How to Pass As a Local At Buddy's Pizza (Hint: Order the Antipasto)
The move at Buddy’s: sop up the dressing.
So here’s a pro tip related to Detroit-style pizza that I wouldn’t have known without sitting down with Wes Pikula, the Vice President of Operations for Buddy’s Pizza at the original location at 17125 Conant Street.
According to Wes, the Buddy’s antipasto salad is just as iconic a part of the restaurant experience as the pizza. There are three other salads—house, Greek, and Caesar, and you can add oven-roasted turkey, grilled chicken, or solid white albacore tuna (for $2.99 each) to them all—but the antipasto is a big part of the tradition. It’s a freshly chopped mixture of romaine hearts and iceberg lettuce topped with diced imported ham and salami, Wisconsin brick cheese, and fresh tomatoes.
It comes standard topped with Buddy’s homemade “famous vinaigrette” dressing, whose invention Wes attributed to a longtime employee named Connie Piccinato. In some versions of the Buddy’s origin story Connie also taught Gus Guerra how to make pizza. Red wine vinegar, vegetable oil, lots of Italian seasoning, and what looks like bay leaves are the only ingredients you can glean from looking at the dressing that’s being “aged” in gallon jugs.
Buddy’s antipasto salad: a freshly chopped mixture of romaine hearts and iceberg lettuce topped with diced imported ham and salami, Wisconsin brick cheese, and fresh tomatoes
When it comes to the O.G. Detroit places, secret recipes rule, but according to Wes, it’s been homemade this way at the restaurant, without additives or preservatives, for decades—even as they’ve expanded considerably.
Looking at the salad, you don’t expect much—it has the look of a typical Midwestern Italian-American salad, complete with McCormick spice profile. And yet… there’s something compulsively tasty about this simple salad studded with the same cubed cheese they use on the pies.
But enough rhapsodizing about iceberg lettuce.
Looking at the salad, you don’t expect much—it looks like a typical Midwestern Italian-American salad.
Wes notes that instead of grabbing a new plate from the stack on every table, when their pizza arrives many regulars just slip slices onto the same plates they used for their salads so that the crust can soak up the zesty vinaigrette.
Yes, it does soften that crispy Buddy’s edge but it’s a tasty move. Worth trying on a first slice. At the least, it’s a soak-the-crust move to prevent pizza bones. Not that you really are faced with that problem in a city known for its flavorful crusts.