A Chicago Pizza Joint Has Its Knickers In A Twist After Emily In Paris Ragged On Its Food

Emily in Paris / Pizza

A very real pizza joint in Chicago has hit back at Emily in Paris after it made a joke about its deep dish pizza.

Netflix’s new rom-com series has taken the world by storm, because it’s simply the type of fun and dumb content we all desperately need right now. It just really loosens the juices, y’know?

In short – even though I’m sure you’re all over it – Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) moves to Paris after landing her dream job. She doesn’t speak a lick of French though, and doesn’t really try. Everyone immediately hates her because she’s painfully American and too energetic, drama follows.

If you Google the word “escapism”, Emily in Paris comes up.

So in the first episode, when Emily meets her new colleagues, they chat about ~ America ~ and how shitty American culture is and the “disgusting food”.

Emily’s coworker Paul Brossard (Arnaud Viard) took a big dump on Chicago and its deep dish pizza, which Emily calls “our specialty.”

Paul, meanwhile, described it as a “quiche made of cement.”

“Oh no, you must’ve gone to Lou Malnatis,” Emily replied.

I thought it was a harmless jab at a fictional pizza joint, but turns out Lou Malnatis is a real place! And its owner is very unamused.

Taking to Instagram on Thursday, Marc Malnati hit back at the joke, calling it “heartless”.

“We’ve been serving Chicago’s favourite Deep Dish since 1971,” he shared on Instagram.

“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.”

Woof.

Lou Malnatis went on to thank all their fans for their support and even offered a discount code to keep “Chicago Strong”.

All publicity is good publicity, I guess.

Lou’s totally chill now, though – water under the bridge!

Again, all publicity is good publicity.

This isn’t the first time Emily in Paris has copped a little flack for its content though. Earlier this week, French critics tore the series to shreds for the amount of French clichés in it.

Culture site, Senscritique, savaged the series, writing, “[Emily in Paris] does not happen at all in Paris, but in the same city as Amélie Poulain [from the film Amélie], a kind of witness town where each street becomes picturesque without the slightest rubbish, with extras dressed in haute-couture and it only rains if Lily Collins is sad.”

“It only rains if Lily Collins is sad” cracks me up every single time.

Emily in Paris is streaming now on Netflix.

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