[NEWS BITES] The Root opening second location in Howell; Pizzeria Biga opening third location in Ann Arbor

Both these haps are pretty hush-hush, but I have confirmation that Pizzeria Biga has started build-out on what will be their third location, this one in Ann Arbor. Proprietor Luciano del Signore always intended for Biga to expand into multiple locations and with Royal Oak already a hit, that ball of dough certainly seems to be rolling.

And in keeping with their tradition of choosing WTF locations in metro Detroit's BFE, the Root Restaurant will be opening a second location in Howell. An agreement has been reached but build-out has not yet started.

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[NEWS BITES] Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria + Cucina opens tonight

In the wake of last night's monumental election results (the times, they are a'changin'), representatives for MGM Detroit ninja'ed this announcement into their morning emails: Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria + Cucina, Wolfgang Puck's newest restaurant at the MGM Grand Detroit, is opening today at 5 p.m. They will be open for dinner only, 5 p.m. -10 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and 5 p.m. - 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, closed Monday and Tuesday. Executive Chef Marc Djozlija, a longtime Puck veteran, is once again at the helm.

Below is the full press release. (Note the little added announcement at the bottom.)

Celebrated chef Wolfgang Puck returns to MGM Grand Detroit, the city’s premier entertainment destination, with the opening of Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria + Cucina, the first of two new Puck restaurants at the hotel casino.

“It’s great to return to Detroit and to the MGM Grand with the opening of our casual Italian concept,” said Wolfgang Puck. “Our Pizzeria + Cucina is the perfect place to relax with family and friends. Great Italian food is all about great ingredients. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just delicious!”

Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria + Cucina offers guests a warm and inviting atmosphere in a comfortable setting with an approachable Italian menu.

“Our guests, who love Italian food and Wolfgang Puck, have been anxiously waiting for Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria + Cucina to open,” said Steve Zanella, general manager of MGM Grand Detroit. “We are extremely excited to welcome the restaurant to the MGM Grand Detroit family.”

At the helm in the kitchen is Executive Chef Marc Djozlija, former chef of Wolfgang Puck Grille and a 16-year veteran of the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group. The menu features Puck’s famed wood-oven baked pizzas and pays tribute to Italy through pastas and specialty dishes and is complete with Italian favorites including antipasti, salads, handmade pastas, and enticing entrees featuring delectable meats and fish.

The menu highlights multiple varieties of pizza to choose from including the Margherita Pizza with mozzarella, tomato sauce and basil; Wild Mushroom Pizza with goat cheese, leeks and basil pesto and Italian Sausage Pizza with rapini and roasted garlic.

Additionally, guests can find house-made pastas and rustic Italian dishes including Penne Carbonara with sautéed English peas and crisp pancetta; Rigatoni with Bolognese meat sauce; Seafood Linguini “Fra Diavolo” with clams, shrimp, calamari and spicy tomato sauce; Chicken Piccata with lemon-caper butter sauce; Grilled Salmon with white beans, artichokes and rosemary butter; and Grilled Ribeye Steak with Tuscanpotatoes and salsa verde.

As a perfect finale, Pizzeria + Cucina offers a creative and playful dessert menu featuring classic Italian favorites with a modern twist. Decadent creations include Butterscotch and Bittersweet Chocolate Panna Cotta, Ricotta and Mascarpone Cheesecake with fresh berries and Affogato with hazelnut ice cream drenched with espresso.

The bar features a dynamic beverage list complementing the menu’s exquisite Italian flavors including domestic and international beers and a comprehensive section of wines, many imported from Italy. The bar offers an array of perfectly executed specialty cocktails including the Cucina Manhattan made with Bullet Rye, Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth and Bitter Truth "Jerry Thomas" Bitters and the Il Professore with Nardini Grappa, Cocchi Barolo Chinato, Luxardo Morlacco Cherry Liqueur and orange juice.

Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria + Cucina is open for dinner only, 5 p.m. -10 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and 5 p.m. - 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, closed Monday and Tuesday. To make reservations, please call 877-888-2121.

A second Wolfgang Puck restaurant, Wolfgang Puck Steak, will open at the hotel this December.

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[HOT LIST] Neapolitan pizza

Mani Osteria. All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

There has been a growing trend in metro Detroit recently, and one that has been happening relatively quietly. No, it's not upscale BBQ or upscale comfort food -- those trends have been anything but quiet. But while we have continued to bow at the altar of the almighty mac and cheese, coal- and wood-fired pizzerias are increasing in number (not to mention overall quality), and more specifically, Neapolitan-style pizzas are quickly nipping at the heels of their Sicilian-born Detroit-style deep dish brethren.

