A Canadian brand has brought a multiethnic version of Detroit-style pizza to Boston, proving that regional styles can fit in just about anywhere.
Descendant Detroit Style Pizza, which already has two stores in Toronto, opened in the Prudential Center on February 6, offering signature pies like the Truff-Guy (cheese blend, double-smoked bacon, caramelized onions, truffle aioli, cremini mushrooms, grana padano and fresh thyme) and Daddy’s Favorite (cheese blend, jerk chicken, kothu roti, mango chutney, curried lime aioli, Mama Lil’s peppers and green onions).
The menu even boasts a red-sauce Detroit-style pizza called the Canadian, with pepperoni, double-smoked bacon, cremini mushrooms, housemade ranch and fresh chives.
Owner Sotirios “Ike” Tzakis is committed to honoring the Detroit-style tradition while also using toppings favored by Canadians, particularly those in multicultural Toronto. “We take [elements] from different ethnicities and different countries, and we incorporate it into pizza,” he recently explained to What Now Boston.
In a video on YouTube (see below), Tzakis shows the step-by-step process of making his pies. The additive-free flour comes from a local mill in Missisauga. The dough is fermented for two days in the cooler, and the dough trays are then cross-stacked in the cooler. The pies are baked in real-deal rectangular blue steel pans from Lloyd Pans. “The hardest part is…pushing [the dough] in the pan as level as possible,” Tzakis said. “Every pizza we make has to sit in the pan. On the weekends, we go through around 400 pies.”
Tzakis adds, “I don’t think people understand how much work really goes into Detroit-style pizza. I’ve had some customers complain—you know, ‘You sold out!’ It’s, like, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry that my space is limited.’ There’s only so much I can do. I would love to produce a thousand pies a day. That would be great. I just don’t have the room for it.”
Tzakis and partner Chris Getchell opened the first Descendant Detroit Style Pizza store in Toronto in August 2015. “I’ve probably been making pizza all my life,” Tzakis said. “My parents had a little mom-and-pop shop back in Boston, and I grew up just making pizza and learning from them.”
Getchell left the company for personal reasons, leaving Tzakis to grow the brand on his own.“It’s important for us to deliver a great pizza every single time because that’s why we opened Descendant,” he said. “We’re all about perfection and offering our customers the best of the best when it comes to Detroit-style pizza.”
