The lobster roll-inspired pie at Grandma Bob’s.
Despite its name, there’s nothing old-school about Grandma Bob’s. The restaurant is a stone’s throw from the newly restored Michigan Central, the former train station that once shuttled thousands of travelers to and from Detroit during its golden years. The bar and restaurant ushers classic Detroit-style pizza into a new age with creative flavor combinations. A summertime favorite brings together the best ingredients of a lobster roll. Cheese is melted onto six ounces of plump lobster meat, then the pie is drizzled with herbaceous crème fraîche and topped with crushed kettle-cooked chips. The dine-in-only creation is served with a ramekin of clarified butter for your dipping and drizzling pleasure.
Loui’s Pizza
23141 Dequindre Rd., Hazel Park
Loui’s Pizza has been slinging classic pies for more than 50 years. Nykolas Sulkiwskyj, grandson of the restaurant’s founder, has preserved a true Midwestern mom-and-pop shop. There’s charm to the Hazel Park operation, where the cheese is gooey and the sauce is slightly sweet and sporadically deployed. Empty bottles of Chianti signed by decades of imbibers are strung throughout the casual dining room with delicate fairy lights, and news clippings of reviews and accolades from another time hang with pride at the entrance. Football players stop in to fuel up after a game night; grandparents linger over lunch; toddlers are messied with greasy fingers and red sauce mustaches. And everyone’s equally enthralled by the cheese pulls on slices of simple, reliably delightful pies.
Niki’s Pizza
735 BEAUBIEN BLVD.
Detroit’s storied Greektown neighborhood was once a cultural center for Greek immigrants like Nikoletta Kefallinos, Dennis Kefallinos’s late mother and the force who inspired his pizzeria. Though the neighborhood has shed much of its identity as a hub of Greek culture and evolved into the city’s liveliest nightlife center, a number of food businesses continue to honor its roots. At Niki’s, Detroit-style pizza meets Mediterranean flavors. Salty, rich feta delivers a beautiful char on the Famous Feta, and tender slivers of lamb on the Greek are so thin they resemble anchovies. The restaurant is frequented by a young late-night crowd that eats under rattan pendant lights.
Pie Sci
Multiple locations
Jeremy Damaske brought his fun-loving approach to pizza in 2010 when he opened Pie Sci as a pop-up that traveled metro Detroit. The concept: Treat pies like science projects, creating combinations with unique toppings and playful names. Since then, Damaske has put down roots, opening his Woodbridge brick-and-mortar in 2016 and, last year, a take-out-only spot in Oak Park, Michigan. The Motown Philly, a Detroit-style take on the Philly cheesesteak, features hunks of shredded beef, peppers, onions and mushrooms; and the Pear Necessities consists of a sweet-savory medley of juicy pears, spinach leaves, smoky bacon, and feta, topped off with a scribble of honey.
Michigan & Trumbull Pizza
1331 Holden St., No. 100
Of all the pizza joints in our city, Michigan & Trumbull is perhaps the most guided by Detroit’s seasons. Locally sourced ingredients inform monthly specials that benefit local charities. It’s also one of few shops that offers a menu of white pizzas (the classic Detroit-style pizza is known for its racing stripes of red sauce), most of which are named after Detroit thoroughfares. The cheekily coined Cadieux e Pepe, a nod to Detroit’s Cadieux Road, reimagines cacio e pepe in pizza form—chewy dough crowned with sharp Parmesan, pungent fresh garlic, and cracked black pepper. The Woodward White comes dressed in dollops of rich ricotta freckled with red pepper flakes and lemon zest, while the Bagley Chorizo elevates ranch dressing, a Midwest staple, by infusing it with cilantro. Even the staunchest traditionalists can find a pie to please.
Sicily’s Pizzeria & Subs
3554 W. Vernor Ave.
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