Detroit-style pies are heating up pizza ovens well beyond the Motor City.
Real-deal Detroit pies use Wisconsin brick cheese, a semisoft variety that has the tang of cheddar but a higher fat content for optimum melt.
Photography by Hunter Townsend
When it comes to pizza, are you Team Chicago or Team New York? Either way, get ready to suspend your loyalty: Detroit square pizza is a thing and it’s coming to a city near you.
Marked by its sauce-on-top construction, crispy fried-cheese edges, and surprisingly tender dough, the style is stretching outside the 313. Buddy’s Pizza, a Motown institution widely considered the originator of the style, is gearing up for a big-league expansion throughout the Midwest.
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Denver is home to Blue Pan Pizza, whose popularity spawned a second location last summer. And Austinites can get their fill of Detroit-style airy dough and caramelized crusts at Via 313, which opened its third outpost this year.
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In NYC, pizza-centric restaurants, including Top Chef alum Dale Talde’s Massoni and Matt Hyland’s Emmy Squared also packing in seekers of square pies. “I think Detroit style clicks with people because it has so many things everyone loves about the pizza they grew up with, but it’s a little bit different,” says Hyland.
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Artichoke Basille’s Pizza—a popular chain with outposts in California, Florida, and New York—is the latest to get in on the tasty trend. The brand will debut a square-focused joint, dubbed Lions and Tigers and Squares (get it?), which will serve Detroit pan pies and Coney dogs when it opens in Manhattan.