Decoding the Different Pizza Styles: A Comprehensive Guide to Regional Variations
Every region, state, and even some cities have what they consider the best pizza style. Opinions are strong and often rooted in childhood memories. People often have a favorite hometown pizzeria or a favorite pizza style they love.
That’s the beautiful thing about pizza: there’s so much variety! Let’s take a look!
1. Detroit-Style Pizza
Don’t be confused by the fact that both Domino’s and Little Caesar’s pizza chains were founded in Michigan—they do not represent Detroit-style pizza.
The first distinction is this pizza style is square, and the dough is more like focaccia, light and airy, and without the same intense chew as a New York pizza.
Next come the toppings, which may seem out of order, but there’s a method to the madness of a Detroit-style pizza. It’s known as a “red top,” meaning the sauce is put on top (but not to be confused with a Chicago deep dish pizza).
The reason? With such a light, porous crust, the toppings and cheese must go on first to keep the sauce from rendering the crust soggy.
Speaking of cheese, the Detroit pizza style doesn’t use mozzarella. Instead, Wisconsin brick cheese is preferred because it’s mild in flavor and has a high fat content.
The cheese will melt deliciously in the center and spread to the crust’s edges, where the fat will give the oil-less dough a nice buttery flavor. The cheese also gives the crust its legendary crispy, caramelized edges.
Top off the Detroit pizza with a flavorful red sauce and cut into squares, and you’ve got a traditional Detroit “square” that represents the Motor City’s pizza style.
2. Chicago-Style Pizza
This pizza style is a deep dish pizza with the crust pressed up the pan’s sides by two to three inches. It resembles a pie more than a flatbread and is filled with cheese and toppings and topped with tomato sauce.
Pizzeria Uno is purportedly responsible for the first Chicago-style pizza in 1943. Other legendary pizzerias adopted the recipe, and Chicago itself made this pizza style the city’s signature pizza.
Chicago pizza dough is made with wheat or semolina flour and corn oil or butter, giving the dough a distinctive buttery yellow color. The pan is oiled before the dough is pressed to a thin-to-medium thickness along the bottom and high up the sides, forming a basin. The oil will make the pie easy to remove and give the crust a lightly fried effect for crispy edges.
The fillings are layered in reverse so the cheese doesn’t burn and the sauce doesn’t make the crust soggy. Chicago-style pizza requires a much longer cooking time than traditional pizza styles. Meat and veggies are next, then a robust layer of tomato sauce on top. Bake for around one hour, and voila—Chicago deep-dish pizza!
3. New York-Style Pizza
Another of the most popular pizza styles is the New York-style pizza. This style is large, hand-tossed, and eaten by hand.
The crust edges are thick and crispy, and the center is thin enough to fold the big slices in half. Cheese pizza is the traditional option, but toppings do vary.
The sauce is layered directly on the dough and covered with full-fat mozzarella, which is a must. Toppings are scattered across the cheese.
The whole pizza is enormous, at least 18-24 inches across, so when it’s cut, each slice is big enough to be folded and eaten. It folds nicely thanks to the dough’s high-gluten content.
Italian immigrants opened the first pizzerias in New York around the turn of the 20th century. They first sold pizza as whole pies, but because more people could afford only slices, the pizzerias began selling these more affordable portions much faster.
4. Brooklyn-Style Pizza
Not to be confused with New York pizza, Brooklyn’s pizza style started to differentiate itself in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Its only similarity to New York-style pizza is that it’s thin and large—between 18-45 inches across.
Brooklyn pizza is square-cut, which changes the number of slices each pie produces. Most Brooklyn-style pizzas have six pieces.
To make a Brooklyn-style pizza, the dough is hand-stretched to ensure that the pizza crust is ultra-thin. It’s also a lower-moisture crust and gives a crispier bite. This pizza style also tends to have fewer toppings and a cheese mix of 45% mozzarella and 55% provolone.
5. Neapolitan Pizza
Neapolitan pizza originated in Naples, Italy in the late 1800s and is a pizza style made with just a few fresh ingredients: pizza dough, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, and olive oil.
What defines a Neapolitan pizza is that it has more sauce than cheese. As such, the middle of this pizza is very wet and not ideally served in slices. Therefore, it’s made small, only around 10-12 inches across, and served as a personal pizza. These pizzas are baked at incredibly high temperatures—800°F to 900°F—for around 90 seconds.
To be called a Neapolitan pizza, it must pass a rigorous standard set by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. The ingredients and cooking methods must match the qualifying factors, or the pizza is considered a Margherita pizza instead.
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