Location: 17125 Conant St., Detroit, MI 48212Īll Detroit-style pizza lore inevitably begins at Buddy's, a little bar and restaurant that rests on the corner of Conant Street and McNichols Road near the border of Hamtramck. Signature pizza: Pepperoni and Wisconsin brick cheese with sauce on top and "the Detroiter" Oven: Gas or electric (depending on location) On top, the cheese stays gooey in the center, but it also spreads out towards the edges of the pan, caramelizing into a crisp, golden cheese crust.
For restaurants that don't butter their pans, the fat from the cheese serves to give the oil-less dough a buttery flavor. While many pizza recipes call for mozzarella, the Detroit-style (at least at Buddy's) relies on loads of Wisconsin brick cheese, a mild-flavored, semi-soft cheese similar to cheddar but with a high fat content. At one time, Buddy's attempted to scale up to an large 12-by-16 pan, but the dough was "very difficult to stretch" to the correct size, says Pikula. The traditional pans generally come in two sizes - an 8-by-10 inch pan which yields four slices and an 10-by-14 inch pan that yields eight slices - and with sides angled outwards so that the area at the top of the pan is greater than at the bottom.
According to Buddy's vice president of operations Wesley Pikula, in the early days, new pans came to the restaurant with a silicon coating that was then removed in-house.Īs years have passed, some of the original makers of these pans have gone out of business, forcing some restaurants to experiment with different types of vessels. Buddy's, which has the distinction of being the "ground zero" of Detroit-style pizza, found the makings of an ideal pizza vessel in an industrial blue steel pan used by auto workers at Detroit's many factories. Industrial pans The Detroit square could not take shape without the all-important pan. While perhaps unconventional, the red top helps to avoid a soggy crust. The tradeoff being, of course, fewer crispy pepperonis. While perhaps unconventional, the "red top" helps to avoid a soggy crust. Very occasionally one finds a guide that describes the Detroit square as a "Detroit Red Top." It's a moniker that serves to describe the particularly uncommon construction of the square pizza, with a crust covered in reverse of what you'd expect from a traditional pizza - toppings like pepperoni on the bottom, followed by loads of cheese and red sauce drizzled on top.
Detroit-style pizza makers utilize a similar dough recipe that results in a light, porous dough that's not chewy like a New York-style pie. Perhaps the closest cousin to the Detroit-style pizza is the Sicilian sfincione, a spongy focaccia baked in a rectangular pan with toppings pressed directly into the dough and topped with olive oil and tomato sauce. From style-specific terminology to history, here's everything you need to know about Detroit-style pizza.Ī geometry teacher might be inclined to argue, but despite its clearly rectangular form, Detroit-style pizzas are in fact "square." It's also not to be confused with our Windy City neighbor's creation the "deep dish," which is really more like pie than pizza. True to its blue-collar Motor City roots, the square is an everyman of pizza, inviting eaters to feast in a come-as-you-are fashion - either with a fork and knife or by hand.īut what makes a Detroit square and where should one go for the best? Nearly all Detroit-style purveyors can trace their origins to a common ancestor at Buddy's Pizza (more on this later), but despite this shared history, Detroiters have their own allegiances to pizzerias. With its rectangular shape, light, airy dough, and savory, browned cheese perimeter, the Detroit-style pie encourages savoring of the corner pieces, where crust real estate is most plentiful. Not to be overshadowed by the flimsy, mass-produced chain pizza companies founded in Detroit (namely Domino’s and Little Caesars), the city boasts a hearty pizza known as the Detroit-style square. When it comes to Detroit, the city is often known for three main exports: cars, music - and pizza.
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