NY or CA? New Haven or Chicago?: Our guide to 13 pizza styles you’ll taste in South Florida
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — South Florida is officially a United Nations of pizza, with new styles arriving on our shores every week, from Chicago’s casserole-style deep dish to Detroit’s square pies with red sauce on the cheese. Yes. On. The. Cheese.
Owing partly to local ingenuity and the pandemic migration of Californians, Midwesterners and Northeasterners, South Florida today is home to at least 13 regional pizza styles — including Cuban and Haitian, Argentinean and Greek.
Just how well do you know your pizza styles? There are some for whom these pies are a religion. Then there are those who can’t tell a Neapolitan apart from a Grandma. This guide is designed for the latter.
Now, by no means is this lineup of styles and locations authoritative. For example: Times Square Pizza, in my opinion, bakes a fine slice of New York-style, but is it objectively the best? If you live anywhere but Fort Lauderdale, chances are strong you’ll disagree.
Always remember South Florida’s third law of pizza dynamics: For every native New Havenite who cries foul about over-charred crust on a white clam “apizza” at Frank Pepe’s, there is a native Michigander raving about the authenticity of Jet’s Pizza. (Yes, such heated debates run thicker than marinara. Don’t believe us? Take a stroll through the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s 113,000-strong Facebook food group, “Let’s Eat, South Florida.”)
Without further ado, behold this tasty investigation below, in which we slice into the 13 pizza styles that call South Florida home.
CALIFORNIA
Let’s be honest: The Golden State is far better known for sushi, wine and In-N-Out Burger before its pies come to mind. Wolfgang Puck and “California cuisine” pioneer Alice Waters are credited with introducing it in the 1980s, back when people watched “Airwolf” and listened to Night Ranger, but the gospel of this style was truly spread in the early 2000s by California Pizza Kitchen. Its thin, hand-tossed crust melds two well-known styles, New York and Neapolitan, with toppings less traditional than pepperoni and sausage, such as avocado and crème fraîche and grilled barbecue chicken.
California Pizza Kitchen: multiple locations; CPK.com
NEW HAVEN/CONNECTICUT
Let’s dismantle one misconception about New Haven-style off the bat, folks: It’s charred, not burnt. Blame that nuance on the original Neapolitan immigrants who moved to the Elm City around the turn of the 20th century. A sootier descendent of the Margherita-style, these oblong pies begin with overnight-proofed dough, which imparts a trademark crispy-chewy thin crust when fired at high heat in a coal- or wood-fired oven. The result of this hotter-than-hell alchemy is a smoky flavor and charred crust and undercarriage. And don’t forget the lingo when you order: It’s not pizza, but rather “apizza” (pronounced ah-beetz). Mozzarella, meanwhile, goes by the one-syllable “mootz.” Don’t expect cheese with your tomato pie (there isn’t any), and arguably the most popular New Haven apizza lacks tomato sauce altogether: The white clam pie, a staple on New Haven’s Wooster Street, is topped with fresh-shucked littleneck clams, grated aged parmesan and garlic.
Ah-Beetz New Haven Pizza, 15200 Jog Road, Delray Beach; Ah-Beetz.com
Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, 1701 S. Federal Highway, Delray Beach, and 341 N. University Drive, Plantation; PepesPizzeria.com
The Pizza Spot, 601 SW 12th Ave., Fort Lauderdale; ThePizzaSpot.business.site
GRANDMA/SICILIAN
At the risk of picking a fight with purists, we combined these styles because these square pies share much in common, but they’re different enough from Detroit-style. Both are deep-dish, stretched out in the rectangular pan, although a Grandma slice is thinner, denser, with chunkier tomatoes, a stronger garlic flavor and rivers of sauce on top, while Sicilian borders on fluffy, spongy focaccia with a sweeter sauce because the yeasted dough is left to rise longer before baking. Folks will say the Sicilian pinnacle is L&B Spumoni Gardens in Brooklyn, but South Florida holds its own quite well.
