Editor's note: This article has been updated to include the correct spelling of the owners' last name, Batsios, upon every reference.

The owners of Sapore Detroit Pizzeria claim they were the first to introduce the style to Katy.

How it happened

George and Christos Batsios, father-and-son restaurateurs, said the concept was created after converting their white tablecloth Italian restaurant, Sapore Ristorante Italiano, into a pizza shop during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We missed having Detroit pizza ourselves,” Christos Batsios said. “Turns out people enjoyed it, and nobody had had anything like it."

While the restaurant closed in fall 2021, Sapore was reborn as pizza shop Sapore Detroit Pizzeria on Kingsland Boulevard in summer 2023.On the menu

Each item on the menu—which also includes pasta, sub sandwiches, salads and wings—are named after iconic Detroit landmarks and heritage as well as celebrities from the city, such as athletes and Motown recording artists, Christos Batsios said.

Most-ordered pizzas include:

• The Detroiter, which has a layer of pepperoni inside and another layer of pepperoni on top
• The Joe Louis Fist, which is Sapore’s version of a meat lover's
• The Motown, made with spicy Italian sausage, jalapenos and homemade hot honey

What’s special about it?

Christos Batsios said Detroit-style pizza varies from other pizza styles such as New York or Chicago in many ways, from its preparation and ingredients to its presentation.They special order brick cheese from Wisconsin, which stretches like a mozzarella but tastes like a blend of muenster and cheddar, while also caramelizing when it's baked instead of burning, Christos Batsios said.

The dough is proofed twice, he said. Once when it’s first rolled out and again when it’s stuffed into a deep-dish, blue steel pan to give the Detroit pizza its characteristic square shape.

“That's what gives it that thickness, but also it's not heavy like a lot of deep dish pizzas,” Christos Batsios said.

Finally, tomato sauce is placed on top of the pizza like racing stripes, he said, which is another nod to Detroit with its influence on America’s car culture.A family affair

George Batsios didn’t know he’d be re-entering the restaurant business decades after closing his family-style diner in Flint, Michigan. It was his son who convinced him to return, he said.

Christos Batsios credits his father’s influence for his desire to own a restaurant.

“[I worked] with this man from the age of 5 years old,” Christos Batsios said. “I used to go [to the restaurant] every day with him. I just enjoyed the whole kitchen—the food, the eating and the people.”Both said it’s their Greek heritage, with its emphasis on hospitality, that has created so much success for them.

“If you go to Greece, no matter who you are, people are going to invite you in their home, they're going to feed you, they're going to give you a drink, they might even offer you a place to sleep, without even knowing you,” George Batsios said. “So that's the kind of hospitality I think people deserve.”

• 23445 Kingsland Blvd., Ste. 500, Katy
• www.detroitpizzeriakaty.com