Pizza gets a bad rep. Typically thought of as the garbage pail gut-bomb it has been bastardized into courtesy of America (USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!), when people think of "pizza" they think of grease-soaked dense pan-cooked crust gobbed with dripping piles of cheap cheese and piled over with a zoo's worth of animal flesh. While I have a certain passion for such pedestrian pizzas like the fat Midwesterner that I am, not all pizza is so offensive to refined tastes. Neapolitan-style pizza is defined by high-quality, fresh, simple and healthy ingredients -- unbleached flour, fresh mozzarella, exceptional produce, extra virgin olive oil. In its truest Neapolitan form, pizza is actually quite healthy.

There is a very specific set of criteria that qualifies a pizza as "Neapolitan," but there are only two pizzerias in metro Detroit that are officially certified as such. For the purposes of this Hot List, I'm looking at places that are Neapolitan in spirit if not 100% in practice. Taken into consideration is size, shape and flavor of the dough; the quality and caliber of ingredients (prosciutto, yes; Canadian bacon, no); whether the pizza ovens are coal- or wood-fired; and, as is the case with any Hot List, whether or not I like it.*

The Margherita pizza at Antica Pizzeria Fellini.

#1 Antica Pizzeria Fellini (Royal Oak)
For more about the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, scroll down to #4. Got it? 'k. So this place is metro Detroit's other VPN-recognized Neapolitan pizzeria, and it's the real deal. This place is the most like an actual restaurant in Italy out of any of the faux-Italian eateries I’ve ever been in – it’s just a space, a simple space they obviously made some effort to make it look nice but otherwise a room in a building, nothing more. The owner is ever-present, presiding over the restaurant from his post in the very open kitchen, making all the food himself and personally checking in with all the customers. (For a little added authenticity, he even has an Italian accent). There was once a time when Il Posto was the most "Italian" place in Detroit, reminiscent of the highly-orchestrated fussy fine dining at Michelin-rated restaurants in touristy Toscana. Antica is countryside Italian, a small family-owned spot that exists solely to serve good food to their "extended" family, the customers. This is hands-down the best Neapolitan pizza I’ve ever had in Michigan. The dough tastes like flour, salt and yeast with a bit of wood smoke – in other words, exactly what it is, a mere canvas for the superior tomato sauce and creamy mozzarella. Their house-baked bread used for their bruschetta would also make excellent fettunta, and I wouldn't be surprised if they would in fact make it for you if you asked.

#2 Pizzeria Biga (Royal Oak, Southfield)
The custom-built brick oven chef-proprietor Luciano del Signore had flown in from Italy is pretty much the Ferrari of pizza ovens. Actually I think I said it best when I said, "The showpiece of the place is the 6,000-pound Ferrari-red wood-burning oven hand-made in Naples, Italy by Stefano Ferrara who is (channeling Cher Horowitz), like, a totally important designer. (Of ovens.)" Also, I am apparently fond of the Ferrari comparison. Real talk: this is not the best Neapolitan-style pizza of the bunch; several others on this list and listed as "bubbling under" are better. But do any of those other places have 24 international craft beers on tap and a beer store in their basement? No they do not. Extra bonus for the use of their own house-made charcuterie like duck prosciutto, which if you HAVE to pollute your pizza with animal carcass then this would be the place to do it.

The Margherita pizza at Tony Sacco's.

#3 Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza (Novi, Ann Arbor coming soon)
It's a casual joint that manages to strike the perfect balance between pedestrian pizza gluttony and European refinement. You can read more about their $50,000 custom-built oven that burns extremely expensive clean-burning coal here; see also all fresh ingredients and everything made from scratch with no freezers, no microwaves and no fryers anywhere in the building. For a place that feels like such a casual sit-down pizza place, their commitment to quality is unmatched. The pizzas themselves toe that line of excessive American meatiness, but their Margherita is the real deal and the Bianco is bang-on. And also also also also the garlic rolls.

