Neapolitan, New York, and New Haven styles have more storied histories, but Detroit is finally earning notice for pizza instead of motors and music. In Los Angeles, three Detroit-style pizza start-ups have built Instagram-fueled followings over the past year.
“The style has been around since 1946, but even in Detroit, we just called it square pan pizza,” chef Ryan Ososky says. He helmed kitchens at high-profile Sunset Strip restaurants like XIV and The Churchkey before returning to his roots. Ososky operates Dtown Pizzeria as a ghost kitchen out of Phorage WeHo and Long Beach’s Harbor Bar and is becoming known for taking his hometown pies in surprising directions.
Ososky grew up eating at a Detroit pizzeria called Jet’s, but acknowledges that another Detroit favorite, Buddy’s (pictured at top), is “the o.g.” That’s the bar where Gus Guerra first used his Sicilian stepmother’s dough recipe to make pizza topped with cheese and tomato sauce, forming the style’s signature crispy cheese edges in a steel pan.
One big benefit to this pizza style is that it requires only a basic gas oven. Even Pizza Hut is getting in on the emerging trend, launching “new Detroit-style pizzas,” with ads touting “Cheese to the edge. Sauce on top.” (This confused most of Pizza Hut’s mainstream American audience, according to reports.) Of course, Ososky and other L.A. chefs take Detroit-style pizza several levels beyond the Hut.
Dtown Pizzeria operates as a ghost kitchen out of Los Angeles Vietnamese restaurant Phorage and other locations.
“Back in 2017, I did do some Detroit pizza on the dim sum carts when I was the chef of The Churchkey,” says Ososky. “I also created the vegan Detroit pizza for Nic’s on Beverly when I was the chef there.” That pizza is still on Nic’s menu. Ososky has been in L.A. for 12 years and felt Angelenos needed more Detroit-style pizza in their lives, so he’s now going full-force with Dtown.
Ososky uses deck ovens and Wisconsin brick cheese to make his Detroit-style pizzas. Options include The Goomba (pictured at top) with pepperoni and fennel pollen; the D.B.M. (Dtown Burrata Margherita) with pesto and confit tomatoes; and the truly luxurious Resolution topped with shaved Wagyu beef tenderloin, black truffle, scallions, and pickled red onions.
At a house in southeast Glendale, a disco ball hanging from the porch ceiling signals your arrival. This baking-fueled home is where Quarter Sheets founder Aaron Lindell and his partner, House of Gluten pastry chef Hannah Ziskin, sell pre-ordered Detroit-style pizza, along with her stupendous cakes, pies, and cookies.
Lindell was working as a personal chef and running the Gee Bee Burgers pop-up out of his truck bed when COVID-19 hit. “Due to the pandemic, the nature of that work changed quite a bit,” he says. “It was a lot of packaging prepared food and leaving it on my client’s doorsteps. It’s hard to provide any level of hospitality when it’s unsafe to enter someone’s home to cook. I was looking for a way out and I was happy to give in when pizza took over.” He grew up a Buddy’s fan, but concedes that Jet’s is “good for when you’re trying for ultimate sinning,” which for him means their Buffalo ranch chicken pizza with surprise bacon on top.
Quarter Sheets' pepperoni pizza.
“For me, the real Detroit-style hallmarks are all about texture,” Lindell says. “I do the cheese to the edge thing for that caramelized cheese crown. The crust has a fried quality to it for that bottom crisp. And it’s a medium-thick pan pizza with a pillowy crumb. Beyond that, I’m playing by my own rules.”
Quarter Sheets always offers two basic pies. Red Top is basically a Margherita pizza with four cheeses, tomato sauce, and fanned basil. Quarter Sheets also sells pepperoni pizzas with the same base. In both cases, his four-cheese blend involves mozzarella, Muenster, Grana Padano, and aged Provolone. “People have actually commented that Quarter Sheets reminds them of their grandmother’s sfincione,” Lindell says. “Maybe the highest praise I could hope for!”
Quarter Sheets departs from Detroit tradition by being sourdough, though Lindell doesn’t advertise that fact. Freshly milled flours include whole wheat Red Fife from Tehachapi Heritage Grain Project. “I wouldn’t say this makes for a healthier pizza,” he says, “but it does provide considerable added depth of flavor.”
Lindell also crafts atypical, ultra-seasonal specials like Pimento Grove, topped with Castelvetrano olives, vodka sauce, mozzarella, red pepper, ‘nduja, oregano, and grated Grana Padano. Quiet Storm touts hen of the woods mushrooms, spring onion, cream, mozzarella, thyme, Parmesan, and Meyer lemon gremolata.
In L.A., Lindell started making pizzas in a simple home oven. “I would start each pizza directly on the floor of the oven to get the initial oven spring and crisp bottom and then cycle them up top the top,” he says. Lindell graduated to a Rofco B40 oven — “the holy grail for home bakers” — which of course helps his cause.
Dough Daddy founder Kyle (who prefers to keep his last name private) makes Detroit-style pizza on weekends in Downtown LA (or DTLA). He was working for a chauffeured car service when the pandemic struck and the bottom dropped out on his industry.
“The day I was laid off from my job, I also had planned to make Detroit-style pizza,” he says. “I had a couple cocktails and then posted a pic on my personal Instagram along with a caption that was something along the lines of 'I got laid off today, but how would people feel about buying some Detroit-style pizza and cocktails from me because Daddy needs to make some dough.’”
Dough Daddy pepperoni pizza.
I found Kyle standing on the sidewalk in front of his downtown building with a blue cart full of rectangular boxes, waiting to dispense pre-ordered pizzas. He handed me The Real Deal, a pizza with sharp melted Wisconsin brick cheese sporting crispy edges, vibrant tomato sauce, and crispy pepperoni. Kyle also bakes pizzas with different cheeses (some vegan) and specials like The Fyrefest, a spicy pepperoni pizza co-starring pickled jalapeños and hot honey that references the Caribbean debacle that spawned two popular documentary films. Cocktails are also a key part of his concept.
Kyle hasn’t eaten Detroit-style pizza at the source yet, but has found inspiration at restaurants like Tony's Pizza Napoletana and Square Pie Guys in San Francisco, Via 313 in Austin, and Square Pizza Co in San Diego (his hometown). He also enjoys the two pizzerias previously mentioned in this article, among others. “I've picked up on different flavors, textures and techniques and then they all sort of blend together with my personal preferences,” he says.
Dough Daddy’s engine is a black electric Frigidaire oven that came with Kyle’s apartment. He jokes, “She ain’t much to look at and she’s got her issues, but I can’t complain about the reliability!”
“It does seem that pizza in general is having a moment,” Lindell says. “There are many, many new pan-style, New York, neo-Neapolitan, and other regional spots. I think Detroit came in at the perfect moment,” especially since the pies travel so well and “people were taking the opportunity to indulge a bit more over the last year.”