This Detroit-style pizza is killing the Tacoma takeout game

It’s too bad Dean Shivers can’t greet you at the table, hot pie in hand, because his Detroit-style pizza is worthy of discussion.

In a twist of traveling pizza fate, this rectangle of focaccia almost improves upon reheating in your home oven.

The enviably crispy crust will compel you to take one too many bites, the zesty sauce a bonus and the combination of Italian cheeses nearly an afterthought.

Hold up: Cheese, an afterthought, on pizza?

The hallmark of a pristine Detroit-style pie happens not to be the cheese on top (or sometimes under a final layer of sauce) but rather the sneaky cheese, called frico, crackled along the sides of the crust as it bakes in its blue-steel sheet pan.

It was an accident, said Shivers, as he attempted to recreate the slices he recalls from Golden Boy, a beloved late-night, Sicilian pizza-by-the-slice joint in his hometown San Francisco.

“Some of the cheese got between the pie and the pan. I put two and two together: This is actually a style of pizza that people intentionally try to do,” he laughed. “That was my destiny.”

He wouldn’t divulge his cheese blend, revealing only that he was no fan of brick cheese, the mounds of white American Wisconsin dairy preferred in Detroit.

“I’m not super fond of that flavor, but it’s a definitive part of that style,” he said in a phone call. “The biggest part of it was getting it to burn perfectly. There’s a fine line between it being crispy and black, or blonde and kinda gooey, but when you get that perfect bake — and it gets the color of a milk chocolate — that’s kind of the key. It breaks away from the pan. If it’s underdone it will stick to the pan. When it’s overdone, it will certainly come away from the pan, but if you go too far, it will bind to the pan.”

Herein lies how your conversation with Shivers might unfold — if only you could sneak him away from the ovens that neighbor a dozen other local food businesses at The Gourmet Niche, a commissary kitchen across from War Memorial Park on Sixth Avenue.

TACOMA PIZZA NEEDS A SQUARE

Shivers, who co-owns Tacoma Pie with his mother, leased the space in late May, following three months of baking an insane amount of pizza during Washington’s stay-at-home orders.

A longtime bartender — he managed Crown Bar in its early days, where he first gleaned Tacoma’s lack of late-night eats — he had, for the past six years, led the beverage program at Cedarbrook Lodge in Seattle. When COVID-19 shuttered dining rooms, he was laid off and sensed a return to bars would take too long.

“I realized that, one, pizza is perfect for COVID because it comes right out of the oven and goes right into the box. It literally has no exposure to people outside of a 500-degree oven,” he said. It’s also the most delivered food in America. “Then, third, there is no Detroit or big-square pizza in Tacoma.”

So he got to work.

Every Friday, Shivers would tune into Scott’s Pizza Tours on Instagram Live, learning from the best of New York’s pizzaiolos. For square-specific inspiration, he returned time and again to the Sicilian at Metro Pie in Las Vegas.

The squares, also referred to as grandma or Detroit-style depending on certain characteristics, boast a few oddities that distinguish them from New York or Neapolitan pies. Importantly, their spongy crust, reminiscent of focaccia, develops that crispy, crackly edge. These pies also tend to be constructed differently, with toppings layered underneath a final mound of sauce and cheese.

Lest not conflate it with Chicago’s famous deep-dish and stuffed pizzas, which are layered in a similar way but, ruefully, are more like lasagna than pizza.

Shivers’ Detroit-style pie starts with a dough fermented for three days, two cold and one at room temperature. Though he currently fills orders Thursday to Saturday (Sundays starting soon), the process consumes several days.

“The dough separates mediocre pizza from great pizza,” he said. “If you don’t put love in the dough, it’s not gonna be memorable.”

On the third day — order day — he par-bakes the crust without toppings, leaving it to rise a bit more until he slathers it with a “pretty bold” tomato sauce cooked with red chili flakes, garlic, onion, basil and oregano. The recipe honors the pie’s Detroit heritage, where a now mini-chain called Buddy’s popularized the square style.

Build-your-own options are available (starting at $19), but consider his creations such as La Casa (fennel sausage, olives and mushrooms), the Vito (pancetta, cherry peppers, roasted garlic and scallions) and the Zorba (grilled artichokes with olives and feta).

STILL GOOD ON DAY THREE

The details pay off.

Unless requested, Shivers does not cut the pie at all. He recommends reheating the pizza in one solid block on an oiled baking sheet in a 400-degree oven for about five minutes. I cut off a third and, candidly, tossed it right onto the wire rack for more like 12 minutes, until the cheese really bubbled.

The two corner pieces were devoured first.

On day two, I used a cast-iron skillet, which yielded equally crisp results, though as Shivers noted, watch for too much darkness.

This setup is very purposeful, because, as discussed, square pies are perfect for takeout.

Their circular brethren often “started as a great pizza,” and then “it’s a half-hour away from the oven,” explained Shivers. “You have this soggy, gooey thing. I’m sensitive to the fact that a lot of people don’t eat it right away.”

You don’t have to reheat it, but you should.

TACOMA PIE

▪ 7104 6th Ave. (at The Gourmet Niche), Tacoma, 253-320-8734, tacomapie253@gmail.com, tacomapie.com

▪ Details: call or text preferred to order, wait for confirmation; carryout only, Thursday to Saturday, 5-9 p.m.

▪ Signature pies $20-$23, build-your-own start at $19

This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 10:00 AM.