Detroit-Style Pizza Coming to Smith Street in Boerum Hill

A new pizzeria exclusively baking Detroit-style pies, made in a rectangular pan and known for their focaccia-like crust and Wisconsin cheddar cheese topping, will be opening its doors on Smith Street in Boerum Hill this summer.

Chef and owner Andrew Halitski will debut La Rose Pizza in the storefront that formerly housed Caruso’s Pizza and Restaurant at 150 Smith Street. The new restaurant will have “a very small and intentional menu” with around seven to nine Italian-inspired pizza flavors, one type of beer, and a couple of wine options, with the focus squarely on quality, Halitski said. The 8-by-10-inch pizzas must be bought whole.

“What’s going to make a difference is just using the best quality ingredients that we can and just making it super, super consistent,” Halitski said of his signature style. “I want the pizzas to be presented when you get home the way they look when they leave the restaurant, and they should be looking the same every single time.”

Caruso’s had been in the neighborhood since at least 2006, Property Shark shows, and was open until at least April this year. During that time a number of other pizza restaurants have popped up on and around the busy thoroughfare, including Brooklyn Pizza Market and Savelli.

Unlike many of the other restaurants, Halitski’s focus won’t be on dining in. He has reduced the seating space in the restaurant from when Caruso’s was there, converting the back area into a prep room because Detroit-style pizza needs more space, he said. Instead of tables, there will be six bar seats inside. There will also be two small tables outside. He said he expects takeout to be a large part of his business.

Halitski, a Toronto native, joined the culinary world at age 14 flipping burgers, he said, and went on to culinary school and a number of fine dining restaurants in the city. In 2017, he relocated to Park Slope when his now-wife got transferred for work, and spent the first year and a half in the city looking after their newborn.

In 2019 he went back into the restaurant world, working under chef Ignacio Mattos at Flora Bar on the Upper East Side. But in early 2020 his work permit expired and by the time it was renewed Covid-19 was in full force and Flora Bar had shut down. Halitski and his wife had their second child in late 2020, so he has stayed at home taking care of their children since.

During that period, Halitski decided to introduce his kids to Saturday pizza nights, something he grew up with, but instead of ordering in he decided to make them from scratch with “the best ingredients and products I could find.”

That eventually turned into baking them for neighbors and friends, which led to an Instagram account that was featured on Park Slope Living. “They really made my Instagram take off, I was selling out every weekend,” Halitski said. He took orders at the end of every month for the following month, and cooked Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

The focus on Detroit style happened naturally, Halitski said. “I started doing Sicilian style pies and I wanted to go for a kind of rustic look so just through playing around with it, the cheese ended up going around the edges every once in a while and getting like the classic frico cheese wall that you see on Detroit style pizzas.” The frico edge is the crispy layer of cheese that fringes the pie once it’s been removed from the pan.

Halitski said after doing a deep dive into Detroit-style pizzas and perusing the pizza community on Instagram, he was fully inspired to push ahead with the idea.

“There are so many home bakers out there doing amazing, amazing pizzas. Like there’s a bunch of people that I follow that I’m just blown away that they don’t have 10 restaurants going, the work they’re doing at home, it’s just amazing,” he said.

And ultimately, “I just love the way they look, I love the way they eat.”

According to Pizza reviewers Gerardo and Paolo of Bite Twice Pizza Reviews, who visited Halitski in May, he seems to have a winning recipe. The pair said the pies are “the best Detroit pizza in the world, I’m convinced of it,” and they both drooled over the “bouncy, airy” crust. Given Halitski has been consistently selling out, his neighbors seem to agree.

May was the last month Halitski baked out of his Park Slope apartment, with the outfitting of the new restaurant now taking top priority. He said while he had hoped to open in Park Slope, there wasn’t any appropriate real estate available, and he said the agent and owner at 150 Smith Street were “very understanding with my situation, and very patient with me.”

Although he doesn’t have an opening date set in stone, the store should be up and running mid-August, he said.

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