- Chicago deep dish or Detroit deep dish, what's your--
- Oh no, Detroit deep dish, by far.
Chicago is like a mood, that's like an event,
you know what I mean, you don't go on cruises all the time.
I don't know how you eat that more than,
like, once a month maybe?
- Yeah.
(laughs loudly)
- When I say deep dish pizza, you probably think Chicago
and with good reason, but with all due respect
to the Windy City's pizza pedigree,
it's just not the only deep dish in the Midwest.
See, there's another Midwestern city
near another Great Lake that has
a totally different deep dish tradition.
Welcome to Detroit,
where the pies are rectangular, the pans are steel,
and the people, well, the people have a thing
or two to say about the other deep dish.
- Chicago is really what Detroit is up against.
- Since World War II, the Motor City
has been pumping out right-angled pies
its own damn way and in the pan, the appeal
of Detroit-style deep dish is obvious.
It's got the crispy, caramelized edges.
It's got the toppings and the cheese
that then go under the red sauce,
which is a little unorthodox, but stylistically
about as close to pizza perfection as you can get.
But what about metaphorically?
Beneath the greasy surface are all the potent ingredients,
the anger, the insecurity, the defiance,
and most importantly the piping hot pride
that defined Detroit and the 700,000
plus souls that call it home.
Hey Chicago, how's that for deep?
- Back in the ‘40s, Buddy's Rendezvous
on 6 Mile straight-up invented
what would be come to be known as Detroit-style pizza.
So, we picked up some pies there
and brought them to the East Side
to share slices, beers, and pizza history
with some born-and-raised Detroiters.
(people laughing)
- My uncle used to work with the original Domino's
in Ypsi, that was his first job.
- Aaron Foley is the chief storyteller
for the city of Detroit, a position
in the mayor's office tasked with,
well, telling the city's stories.
He and his friend, performing artist Lee Payne,
had plenty to say about Detroit's complicated pizza legacy.
- You know what, I'm pro-fucking-black.
- I'm not going to stop eating pizzas
because a white person started it,
but you know where all this easy and cheap,
yet innovative food comes from?
It spun off from the auto industry.
When you had all these factory workers
who weren't making that much,
but still needed to take their lunch breaks.
- Yeah.
- All these different pizza makers
they figured out how to widely produce this product
on a mass scale the same way, like,
Henry Ford and all the other auto barons figured out
how to mass produce a vehicle.
So, even like, delivery, delivery
of pizza can be traced back here.
It does sort of bother Detroiters when you see
the Detroit brand outside of Detroit because
we're so protective of the things that we innovated here.
- Everything in Detroit has been sold out.
- That's the whole point, is that we got some stuff
that's unique to Detroit, that you can't replicate
anywhere else and that's what makes us
proud to be Detroiters.
- It's this style of pizza, it explains every ounce
of aggression, that apparently Detroiters have.
It explains every ounce of rudeness.
This is ours, this neighborhood is ours.
There are schools, are ours.
The crack head down the street who fix your tires
when it blows, he is ours.
This is ours.
- It's safe to say they take their pizza
seriously here in Motor City. Can you blame them?
We drove out to 9 mile to meet James Rigato,
the chef and owner of James Beard
nominated Mabel Gray Kitchen.
He cooks this kind of food, not pizza,
but he's convinced Detroit's pizza past
and the attitude that bred it is crucial
to the city's culinary future.
- Detroit was the canary in the coal mine,
ya know, GM goes bankrupt, and the whole nation
was like, let Detroit burn.
The guys and girls that stayed, you know,
there's definitely a chip on their shoulder,
you know, there's grit in our teeth.
- Yeah.
- You know, I think Detroit as a whole, we got
a Rocky Balboa mentality, you know what I'm saying?
We'll take a few more punches to the face
in order to figure out what not to do,
you know what I'm saying?
We're not afraid to get our hands dirty,
we're not afraid of anything.
So my goal is to kind of like rope all the chefs together
to kind of have a narrative and develop a cuisine.
- Yeah.
- We have the sliders.
- Yup.
- Ya know, we have the coney and we have
the Detroit square pizza, that's kind of like
our Holy Trinity.