GRANDMA
Pizzaioli, 7402 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach; PizzaioliWPB.com
Umberto’s of Long Island, 3051 E. Commercial Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, UmbertosFL.com; and 233 NE 21st Ave., Deerfield Beach, UmbertosDB.com
SICILIAN
Stromboli’s Pizza, 801 S. University Drive, Plantation; StrombolisPizzaMenu.com
Effe Cafe, 10295 Stirling Road, Cooper City; Instagram.com/effe.cafe (Wednesdays only)
DiSalvo’s Pizza & Italian Restaurant, 4190 N. 46th Ave., Hollywood, and 5945 S. University Drive, Davie; DisalvosPizza.com
GREEK
Let’s be clear that New England-style Greek pies differ from what you’ll find here. Up north, there’s olive oil-enriched dough flattened into shallow pans (which are also oiled), then coated in, yes, more olive oil. (It yields a softer, focaccia-like dough.) In South Florida, where such pies are rare, arguably the closest you’ll find is Kosta’s Greek Eatery and Pizzeria, which bakes a hybrid New York-style. The overnight-proofed dough is first stretched thin, coated in kalamata oil, and sauced with a marinara consisting of oregano, secret Greek spices and whole-slice tomatoes. “I use olive oil like a lunatic,” owner Kosta Mantzouranis says. “Whole-slice tomatoes minimize the water. You want a little moisture but you don’t want it too soupy.” Though the pizzeria also offers Margherita and Grandma styles, get the Greek, topped with feta, tomatoes, onions and Kalamata olives.
Kosta’s Greek Eatery and Pizzeria, 1940 NE 49th St., Pompano Beach; KostasGreekEateryPizzeria.com
CHICAGO
We’re talking about traditional deep-dish here, not to be confused with its mortal enemy, Chicago thin crust (more on this anon), or stuffed pizza or pan pizza. These are the triple-bypass indulgences you’ll find at Lou Malnati’s, Uno, Gino’s East and Pizano’s in the Windy City. More casserole than pizza, deep-dish begins in olive oil pans that fry the dough (usually a semolina-white flour mixture) during baking, imparting a golden crunch. Be prepared to wait a minimum of 30 minutes for this creation stuffed with dense, oozing mozzarella, meat and vegetables (optional), and thin tomato sauce. The result: a savory, heart-stopping layer cake, surrounded by a fortress of buttery, flaky crust, that definitely requires a knife and fork.
So what’s Chicago thin-crust? Baked longer and crispier than New York-style, the crust is cracker-thin and topped with dense mozzarella and thin tomato sauce, so don’t even think of folding it in half. Unlike New York’s triangular slices, pizza chefs give it a “party-style” (or “tavern-style”) cut, square slices that are more easily divvied up at parties. The result is more slices per pizza, but an uneven cheese and sauce-to-crust ratio. Some call that pizza madness. We call it a mood. Want more crust? Grab a corner. Want all cheese and sauce? Break off a middle.
Deep dish:
Il Baretto Italian Cuisine, 220 S. University Drive, Plantation; IlBarettoRistorante.com
Chicago Stuffed Pizza Co., 238 Commercial Blvd. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea; ChicagoStuffedPizzaMenu.com
Thin crust:
Windy City Pizza, 401 W. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach; DelrayWindyCityPizza.com
CUBAN
South Florida’s Cuban pizza traces its roots to the island’s “paladares” (indie restaurants run by inventive Cuban entrepreneurs), which serve a thin-crust version that locals fold in half like tortillas. Then Miami-based Rey’s Pizza kicked off a new pan pizza trend when it debuted in 1985. Now many Cuban pies here are a pan pizza with thick crust and prodigious cheese, which dribbles over the edges into a caramelized rim of lacy, charred cheese. In South Florida, you’ll find a combination of both thin-crust and pan, with or without the cheese rim. The toppings — reminiscent of a “ventanita” slinging fresh pastelitos and Cubanos — include fried plantains, guava, spicy ham, onions and chorizo.