#4 Cellar 849 (Plymouth)
As Michigan's first certified Neapolitan pizza recognized by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (VPN) -- the "pizza polizia" -- of Naples, Italy, Cellar 849 adheres to the strict regulations that respect the tradition of true Neapolitan pizza, including a custom wood-burning oven, hand-rolled dough, and fresh, all-natural ingredients. They use some of the highest-quality imported ingredients available, including Fior di Latte mozzarella, Denominazione di Origine Protteta (DOP -- the produce polizia) San Marzano tomatoes, Italian extra virgin olive oil, prosciutto di Parma and Caputo flour. Their Italian-built wood-burning oven is the same as those used at the flashier Pizzeria Biga joints, and the remainder of the menu is just as delightfully Italian, including the (somewhat predictable) wine and beer lists. Yes, I just plagiarized myself here.

#5 Crispelli's Bakery + Pizza (Berkley)
Make no mistake, this place is a clusterfuck. It is so much of a clusterfuck that I'm not even sure why anyone would even make the attempt to go there on a Friday night. Don't go on a Friday night. All the traffic controllers and little metal signs with numbers on them designating your assigned seats in the open-seating cafeteria-style restaurant cannot make this any less of an exercise in tedium, nor does it make up for the fact that you have to wait in six different lines just to cobble together a single meal and if you don't stand in the middle of the register area with all of the other blank-looking meat bags you'll have no way of knowing when your food is ready. Pizza? That's one line. Salad? That's another. Drinks? Look, don't make this complicated: go on an off day at an off time and order one of their "Authentic Italian" thin crust pizzas. Despite all of the MANY inconveniences of ordering, their pizza is worth the hassle. (Just not on a Friday night.) Another thing I like: the self-serve structure means your $10 pizza really is $10 -- none of the added charges of sitting down in a restaurant with a server, ordering drinks, having to tip, so on and so forth until your $10 pizza becomes a $25 pizza. If you want to stuff your face on the quick without the fuss but still have high standards, this is the place to go.

Bubbling under Terra Cotta Pizzeria (Windsor), Tomatoes Apizza (Farmington Hills, Novi), Spago Trattoria E Pizzeria (Windsor), Vito's Olde Walkerville Pizzeria (Windsor), Mani Osteria (Ann Arbor), Fresco Wood Oven Pizzeria (Rochester Hills)

*Gas ovens have been excluded. Supino uses a gas oven. Is that a bad thing? Certainly not. The best pizza I ever had in my life was made in a gas oven. But that is not for this list. I have to draw the line somewhere, and I drew that line at coal. Because...I did. Because I can. So there. Still more places not listed here -- Vinsetta Garage, Union Woodshop, Bad Brad's BBQ Shelby Twp., J. Baldwin's, Motor City Brewing Works -- use wood-fired pizza ovens (as I said, this is becoming quite the trend), but their pizzas didn't quite meet my very loosely-defined Neapolitan-ish criteria. 

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[HOT LIST] Plymouth

Photo from the Sardine Room on Facebook.

Plymouth: that mysterious Middle Earth that lies somewhere between Ann Arbor and the rest of greater metro Detroit. For many Plymouth is merely a drive-by city, a place you pass on the way to Ann Arbor and only take note of because of the prominent water tower in plain sight of the freeway. But Plymouth is a fantastic city with a vibrant, bustling downtown filled with independently-owned shops and restaurants, flanked by historic Colonial and Cape Cod-style homes on hilly tree-lined streets. It's quiet and quaint, charming and absolutely adorbs. (There is a reason CNN Money Magazine named it one of the best small towns to live in 2009.)

In addition to being so cute you want to pinch it, the community is also committed to maintaining a rich cultural identity. Home to a variety of events including the Plymouth Ice Festival, the oldest and largest free ice carving festival in North America attracting 400,000 visitors annually, and Art in the Park, Michigan's second-largest art fair held every year in downtown Plymouth's fab Kellogg Park (which just so happens to be this weekend), Plymouth remains something of a best kept secret for the 10,000 or so people who call it home.

Photo from the Sardine Room.

#1 The Sardine Room
The name may be a bit misleading as there really aren't an abundance of sardines in the Sardine Room; just roll with it. (To their credit, they do have a Portuguese sardine snack plate.) The Sardine Room is Plymouth's newest restaurant (from the same people behind Plymouth's Fiamma and Compari's) and is already a huge hit with the locals. It's a raw bar and tapas restaurant  that focuses on shellfish with a smattering of high-end odds-and-ends items (like American Wagyu beef, Loch Duart Scottish salmon and rilettes). Mussels, clams, scallops, shrimp, crab and LOTS of oysters dominate the menu, with a lot of love left over for that most magical of animals, the pig. (Porchetta sliders; pulled pork POUTINE.) They have a nice selection of Michigan and American craft beers plus some fun and funky imports (Cuvee des Jacobins all day every day please), and their Sunday brunch is like a little taste of New Orleans. But the best part of all is their buck-a-shuck happy hour, Monday through Friday 4 to 6 p.m. in the bar. $1 oysters, $2 PBR, $3 shooters, $4 cocktails, and $5 cheese plate.

