Detroit-style pizzeria in New York puts mustard on its pies

Pizza without a red sauce?

A New York restaurant that makes Detroit-style pizzas, Lions &Tigers & Squares, has ignited a food fight on social media over the pantry staple taking the place of traditional tomato sauce. The raw dough is topped with spicy mustard and then it's topped with corned beef, sauerkraut, and cheese.

Food Insider posted a video on Twitter about the pizzeria's creation and the reaction from naysayers was swift:

Many pizza purists said they found the idea revolting -- even more so than pineapple, the typical topping of contention.

Others thought it was a spectacular idea and were eager try it.

The birthplace of Detroit-style pizza is Buddy’s Pizza. It's a thick, deep-dish square pie with toppings under the cheese and sauce is ladled on top. 

And Detroiter's know pizza. Last September, Detroit took the No. 1. spot in SmartAsset’s 2017 edition of Best Cities for Pizza Lovers.

Francis Garcia and Sal Basille are the pizza aficionados who opened Lions, Tigers & Squares in May 2018 based on Buddy's Detroit-style pizza. They also own pizza chain Artichoke Basille's Pizza and had a show, Pizza Cuz, on the Cooking Channel.

The mustard pizza came about, Garcia said, thinking the Wisconsin brick cheese would be great with mustard and without pizza sauce. They decided to give it a shot.

“We put a little bit of corned beef and drop of sauerkraut for flavor,” Garcia said. “But it’s all mustard. The mustard is the brightest flavor in the pizza and the corned beef gives it a little bit of smokiness and little bit of texture and the sauerkraut adds the sourness and little bit of crunch. But again, it’s mostly mustard.”

Garcia said the mustard makes a lot of sense.

“It’s an acidic and it acts as the sauce and it’s delicious.”  I personally love it, I think it’s phenomenal.”

More:Detroit named No. 1 city in America for pizza lovers

When it comes to pizza, there are purists and those, like Greg Gnyp of 93.9-FM The River in Windsor, Ontario, who says “pizza is fair game.”

Years ago, Gnyp owned a wood-fired pizza place in Windsor called Terra Cotta. There they did all kinds of pizza, he said, including a pizza of the month.

“During baseball season we did a baseball pizza, with mustard, ketchup, hot dogs and onions,” Gnyp said. “Sometimes you have to break free from the traditional,” Gynp said. “I have no problem with mustard on pizza. You’re seeing barbecue sauce, a white sauce on pizzas. There’s still those things that should never be on pizza, mustard, pineapple. But why not? The crust is just the shell for everything you’re eating.”

In 1990, the Free Press’ late columnist Bob Talbert, created a Coney Island Pizza for a celebrity gourmet pizza-making contest to benefit charity. The contest was at then America’s Pizza Café owned by the Mike and Marian Ilitch and winners would have their pizza featured on the menu for a specific time and sales would benefit charity.

In an archived column, Talbert described his creation:
 “My ingredients were simple: mustard on top of the raw pizza dough, coney island chili atop that, covered with quarter-inch slices of hot dogs (three hot dogs per pizza) and topped after the cooking in the wood-fired oven with chopped, raw white onions.”

Talbert wrote that a Coney Island pizza, "combining two of Detroit's great gastronomic gut-busters" would make a “ terrific pizza pie.”