When owner Ankit Chellani first broached the idea of a new Detroit-style pizza joint, his executive chef Bryan Burke had reservations.
Sure, he was a pizza guy, having found his gift for cooking and baking when, at 17, he was called from his dishwashing duties to stretch pizza at Farmington’s Pizzeria Pomodoro. That said, as he allowed on a recent morning, he was a little pizza-ed out. Also, he already had a full-time gig as executive chef at the popular Sherkaan Indian Street Food, which Chellani owns. And Detroit style?
“I wasn’t sure I wanted to introduce another kind of pizza in the pizza capital of the world,” said the low-key Burke, as he emerged with a square pan of “parbaked,” or partially baked, dough from an industrial refrigerator at Bobbi’s, the new Shops at Yale Detroit-style pizza restaurant on 51 Broadway.
In addition to pizza, Bobbi’s, a fast-casual eatery with dine-in, grab-and-go, and delivery, offers smashburgers, wings, salads, and desserts. Beer, wine, and cocktails are also available.
Eventually, of course, the Farmington native came around, in part due to the -ish that Chellani added to “Detroit,” giving Burke, and Jared Worthy—the two will share chef duties—the creative license to put their own spin on the matter. Which is where Gabagool comes in.
Executive Chef Bryan Burke at work.
“This dough is very Detroit,” he said, spreading red sauce over the square-shaped surface. (The square shape is derived from the blue steel pans, originally used to hold scrap metals in auto factories, that Gus and Anna Guerra in 1946 got from a friend to make the first Detroit-style pie.) Likewise, the semi-hard, cow’s milk Wisconsin brick cheese, which he sprinkled on top. “You spread it to the edges, so it crisps up against the edges and melts down the side,” Burke said.“That’s a big part of Detroit pizza, and it helps get the buttery finish on the bottom.”
Then came the Gabagool, slang for capicola, a dry-cured Italian deli meat that was famously favored by Tony Soprano in “The Sopranos.” A Google search shows no Gabagool, or capicola, pizza in Detroit. That’s where Detroit ends and Burke comes in, in other words. That’s the -ish.
After adding sliced red onions and crumbled goat cheese, Burke set the pizza on a commercial conveyor pizza oven. Made by Edge, it’s a state-of-the-art pizza oven that uses a moving belt to transport pizzas through heated chambers, and it’s another reason that Burke agreed to take the leap. “I’ve had my eye on this one for a while,” he said.
Six minutes later, the Gabagool was materializing from its six-minute excursion through the oven. After quartering it into rectangles, Burke artfully drizzled the pizza with balsamic vinegar, then slid it into a purple pizza box.
The purple is the favorite color of Burke’s mother. Her name is Bobbi, for whom the restaurant is named. There is purple everywhere in the space—on the sign, the walls, the alien logo on the wall, symbolizing, Chellani said, the alien nature of Detroit-style pizza in New Haven. “A lot of the branding and identity draws on qualities of my mom,” Burke said. “She’s a fun purple lady.”
Bobbi, at Bobbi’s Detroit-style pizza grand opening.
Review
At first, the Gabagool pizza conjured up the 1940s-era blue-steel pans that the Guerras used to make the first Detroit-style pies. The sauce was tangy, and the dough soft and airy—surprisingly so, for a deep-dish style, offering a nice contrast to the crispy cheese edges, the Wisconsin brick having melted into gooey perfection. True to Burke’s promise, the bottom had an agreeable buttery finish.
Then, further into the bite, came the pungent red onions, and the razor-sharp goat cheese, and the savory notes of capicola and a shock of recognition that this was not Detroit, not at all. This was New Haven, home of mootz, of rigott, of manigott, and though the Gabagool may not be the thin-crusted, coal-fired Neopolitan style we’re used to—or, for that matter, the Greek or brick oven, or oblong-shaped—it was, still and all, a tasty and satisfying dish.
Bobbi’s on Broadway in all its purple glory.
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