New Haven’s new ‘Detroit-ish’ style pizza spot to hold ribbon-cutting this week

By Stasia Brewczynski, Correspondent

Oct 14, 2025

“We’re here to add to New Haven’s incredible pizza story, not compete with it,” said Ankit Chellani, co-owner of Bobbi’s, a new Detroit-style pizza restaurant opened last month in a Yale-owned space on the Broadway triangle in downtown New Haven ahead of the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 16. Mayor Justin Elicker will attend the celebration at 1 p.m.

Chellani noted that while New Haven is one of the most competitive pizza cities in the country, he saw a gap in the market for Detroit-style pizza, prized for its square shape and thick and airy yet crunchy crust edged with frico, a term for the cheese that caramelizes against the sides of the pan. Detroit-style pizza is also just about the polar opposite of New Haven–style apizza, which is defined in large part by its relatively thin, charred crust baked in high, dry heat. “Detroit-style pizza doesn’t exist here yet,” explained Chellani, and “that felt like an exciting opportunity. We’re not trying to replace New Haven apizza — we’re celebrating pizza in a different form.”

Chellani’s first New Haven restaurant, popular Indian street food concept Sherkaan, sits right around the corner, behind the Apple store, across from the Yale Bookstore, abutting one of Yale’s Ezra Stiles College courtyards. While the two establishments’ cuisines are very different, they will share key team members — including Sherkaan executive chef Bryan Burke, who will co-own Bobbi’s and lead its culinary program — and a philosophy, which Chellani described as “bold flavors, high-quality ingredients, and a fun, approachable guest experience.”

At Bobbi’s, diners can expect a fast-casual approach with counter service for dine-in, takeout, and delivery. The restaurant will serve eight-by-10–inch pizzas sliced into four pieces. In addition, the menu will include items like a smashburger, chicken wings, salad and french fries alongside drinks such as soda, beer, wine and ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails.

“The dough is our biggest focus,” said Burke, who describes opening a pizzeria as a “full-circle” moment, given he got his start in restaurants at the age of 16 working at the now-closed Pizzeria Pomodoro in Farmington. Baked in a traditional Detroit pizza pan with four corners and high sides, the Bobbi’s dough goes through an extended cold ferment, Burke said, followed by a shorter room-temperature ferment. This, he added, combined with parbaking the dough, helps develop the style’s signature light and airy crumb.

The cheese topping are classic to the Detroit style as well. “We are using traditional Wisconsin brick cheese,” explained Burke. “The highlight of Detroit-style pizza, for me, comes from the brick cheese melting down the sides, between the crust and the pan, to create these wonderful crispy cheese edges. The fat content of the brick cheese gives the bottom of the crust a slight buttery flavor and almost griddled texture.”

Burke promised, however, that the pizza is “Detroit-ish.” Alongside classic toppings like pepperoni, Bobbi’s has more playful specials and signatures that color outside the Detroit-style pizza box. One such topping is butter chicken, which Burke and Chellani turned into a local favorite at Sherkaan during the pandemic.

Like Burke, Chellani said he’s long held a soft spot for pizza; opening Bobbi’s is allowing him to share that affection. “I’ve always dreamed of opening a pizza place, and with Bryan by my side, it was an obvious decision,” Chellani said.

And while New Haven apizza is the dominant — and fiercely defended — style in the city, it’s certainly not the only one. Yorkside Pizza on York Street just around the corner from where Bobbi’s is located, for example, is a beloved purveyor of another relatively thick pan pie, the Greek pizza, a style invented in New London, and now often claimed by the rest of the region as New England–style pizza.

Chellani acknowledged that New Haveners have a strong passion and respect for their hometown pizza style, and he said Bobbi’s isn’t meant to compete with it, but instead be a complement to it. As such, the restaurant’s design, honed by New Haven–based design firm Box 8 Creative, features playful bubble letters, purple neon, and psychedelic UFOs — as Chellani puts it, “You’ll immediately know that Bobbi’s isn’t your typical New Haven pizza shop.”

He added that the Bobbi’s design is intentionally “a little cheeky” — much like his plan to bring otherworldly Detroit-style pizza to apizza-proud New Haven.

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