Buddy's Pizza (Original Detroit)

Buddy's Pizza is the original Detroit-style pizza restaurant, founded in 1946 on Conant Street in Detroit's northeast side. The restaurant did not merely popularise a style of pizza — it invented it. Detroit-style pizza is characterised by its square shape, its thick, airy focaccia-like crust baked in rectangular automotive steel pans that were originally repurposed from Detroit's manufacturing industry, and its distinctive preparation in which sauce is applied on top of the cheese rather than underneath it. The caramelised cheese edges — where the mozzarella melts against and bonds to the hot steel pan — are one of the most celebrated textures in American pizza.

The original Conant Street location remains the authentic point of pilgrimage for pizza enthusiasts who want to experience Detroit-style pizza at its source. Multiple Buddy's locations now operate across metro Detroit, but the original bears the accumulated history and atmosphere of a restaurant that has been making the same style of pizza for more than 75 years. The pepperoni pizza, with its characteristic cup-and-char pepperoni that hold pools of rendered fat, is the flagship preparation. The Sicilian-influenced garlic cheese bread and a range of classic topping combinations round out a menu that resists unnecessary complexity.

Buddy's Pizza's influence on American food culture has grown substantially in recent years as Detroit-style pizza has moved from a regional speciality into a nationally recognised format, inspiring restaurants and frozen products across the country. Eating at the original Conant Street location is an experience that places the visitor at the source of a genuinely significant culinary invention. The restaurant is casual, family-oriented, and unpretentious — the food is the point, and the point is a deeply excellent square of pizza with caramelised edges and a crust that requires no further justification.