- If you want top of Detroit square,
Loui's is the best example.
- Yeah.
- When a chef like James says a place has good pizza,
you eat that pizza.
So we took a quick drive across Hazel Park,
a metro Detroit suburb, to the place that serves
James' favorite pie in town: Loui's.
- Hazel Park is dope and Loui's is like pretty much
the reason why and I just wanted to join the party.
I often say, Hazel Park was already having a party,
I just rolled in with a keg.
- There ya go.
- This is proven, this is like what will never change.
- Yeah.
- This is like the food equivalent of the Model T.
- Founded by a former Buddy's cook,
Loui's has been slinging Detroit deep dish
for over half a century, and it turns out James was right.
The pizza is outrageous.
- We were like--
- The best.
- Nick Sulkiwskyj is a third generation owner.
While I scarfed down his award-winning pizza,
he told us about the crucial components
of the Detroit style pie.
The right cheese, the right dough, and the right pan.
- We have the dough--
- The cheese is special, right?
- The cheese is special, it's not mozzarella.
It is brick cheese, the cubes melt perfectly
with the 650 degree ovens.
- They kind of bench it a little bit in the pan.
And then those ovens, the stone ovens,
you know you see how old and beautiful they are--
- Yup.
- You know, and the obviously the sauce on top
prevents that moisture barrier from weighing
the dough down so the dough gets that jump
The hot pan and the hot oven allow it
to get that crispy bottom.
- Yup.
- But you still behave like focaccia on the in between.
- That's Detroit-style pizza.
- Yeah.
- So tell me about the blue steel pan.
- Well it actually started off as an automotive,
like a drip pan and um--
- Like from the factories.
- Yeah they started burning out the blueing in it
and started cooking pizzas in it.
The height is perfect for the high walls.
- How many Chianti bottles do you think are on the wall here?
- Oh, I, we've stopped counting so long ago.
I mean, we had a plethora of bottles up here and we--
- I have seven--
- collapsed the walls--
- At least seven.
(loud laughing)
- Chianti bottle emptied, pizza devoured
we left Loui's behind and headed to Hamtramck,
where the city's vibrant Middle Eastern community
is thriving.
- We just wanted to have, um, a pizzeria
that offered Halal options for our Muslim customers.
We wanted to make sure that there was something
that represented the core of Detroit.
- So our very first one we got is the Tandoori pizza.
Next on the list is the Naga pizza,
cilantro, red onions and chicken.
And this is the dry fish pizza.
Brace yourselves--
- Oh wow, yeah.
Joining us is Jon Moy, writer, Renaissance man,
and born and raised Detroiter, who considers himself
one of Amar's number one fans.
- I mean, I think, like, the story of Detroit,
you can't really escape the story of immigration
because of the auto industry.
Everyone was coming here at certain points.
For better or for worse, the only real entry way
a lot of times, is the food or service industry.
- I just had a bite of that.
- It's so good, right?
- Oh my God, it's good.
- Yeah.
I think a lot of people who are good businesspeople
just make a shrewd decision, like what will be in demand
all the time and it's like pizza.
Immigrants can sort of reshape America in their way.
This way can sort of, no, we're gonna make pizza work for us
and you're gonna like it.
You want your city to represent, you know,
the community and not just people who have money.
You know, like could Amar's charge $28 for a pizza?
There has always been this conception amongst
a lot of immigrant business owners
that we just can't get away with charging that, right?
And so, when you look at what people are willing
to spend their money on, hard-earned money on,
there often aren't seats at the table for everyone.
- This style is just as unique as seeing five to six
50 to something year old black men in pastel-ass suits
and pastel-ass gaiters walking down to Greektown
or walking to the gas station.
That is a very unique Detroit thing.
It's about this being something of the city itself.
- That's a huge part of what Detroit is,
is we've always had to hustle.
We've always had to make do with less.
We've always had to make a way out of no way
and that sort of mindset, that sort of mentality,
permeated its way into many different industries.
Automotive, manufacturing, pizza.
- A way out of no way, the overlooked way,
the underrated way.
The way that has too much pride to care,
that's Detroit's way and that's Detroit pizza.