Taglio#1
9.4Top Tier
A vintage aesthetic pizzeria in Williamburg, Brooklyn that turns out some outstanding Detroit-Style Pizza. We all recall the Neapolitan boom of 2008 & Hot Honey mania in 2017, but in 2023 every city seems to be…
Style guide
Best Detroit Style Pizza
A ranked guide to Detroit entries across The Slice Index.
Detroit-style pizza emerged in 1946 at Buddy’s Rendezvous in Detroit, where Gus Guerra began making pizza in the rectangular blue steel pans associated with the auto industry (sometimes called “auto parts trays”). The result became a distinctly American regional style: a thick airy crust, a crisp, oil-browned underside, and cheese pushed all the way to the edges of the pan, where it caramelizes into the dark. That caramelized cheese border is the style’s signature.
Wisconsin brick cheese is traditional, traditionally placed directly on the dough, with toppings layered beneath or among the cheese and tomato sauce applied on top, frequently in stripes. The heavy pan and generous oil create something closer to frying at the bottom than simply baking, while the interior should remain open, chewy, and surprisingly light.
For most of its history, this was essentially a Detroit-area specialty and wasn’t consistently called “Detroit-style pizza.” Locally, it was often described simply as Sicilian pizza. However, the last twenty years have brought it increased recognition and the style has spread far beyond Detroit.
That recognition has brought a proliferation of variations. Contemporary versions use different cheeses, doughs, toppings, and sauce arrangements. But a rectangular pan and burnt cheese around the edges do not by themselves make a good Detroit-style pizza. Dense, bready crust is the most common failure. At its best, the style depends on the contrast between an airy interior, a deeply crisp bottom, and that intensely caramelized cheese edge.
Score keyTop Tier · 9.0+Great · 8.0–8.9Worth the Calories · 6.5–7.9All Pizza’s Good, Right? · Below 6.5
#2
#3
9.0Top Tier
Pequod’s Pizza, named after the ill-fated ship in Moby-Dick, was founded in 1971 by legendary Chicago pizzaiolo Burt Katz. Katz later opened another pizzeria named after the first mate in Moby-Dick—Starbuck’s—b…
#4
9.0Top Tier
This is a new Detroit style pizzeria (A “Detroit Revival Pizzeria”?) located in an old garage near the intersection of Michigan and Trumbull Avenue - the location of the late great Tiger Stadium (Sidenote: the…
#5
8.9Great
Detroit-style pizza in Naples, FL. This small shop has the best pizza in Southwest Florida & it’s not close
#6
8.5Great
Founded in 1946, Buddy’s Rendezvous is the originator of a certain type of Sicilian pizza, cooked in blue steel pans repurposed from local auto suppliers, that’s now called “Detroit Style”. The lightly fried cr…
#7
8.3Great
Detroit style pizza in the Upper East Side. Pictured here is their take on a Margherita pizza, featuring burrata in place of the traditional fresh mozzarella. Appreciating the nuanced flavor & caramelized chees…
#8
8.2Great
A Detroit style outpost in Boynton Beach. This eclectic Detroit-forward restaurant features features coneys & corned beef, in addition to the pizza. But with well-caramelized crust, the pizza is clearly the att…
#9
8.1Great
A deeply browned, exceptionally crunchy Detroit square with charred pepperoni, caramelized cheese, and one structural flaw.
#10
7.7Worth the Calories
A Detroit style throwback pizzeria in DC near @howard1867. @sonnyspizzadc offers an interesting take on Detroit style, veering in a Sicilian-American direction. The crust here is on the thinner side for Detroit…
#11
7.7Worth the Calories
A Detroit style pizzeria off the U Street Corridor in DC. Slices & Pie does NY style, Detroit style, and also a Sicilian upside down slice. I had a slice of their Detroit-style with pepperoni cups(!) and hot ho…
#12
7.7Worth the Calories
A Chicago pan pizza pizzeria, in the style of @pequodspizza or @burtsplacepizza (two of my all-time favorites), but located in Mercato, Naples. There’s a lot of mediocre non-Chicagoland Chicago style places wit…
#13
7.6Worth the Calories
Founded in 1961 and then refounded in 2017, Como’s is a new wave Detroit style pizzeria in the shell of a old school Ferndale pizzeria (the decor matches this - it’s a sort of postmodern red sauce joint). All p…
#14
7.3Worth the Calories
An outpost of Detroit style pizza in the “Centennial State”. Blue Pan does also offer a New York style and a cracker thin pizza. However, since “pan” is in the name, naturally we opted for a Detroit pizza. Pict…
#15
7.1Worth the Calories
A DC dive bar with Chicago Style Italian Beef (thus “Ivy”) and Detroit style pizza & coneys (thus “Coney”). Due to my strong Midwest-dar, I naturally gravitated towards this spot that happens to feature some of…
#16
Closed PizzeriasHistorical records are kept below open entries
#17
9.1Top Tier
#18
6.9Worth the Calories