each restaurant, one can find basic information on location, history and specialty pizza, and after visiting, you can record and rate your experience. So we have our project for the coming year! Many of the places listed in the Birmingham passport are familiar to us. A few are new to us. One that is listed unfortunately closed permanently earlier last year. And a couple we like are not listed; but the book has several blank pages to record those.
So we began the Great Pizza Journey of 2026 last night at Tortugas Homemade Pizza of Hoover, Alabama (there is a second location on southside Birmingham). This is a venerable old shop we've visited before, but not for many years. It is the area's only pizzeria devoted to Chicago-style deep dish pizza. It was founded in 1999 by Carlos Vizcaino, an immigrant from Ecuador with ties to Chicagoland. Inside the shop are many Chicago flavored wall decorations: newspaper clippings, photographs, sports jerseys, and the like. Ambiance is bare-bones strip mall casual. There is a generous amount of table seating in the two "wings" each side of the kitchen area, but on a Saturday night we saw the place fill quickly, with several waiting to be seated as we left. When we arrived, we were quickly seated, but waited about 15 minutes to first be served. Once our server finally arrived, things went smoothly. We ordered drinks to enjoy during the advised 45 minute wait for our deep dish pizza to be baked. We ordered the passport's recommended pie, the Wrigleyville, with smoked sausage, Italian sausage, green bell peppers and onions. (Tortugas also does standard thin crust pizza which arrives much faster, based on what we could see of nearby patrons.) Our pie was worth waiting for, as the server no doubt routinely assures impatient customers. Light, crisp crunchy crust envelopes a generous amount of fillings, cheese, and sauce. The sauce is tangy, with rich tomato flavor and a hint of herbs. Knife and forks, and a sufficient amount of napkins are provided to enjoy this hearty pizza, a worthy example of the Chicago style. It was indeed worth the wait.
Passport score: 4 of 5
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| Tortugas of Hoover, Alabama |
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| Casual, with Chicagoland memorabilia everywhere |
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| The Wrigleyville pizza |
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