Chicago's life-changing pizza is a familiar feast even to those outside the Windy City, but certain styles of pie have remained something of a strange new frontier for actor Sir Patrick Stewart.
On Sunday, the Shakespearean acting legend (or Capt. Jean Luc Picard/Professor Xavier, depending on your generation) tweeted a photo of himself digging into a slice of deep dish at Gino's East:
"He was at Gino's East. My manager ran right up to him and starting gushing," the server who waited on Stewart and declined to be named told HuffPost Chicago. "Needless to say, I got to speak to him and tell him he is amazing! He was so nice."
(See photos of Sir Patrick Stewart playing with his food, below.)
Stewart's recent pizza proclivities have been buzzed-about food news in recent days ever since the 72-year-old actor tweeted a photo of himself last Wednesday eating his "first-ever 'slice.'"
While many wondered how anyone could go so long without having tasted the wonders of pizza, New York magazine later clarified the actor's comments:
"People misunderstood. There was a school of thought that I had eaten my first pizza, but of course how could that possibly be true? I would have had to have stayed locked up in a cellar. But nevertheless, this was my first slice of pizza, which I was only eating because my fiancée and I were a little hung-over yesterday morning..."
It was specifically the fold-and-eat New York-style slice that was actually a "first" for the actor; Stewart told New York Magazine, "When it was brought over to me, my first comment was, 'there's no knife and fork.' Of course, I was mocked for thinking that I could eat a pizza slice with a knife and fork."
Stewart, who was in town for a Star Trek convention in suburban Rosemont, seemed to be more at home with the Chicago-style slice — knife, fork and all.
During his weekend in Chicago, Stewart delighted more than just Gino's East servers and convention-goers. The Sun-Times reports the actor popped up at the Improvised Shakespeare Company show Friday evening at iO Theatre. The evening's improv title was "The Taming of Winnie-the-Pooh," and Stewart took on the role of Christopher Robin.
"He was amazing," iO owner Charna Halpern told the paper. "He didn't miss a beat."