Havana Nights Cuban Pizza, 1180 S. Congress Ave., Palm Springs; HavanaNightsCubanPizzaMenu.com
Rey’s Pizza, multiple locations; ReyPizza.com
HAITIAN
Haitian pizza here also owes its origins to the motherland, of course, specifically Port-au-Prince. But it evolved, like much Caribbean cuisine, with scrappy ingenuity over centuries of colonization. The South Florida influence on Haiti’s pies is unmistakable. At North Miami’s Pot’iwa Pizza, pies begin with a hand-tossed thin crust and an in-house Creole seasoning, to which chefs add a blend of white American cheese and Kraft mozzarella and a sauce consisting of spaghetti sauce, sugar and ketchup. It bakes for 10 to 15 minutes at 350 degrees, says owner Ludvy Joseph, who first opened pizzerias in Port-au-Prince with partner Jude Vaillant before expanding this year with a new Miami location. “Me and my partner thought to ourselves: What if you put griot on a pizza?” Joseph says. “With our spice, we make the pizza taste just like traditional Haitian food.” Toppings include griot (fried pork chunks), aranso (herring), mori (codfish), shrimp and lobster.
Pot’iwa Pizza, 12485 NE Sixth Court, North Miami; PotiwaPizzaMenu.net
NEW YORK
The pizza that launched a thousand endless debates over “authenticity” is by far the most common in New York’s unofficial sixth borough. Impossible-to-please locals will argue South Florida pies can never aspire to Big Apple heights without NYC’s famed water-treatment system. (Others argue it’s high-gluten flour, not the water, but … darn, now we’ve gone cross-eyed.) Anyway, Neapolitan immigrant Gennaro Lombardi is credited with selling the first New York-style in 1905 on Spring Street, for the astronomical sum of one nickel per pie. What it is: Hand-tossed thin crust, a thin layer of marinara (fresh or crushed canned tomatoes) and full-fat mozzarella grated to cinematically cheesy proportions. A little sauce peeks out from the edge of the pie (called the “cornicione”). Fully-baked, it yields eight triangular slices with airy, browned crust that folds in half with a satisfying snap. (If the slice flops, there’s too much grease/moisture, or it’s undercooked.) Older slice shops used coal ovens (Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn still does), but most modern pizzerias rely on gas-fired now. Want the best in South Florida? Answer: It’s located five minutes from your home. My personal favorite? Times Square.
Times Square Pizza and Subs, 2304 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; TimesSquarePizza.net
Mauro’s Pizza, 1904 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; MaurosPizzaMenu.com
Pete’s-A-Place, 3417 Davie Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; EatatPetesaPlace.com
Manhattan Joe’s Pizzeria, three Boca Raton locations: 5030 Champion Blvd., 1901 NW Second Ave., and 20449 State Road 7, Unit AA-9; ManhattanJoesPizzeria.com
Nick’s Pizza, 137 NE Second Ave., Deerfield Beach; NicksPizzaDeerfieldBeach.com
GEORGIAN
The country — not the state — is home to Adjarian khachapuri, better known as Georgian cheese bread. It’s made from pizza dough (bread flour, yeast, water, salt) and baked in an oven, much like its Mediterranean cousin, Turkish pide. Like a sunny-side-up pie, it’s a bulging flatbread shaped like a pillowy dugout canoe, with a runny yolk in the middle of a pool of molten, briny cheese called sulguni. At Askaneli Premium Georgian and Seafood Restaurant, cow’s milk cheese and heaps of butter are stirred tableside into an indulgent fusion, and customers then dunk hunks of bread into the mixture.
Askaneli Premium Georgian and Seafood Restaurant, 511 SE Fifth Ave. (inside NuRiver Landing), Fort Lauderdale; AskaneliRestaurantfl.com
Argo Restaurant, 2351 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd., Hallandale Beach; ArgoRestaurantMiami.com
ARGENTINEAN
More than half of Argentina’s population is of Italian descent, so it’s hardly surprising that pizza dovetails with the country’s cuisine. Italian immigrants, mainly from Genoa, settled in the La Boca neighborhood of Buenos Aires in the late 19th century, where Nicola Vaccarezza is credited with creating the first pie in 1882. Genoese pizzaiolo Agustin Banchero later popularized it with his namesake pizzeria in the 1930s. (Now there’s even a Banchero location in Miami Beach.) One popular Argentinean pizza — borrowing its DNA from Neapolitan-style – swims in rivers of mozzarella cheese and onions, with a crust that can be focaccia-like. Called fugazza, it has no tomato sauce. Another kind, first baked in the oven then finished on the plancha, is crispy-thin and golden-yellow, like the pizza especial at KAO Bar & Grill in Hallandale Beach, which begins with a blend of three different flours and is topped with a mozzarella-Monterey jack cheese blend, ham, olives, roasted red peppers and oregano.
