You Can Find Incredible Detroit-Style Pizza in Almost Any City — Here’s Why You Should Try It

Despite its name, Detroit-style pizza seems to be everywhere now. You can find excellent purveyors of this square-cut, crispy-chewy crusted delicacy across the country, often with kitschy names like "Lions, Tigers, and Squares" or "Square Pie Guys." Although the Detroit-style trend has been slowly infiltrating American cities for years, we've entered a new phase, one in which the regional tradition has garnered such a massive following that nearly everyone wants a piece of the pie.

But what is it about Detroit-style pizza that has brought it to the forefront of American pizza culture, landing it on the same competitive playing field as legendary styles like Neapolitan and New York? After all, the genre has been around for 75 years, originally created at Detroit institution Buddy's Pizza in 1946. 

Perhaps it has something to do with approachability. To make a great Detroit-style pizza, you don't need to know how to stretch and flip. The dough is baked inside of a deep, rectangular pan — a tradition started by Buddy's founder Gus Guerra, who made pizza in the blue steel pans that held nuts and bolts at local automotive plants.

Even more importantly, to make a great Detroit-style pizza, you don't need a fancy pizza oven. Aaron Lindell, owner of Quarter Sheets in Los Angeles, told Food & Wine, "My background in pizza-making is mostly wood-fired Neapolitan style, which I always felt was an exercise in restraint and a lot about the oven. I've made Detroit-style pizza in half a dozen different ovens all with very similar results."

In other words, Detroit-style pizza can be baked in any oven, making it less finicky than Neapolitan-adjacent styles, and easier to craft from scratch.

For the past decade or so, Detroit-style pizza places have been popping up well beyond the limits of Motor City, from VIA 313 — which started in Austin and has now spread throughout Texas — to Blue Pan Pizza in Denver. In 2016, the folks behind New York City's Pizza Loves Emily opened a sister spot in Brooklyn, Emmy Squared, focused on Detroit-style pies. Emmy Squared quickly gained a cult following, and the brand has since grown to over 20 locations across New York City, Nashville, Philadelphia, Washington D.C, and Kentucky, thus far. In 2018, Detroit’s iconic Buddy’s even announced plans to expand outside of Michigan, and in December 2020, the restaurant started partnering with Goldbelly to ship its iconic pizzas nationwide.

According to Lindell, Detroit-style pizza is particularly well suited for takeout and delivery. "It holds well, it reheats well, and it travels easily," he noted. During the pandemic, as more people relied on carry-out, these characteristics propelled the popularity of Detroit-style even further.

Functionality aside, there's a kind of nostalgia to Detroit-style pizza that makes people feel at home. That's exactly why entrepreneur Muhammed Abdul-Hadi wanted to serve Detroit-style at Down North Pizza in Philadelphia. "People in the neighborhood could relate to a square-style pizza," Abdul-Hadi told Food & Wine. "When your mom brought home that white box from Ellio's Pizza you knew it was a good day. We used to pop that in the toaster oven and that was the highlight of Friday night dinner."

Down North is a community-based pizzeria that employs formerly incarcerated individuals and provides them with culinary training and an opportunity to transition back into the workforce. Abdul-Hadi wanted to build something that could be a vehicle for conversations about ending mass incarceration.

"Since this is a controversial topic, we wanted to be able to reach the masses in our messaging," the entrepreneur said. "Who doesn't love pizza?" Detroit-style has, indeed, proven to be a unifier at Down North, with Philadelphians traversing the city for a slice.

There's a sense of familiarity baked into the pies at Down North, but for Noah Sandoval, a 2017 Food & Wine Best New Chef who opened Pizza Friendly Pizza in Chicago during the summer of 2020, it was the novelty of a square-shaped pizza that first drew him in.

"I'm from Virginia and can't remember hearing about any of those styles," Sandoval said, referring to Detroit-style and its square-cut cousins, Sicilian and grandma pies. At Pizza Friendly Pizza, Sandoval is making Sicilian pizza, and for him, the difference is in the texture of the crust. While Detroit-style has a crust that's caramelized and lacquered with baked cheese, Sandoval's Sicilian slices leave the outermost crust bare — a crunchy finish that contrasts with the topping-loaded middle.

In New York, chef Dan Kluger is churning out Detroit-style's other cousin, grandma-style. At his restaurant Loring Place, Kluger, a 2012 Food & Wine Best New Chef, pays homage to the thinner-crust — though still square-shaped — staple of Long Island. Grandma-style is said to have been named for Italian-American grandmothers who tried to recreate Sicilian pies after they immigrated to the United States. In late 2020, Kluger opened his to-go pizza-only concept, Washington Squares, where he sells 9x13-inch grandma-style pizzas. 

Some of Kluger's pies are a nod to Detroit-style with their crackly, cheesy crusts, but when it comes to a more classic interpretation, Emmy Squared has it down to a science. Emmy Squared serves its pizzas on a metal cooling rack set above an 8x10-inch baking sheet, a way to remind diners that this isn't just pizza, this is pan pizza, complete with Detroit-style's signature frico crust. But not every pie is strictly traditional in its toppings — you can often find the “Big Hawaiian” on the menu, which features pepperoni, bacon, pineapple, and a chile glaze, all baked onto a traditional Detroit-style crust.

For Lindell, the owner of Quarter Sheets, Detroit-style as a label is pretty relaxed. He refers to his pizza as "Glendale's #1 least authentic Detroit-style pizza." While the claim is intended to be funny and lighthearted, it's also a way for Lindell to do his own thing. "By advertising inauthenticity I'm liberated from tradition," he said.

There are certain traditions that Lindell has kept, like making sure every pie has a fried cheese crust, a crispy, buttery bottom, and a pillowy crumb, but he's more interested in creativity than purity. "Why be bound by authenticity when I live in California and have access to so many incredible products?"

There's a specific formula to Buddy's original Detroit-style pizza: pepperoni sprinkled right on top of the dough, a layer of crumbled Wisconsin brick cheese, and tomato sauce swiped across the top — a reversed layering order that’s typical for Detroit-style pizzas — resembling racing stripes in a nod to Motor City. 

But today's landscape of Detroit-style pizza is made up of pies as innovative and inventive as Buddy's itself once was, and that's the beauty of the Detroit-style pizza renaissance: It has enabled pizza-makers and pizza-eaters alike to make the square-cut slice their own.