The Detroit-Style Pizza Tour: A First-Timer's Guide
Photo: Renewableandalternativeenergy / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Your hosts at the House on Cass Lake
If you only eat one thing on a trip to Metro Detroit, make it the pizza. Detroit-style is its own genre: baked in a rectangular pan to a thick, airy crust, with cheese pushed all the way to the edges so it caramelizes into a crispy, lacy border, and the sauce ladled on top in racing stripes. It was invented here in the 1940s, and it's worth a pilgrimage.
Start at the source
Buddy's Pizza has been making the original Detroit-style since 1946, and with locations across the metro it's the easiest place to start. Order a square 'Detroit Classic,' and notice the crust: light inside, deeply crisp where the cheese met the pan. That frico edge is the whole point.
Go deeper
Ready for a rivalry? Loui's Pizza in Hazel Park is the old-school local favorite — dark, crispy corners and a wall of empty Chianti bottles overhead. Shield's is another longtime staple with suburban locations. Taste two in a weekend and you'll have opinions; that's part of the fun.
Detroit-style is defined by its edges. The best slice is always the corner — argue about it accordingly.
Make it a food day
Pizza pairs naturally with the rest of Detroit's icons. Split a coney dog at the side-by-side American and Lafayette Coney Islands downtown, then walk it off at Eastern Market, the historic public market where Saturday mornings come alive with produce, murals, and great nearby eats.
From Waterford, you're perfectly positioned: suburban pizzerias are close for a low-key night, and downtown is an easy drive when you want to make a day of it. Come hungry.
