Pizza | Rock City Pie and Ice

What Is Detroit Style Pizza?

With its rectangular shape, light, airy dough, and savory, browned cheese perimeter, the Detroit-style pie encourages savoring of the corner pieces, where crust real estate is most plentiful. True to its blue-collar Motor City roots, the square is an everyman of pizza, inviting eaters to feast in a come-as-you-are fashion — either with a fork and knife or by hand.

It's A "square"

A geometry teacher might be inclined to argue, but despite its clearly rectangular form, Detroit-style pizzas are in fact "square." It's also not to be confused with our Windy City neighbor's creation of the "deep dish," which is really more like pie than pizza. Sicilian-style dough Perhaps the closest cousin to the Detroit-style pizza is the Sicilian sfincione, a spongy focaccia baked in a rectangular pan with toppings pressed directly into the dough and topped with olive oil and tomato sauce.

Red Top

Very occasionally one finds a guide that describes the Detroit square as a "Detroit Red Top." It's a moniker that serves to describe the particularly uncommon construction of the square pizza, with a crust covered in reverse of what you'd expect from a traditional pizza — toppings like pepperoni on the bottom, followed by loads of cheese and red sauce drizzled on top. While perhaps unconventional, the "red top" helps to avoid a soggy crust. The tradeoff being, of course, fewer crispy pepperonis.

Industrial Pans

The Detroit square could not take shape without the all-important pan. The ideal pizza vessel is an industrial blue steel pan, made from the same steel used by auto workers at Detroit's many factories.