(soft music) - [Bill] Detroit Pizza, but this is New York, Manhattan, Chelsea.

Detroit style pizza, I guess so, but how can that be?

- It's funny to talk about how it wasn't even that long ago that it wasn't available and now it's, like, international.

There's places in South Korea and Barcelona.

- [Bill] All this from a tavern on Detroit's east side, Buddy's Rendezvous, 1946.

Almost 10 years ago, Detroit PBS told the story about our pizza cut into squares.

- Everybody, "Square pizza?"

- Square.

They make a square pizza and that was weird.

- Are these people crazy?

- No one even heard of square, it was unheard of.

- You fell in love with it, it was great.

- But there's purists that will come in and say, nope, cheese and pepperoni, original sauce, that's it.

- Detroit style pizza is gonna be something when every time you take a bite you're gonna taste every product that's on there.

- It became sort of the Detroit style as they're referring to it now, but it's actually Sicilian style, that originated in Detroit.

- [Bill] A decade later, the Detroit style pizza story, it's gone worldwide, thanks in part to this little warehouse in Roseville and a world champion pizza maker, Shawn Randazzo.

In 2012, he entered a pizza competition in Las Vegas - And he told me that if he made 30th place he would be happy, and know it's a good recipe, and we would go on to be Detroit Style Pizza Company, and that's when he won first place.

- [Bill] Then Randazzo and his mother Linda, started the Detroit Style Pizza restaurant.

Shawn died of brain cancer in 2020, but he'd already been selling pre-seasoned Detroit style pizza pans.

Pans that opened up the market for pizza makers everywhere.

- A little bit before he passed away he told me, Mom, I'm so excited.

He's like, Detroit style pizza's like this and within a year or so it's gonna be like that and he was right.

- [Bill] The company shipping department, pans going out nationwide, Europe, Asia, a constant flow.

- Korea, Kuwait, other countries, a lot of countries.

I can't even remember them all.

Ireland I wanna say.

- [Bill] Here at the Michigan and Trumbull Pizza kitchen in Detroit, Shawn Randazzo's pans hot at work.

- Yeah, sure, what would you like?

- [Bill] Owner Kristen Calverley, tell us how it all came to this.

- There was a party store in Berkeley, Michigan called Mr.

Jay's.

So that's my very first pizza memory and then we were like a Jet's family.

(Kristen laughs) It was just, like, my parents were going out on the weekend and we had a sitter and we got Jet's delivered.

- [Bill] Several years ago, Calverley and her partner started Michigan and Trumbull Pizza in Pittsburgh, introducing Detroit style to Western Pennsylvania.

- We kind of wanted to do an homage to Detroit and Detroit baseball.

So all of our pizzas are named after Detroit landmarks.

And then the overarching, Michigan and Trumbull is our biggest sort of nod to the city.

Conventional toppings are great, but we're trying to do more interesting flavor combinations and unique toppings.

- [Bill] The Werner vegan, the Bagley chorizo, the Farnsworth Fungi with goat cheese and arugula, that's Calverley's partner in Detroit area native, Nathan Peck at work.

- He's the driving force behind the menu, and he does all of the prep every single day and there's no one that's ever made pizza here other than him since 2017, which is kind of wild.

- [Bill] Pittsburgh, home till it wasn't because of an opportunity to come back that was four years ago.

- And it wasn't until we found the location near the intersection of Michigan and Trumbull that we seriously started considering moving.

- [Bill] Michigan and Trumbull at Michigan and Trumbull, the corner where Tiger Stadium used to be.

But it got expensive so Michigan and Trumbull now at Holden and Lincoln, near Henry Ford Hospital in the Motown Museum.

- Probably like 35 minutes.

- [Bill] Whereby all appearances, business is great.

In Hamtramck, another Detroit style pizza story, Detroit PBS's own Fred Nahhat, he likes pizza, checking out Amar, home of the ghost pepper pizza.

- A lot of choices.

- A lot of choices.

- What's say, the most popular?

- The most popular is gonna be your naga or the tandoori.

Those are our bestsellers, they have the best flavor, most Bangladeshi inspired.

- Our pizza slogan is Amar Pizza is your pizza.

And that translates into my pizza is your pizza.

- [Bill] Khurshed Ahmed and his son Akeel run Amar.

Khurshed came to Hamtramck from New Jersey, but it was a visit to Bangladesh where someone tried to cure his pizza cravings.

- He took me to the place that sells pizza and I'm like, this isn't pizza, but that's what they called it.

It was similar to it, but it kind of made me wonder, hey, you know, we could probably do something.

Take traditional American pizzeria and use Bangladeshi flavors to incorporate 'em today.

- [Bill] Here's the naga, chicken, red onion, cilantro and naga hot pepper sauce.

- Definitely not a tomato sauce.

It's awesome.

It has a sweet taste to it.

I think it's probably some of the onions, but the sauce comes through.

Definitely some spice there, definitely some spice there.

- The pizzas we have are the pizzas for the most part, we've always had.

- [Bill] Amar has conventional pies, even Chicago deep dish.

They sell a few, but the Bangladeshi Detroit style is the draw, thanks to the special pizza pans.

- [Akeel] And it has a lot of flavor in it too so.

- Yeah, the older it gets, the better it cooks.

- Yeah.

- But just the basic in that square pan, Detroit style, coming up from there, you could be creative whether it's a sauce, whether it's sauce free, depending on the type of cheese, real melty or more like a feta or whatever, I think it's an exciting thing.

- Another one that's not as popular, but is definitely is inspired by Bangladeshi flavors is the dry fish pizza.

- [Bill] In Bangladesh, fish, a dietary mainstay and dried fish, very popular.

- If they like fish, they'll try it out.

If you don't like fish, you're not gonna like the pizza.

- Hmm, that's good.

If this is an acquired taste, I've acquired it.

- I've had nothing but positive feedback.

Everyone that comes here, they always come back, and that's one of the best feelings, you know?

If they were just coming here one time and never coming back, then I wouldn't be in business for 14 plus years.

- The thing that stands out is innovation.

What are we famous for?

Little Caesar's, first pizza maker to give you two, Domino's, 30 minutes.

The Detroit Pan with Buddy's, and some of the bigger ones.

You know, Jet's I think was probably the first on the app.

Everybody doing something to be competitive so they can stick with it, that's a Detroit thing.

- [Bill] Now, time for the Detroit style with the even hotter ghost pepper on it.

- I'm waiting for the fire.

Yep, there it is.

It's delicious, I'd also say it's exhilarating, like, it gets you that hot pepper buzz.

All right, I'm going for two.

- And the toppings you can get creative with, but if you can create a sauce that has a taste that, you know, you want, you could use it on pizza.

- Are you guys gonna?

Thank you.

The ghost pepper.

That's good, I was more afraid than I needed to be.

- [Bill] Are there other Bangladeshi flavored pizza places in Bangladesh or the east coast where many Bangladeshis live?

- Probably is now, but we were the first ones in the country.

- [Bill] Amar has one other outlet in suburban Troy.

Around here, it's hard not to be inspired by the success of the Little Caesars, the Domino's, the Jet's.

So what about Amar?

- That's the ultimate goal to have it spread out through the country, but the step by step, you know, one step at a time, we'll get there.

This is the next generation of pizza and Detroit style pizza, I think.