Detroit Pizza Is A Nationwide Phenomenon
As a mid-century native of the great Motor City, I grew up eating a pretty nuts-and-bolts, workingman's diet. Think fast-food burgers, Americanized Chinese food and boatloads of chili dogs and pizza pies. I'm not sure I ever encountered a fresh vegetable until I left for college, and even then I never crossed paths with anything but iceberg lettuce or shockingly sweet cole slaw, especially the variety served at Big Boy restaurant, where it came with fries on a double-decker burger deal. Arugula? What the heck is that?
But once I became a hell-on-wheels teenager able to escape the cookie-cutter, white bread suburb of my childhood, my palate expanded, if but slightly, and I discovered that Detroit was home to a regional variant on the pizza pie that was a future national phenom waiting to happen. Blame local bar owner Gus Guerra, who in 1946 had his wife, Anna, crib her Sicilian mother's dough recipe and started baking pizzas at Buddy's Rendezvous--augmenting the appeal of a watering-hole better known for its rep as a 'blind pig,' or slightly illegal gambling emporium.
WASHINGTON, DC- AUGUST 12: Pizza dough and cheeses in the kitchen of Ivy & Coney photographed August ... More 12, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Scott Suchman for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Here's where the story takes on a distinctive Detroit flavor: the dough, known as sfincione back in the old country, was an airy, focaccia-like construction. But Gus decided to bake the pies in blue steel pans he bought from local automobile suppliers, who generally sold them to factories to hold ball bearings and such. The marriage made in pizza heaven was complete: add Wisconsin brick cheese, a layer of pepperoni pressed directly into the dough and three racing stripes of tangy tomato sauce and the square-shaped legend was born!
Take out pizza from Loui's in Hazel Park, MI.
Excuse the glorious mess above, a snapshot of a square pie as executed by the old-school pizzaioli at Loui's Pizza and devoured in my rental car during a recent visit to my hometown. While most locals hie to one of the 22 suburban locations of Buddy's Pizza, I prefer the mom 'n' pop vibe of Loui's, what with the empty Chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling and the gruff, take no prisoners servers. My old routine was to gamble on the harness ponies at the now-defunct Hazel Park Raceway, then drown my post-loss sorrows in four slices of Detroit's finest square pie. P.S., the small size is the best ordering strategy, as every piece has maximum crust square footage per bite. It's crunchy-sweet crackle accounts for 95% of the joy of the genre.
A view down Woodward Ave. in downtown Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis via ... More Getty Images)
As you've likely heard by now, the metropolis formerly derided as the Murder City has been reborn as the Midwest's answer to Brooklyn, a hipster haven and tech-bro-and sis magnet with a rejuvenated downtown and vibrant street life. It actually crops up on short lists of cities to visit in America, hosting numerous riverfront music festivals and pro sports franchises, as well as local historical attractions like the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. Downtown is also home to a pair of competing chili dog emporia, but let's save that delicacy for another day. Right now, were talking the pie that took the pizza world by storm.
From Boston to Barcelona (literally, at a joint called Hoxton Poblenou), the pizza gospel according to Motown is now a staple variant of the tried-and-true pie we've all grown accustomed to. But might I add a caveat if not a warning? The 80-pound loaf of bread masquerading as pizza out of Chicago at Lou Malnati's or Pizzeria Uno is not to be confused with the crisp and caramelized, crusty wonders out of Detroit. Chitown is great for Italian beef sandwiches and hot dogs, but I'm officially on record as a benign hater when it comes to their glutinous, knife-and-fork pizzas. Don't send a mob hitman for revenge, just speaking truth to pepperoni.
Now that I can call myself a near-lifelong Angeleno, I'm happy to report that this pie-happy town has more Detroit, square-shaped pies than you can shake a spatula at. At Quarter Sheets in hepster Echo Park, owners Aaron Lindell and Hannah Ziskin are serving up their gourmet versions of various regional pizzas, including some ingenious variations on the Motown standard. They earned their way into a New York Times list of LA's best eateries a few years back, with upscale toppings like hazelnut pesto and taggiasca olives replacing the usual sausage and green pepper of my hometown. Apollonia's Pizzeria in midtown is also killing it with their white Acapulco Gold pie, adorned with arugula, ricotta and truffle oil.
Aaron Lindell and Hannah Ziskin of Quarter Sheets in Los Angeles.
Wherever you're headed in the coming vacation season, you're sure to find a credible version of Detroit-style pizza. In San Francisco, locals flock to Pizza Squared; My Friend Derek's in Seattle calls itself an 'underground' pizza source, as it has no physical location and can only be picked up (on certain days of the week); and Via 313 Pizza in Texas, Utah and Arizona is run by a couple of Detroit natives who pride themselves on reproducing the four-sided miracle with meticulous attention to detail. Try the Bobo Brazil--named after a beloved local TV wrestler--with Calabrese, sausage, pepper flakes and Mike's hot honey. Tell 'em Dave sent ya….
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