Kussifay Argentinian Restaurant, 2652 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Kussifay.com
KAO Bar & Grill, 11 NE First Ave., Hallandale Beach; KaoBarandGrill.com
DETROIT
There’s zero consensus about the perfect configuration of Detroit pizza, but sticklers argue no square pie is worth its crust unless it’s cooked like Detroit’s Buddy’s Pizza. Detroit lore holds that Buddy’s owner Gus Guerra, in 1946, took a square, blue-steel utility tray from an auto assembly plant and used it to bake a new kind of Sicilian-like deep dish. Unlike New York-style, pizza from the Motor City is deep-dish with light, airy focaccia-like dough, a buttery underside and a savory halo of caramelized cheese that curls up like crust. Slices overflow with blistered Wisconsin brick cheese — fattier than New York-style mozzarella — and dollops of red tomato sauce top the pie last. Detroit pizza encourages savoring the corner pieces, where the crust real estate is crunchiest, and the interior tastes chewy without feeling dense. In South Florida, some pizzerias use blue-steel pans, some disagree that sauce belongs on the cheese, and some proof their dough for days beforehand. As we said before: no consensus.
Death By Pizza; 528 NE Second St., Delray Beach; DeathByPizzaDelray.com
Blue Steel Pizza Co., 2460 E. Commercial Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; BlueSteelPizzaFTL.com
Nino’s, 7120 Beracasa Way, Boca Raton; NinosofBoca.com (Note: It’s called “Sicilian” on the menu, but owner Mark Tornabene does it Detroit-style, baking it only on Nino’s slowest days, Monday and Tuesday.)
TAVERN/BAR
With a crispy-chewy crust slightly thicker than Chicago thin-crust but thinner than New York-style, bar/tavern pies are versatile and defy easy categorization. Their toppings, cheese (usually a mozzarella-cheddar blend) and sauce are spread out to the edges of its thin-lip crust, which cooks in an oily rimmed pan. They have a murky origin story — every state makes a version — although many New Englanders claim it as their invention. Tavern pies can be coal-, wood- or gas-fired.
Patio Bar & Pizza, 901 Progresso Drive, Suite 114, Fort Lauderdale; PatioBarPizza.com
Pizza Craft, 330 Himmarshee St., Fort Lauderdale; PizzaCraftPizzeria.com
MARGHERITA/NEAPOLITAN
We decided to combine these categories because the difference lies in the ingredients and preparation, although the shape and puffy crust is similar, and the toppings and mozzarella pool in the center. According to the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, pizza called “Neapolitan” is inauthentic unless certified by the stringent rules of this 14-page document. (In short: Neapolitan-style uses wood-fired ovens, 00 flour, San Marzano tomatoes, fresh mozzarella di bufala and basil leaves (applied before cooking so they darken in the oven). But here’s the main difference: Margherita, a type of Neapolitan, uses fresh-peeled tomatoes, a sprinkling of oregano, a drizzle of olive oil and mozzarella di bufala. A true Neapolitan-style has telltale leopard spots of char on the bottom and a soft, tender center, imparting an extra-chewy texture.
La Forketta, 1255 Powerline Road, Pompano Beach; LaForkettaMenu.com
Mister O1 Extraordinary Pizza, multiple locations; MisterO1.com
Heritage, 903 NE Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; HeritageFTL.com
Elisabetta’s, 32 E. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach, and 185 Banyan Blvd., West Palm Beach; Elisabettas.com
Did we miss any pizza styles? Email pvalys@sunsentinel.com, and please include an example of the restaurant that serves that style.