#2 Zin Wine Bar
With new ownership and an ambitious young chef, Zin Wine Bar is poised to become one of metro Detroit's top dining destinations. Hyper-local, somewhat experimental (pushing the envelope of molecular gastronomy about as much as meat-and-potatoes metro Detroiters can handle, anyway), hyper-seasonal, and ridiculously affordable for what you get, Zin is a win -- right down to the wine and beer list crafted with consultation by beverage whiz kid Joseph Allerton of Roast fame.

#3 Cellar 849
As Michigan's first certified Neapolitan pizza recognized by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (VPN) -- the "pizza polizia" -- of Naples, Italy, Cellar 849 adheres to the strict regulations that respect the tradition of true Neapolitan pizza, including a custom wood-burning oven, hand-rolled dough, and fresh, all-natural ingredients. They use some of the highest-quality imported ingredients available, including Fior di Latte mozzarella, Denominazione di Origine Protteta (DOP -- the produce polizia) San Marzano tomatoes, Italian extra virgin olive oil, prosciutto di Parma and Caputo flour. Their Italian-built wood-burning oven is the same as those used at the flashier Pizzeria Biga joints, and the remainder of the menu is just as delightfully Italian, including the (somewhat predictable) wine and beer lists.

#4 5ive Restaurant
5ive, located inside the AAA four-diamond-winning Inn at St. John's overlooking a sprawling 27-hole golf course, offers the full dining experience -- breakfast, lunch and dinner (as restaurants inside hotels usually do), but also custom chef's table menus with wine pairings prepared personally by Executive Chef Jason Stoops. They've also got a beautiful outdoor terrace with fire pits and views of their impeccably landscaped gardens, and plenty of plush lounge seating inside.

Photo from EID.

#5 Plymouth Coffee Bean
Astro it ain't, but what it lacks in post-third-wave coffeehouse appeal it more than makes up for in the adorability factor. Claiming to be Michigan's longest-running independent coffee shop (open since 1993), Plymouth Coffee Bean is housed inside an historic old home. There are multiple different rooms and two spacious tree-shaded patios for lounging and/or lively discussion, with WiFi aplenty. They have a variety of homemade snacks, sandwiches and crepes made to order. In that early-'90s tradition of the coffeehouse-as-iconoclast hub, works from local artists adorn the walls and they regularly host live music, open mic nights, poetry readings and ... *cough* ... "Tweet-ups" (our early '90s forefathers are rolling over in their flannel shirts and Doc Martens). The coffee ... well, you can't win 'em all. They're still stuck in that Starbucksian sense of drowning the taste of stale beans in scalded milk and sugary syrups, but the place has enough character where that can be overlooked in favor of its other fine attributes (an Italian soda or tea works just fine, but if you absolutely must, stop first for coffee at Espresso Elevado nearby which roasts their own).

Bubbling under Liberty Street Brewing Company, Compari's on the Park, Espresso Elevado, The Box Bar, Main Street Pizza, Fiamma Grille, Crawford's Kitchen, Sweet Afton Tea Room, Sean O'Callaghan's

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[Curbed Detroit] Pizzeria Biga Makes Royal Oak Look, Taste Good

Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

Who ever said that Royal Oak had no architectural taste? ... On Main Street just south of all the downtown chaos (but still within eyeshot of that awesome 526 signage ... because everything is within eyeshot of that 526 signage) is the old St. Clair Addison Power Station. The original building was constructed in 1907 and still stands (with its 1955 addition) to this day. And now it will be a pizzeria and beer store!

Michael Chetcuti - industrial designer and CEO of Quality Metalcraft Inc. and owner of the former power station building - and Luciano Del Signore, James Beard-nominated chef and proprietor of Bacco Ristorante and Pizzeria Biga - have partnered to bring a second Pizzeria Biga location to Royal Oak. The original Southfield location is known for serving hand-crafted Neapolitan pizzas with house-made charcuterie; Royal Oak will offer more of the same (also adding a handmade pasta station and a few roasted entree selections), but in a vastly more architecturally interesting setting.

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