The owners of Providence Pizza come from Rhode Island, a state that has its own local style of red-top square-pan pizza. It makes sense, then, that they gravitated to the Motor City’s style of pie—red on top, fat but airy in the middle, with the cheese crisped against the edge of the pan. A few years ago, there were a handful of decent Detroit pies in the city.
Today, the two local locations of Providence (one in the Parlor food hall downtown, the other in Grandview) have proofed up to the top of any discussion about the style.
A recent visit showed why: The sauce is so thick and acidic it stops just shy of puckering atop the salty mozzarella, and the crust that gets fried in its own oils in the pan but remains doughnut-fluffy.
It is the Diana Ross of local Detroit-style pizzas, and all others can only aspire to be Mary Wilsons.
