Once a week or so, Dough Labs—a one-man Detroit-style pizza pop-up—sets up in the back lot of Ministry of Brewing in Upper Fells Point. Owner, operator, baker, and chef William Rice started Dough Labs about three years ago, though he’s been making pizzas for almost a dozen years.
A Virginia native who relocated to Baltimore in 2021, Rice used to work for the FDA (not a bad background for a pizzaiolo), then pivoted to the fashion industry—designing clothes, winning competitions, and creating zines. These days, he’s making pizzas instead of jackets, though he still dresses pretty fashionably for a guy manning a portable oven.
Rice fell in love with Detroit-style pizza—with its thick, caramelized crust, melty cheese, and rich tomato sauce spooned on top—years ago. He utilizes a two-day cold ferment for his dough, using high-gluten flour and folding it by hand.
“It’s kind of like a rich focaccia,” he says on a recent early evening under his tent.
His lovely sauce is made with San Marzano tomatoes and plenty of garlic, and he brings it to his pop-ups in a crock pot to keep it warm. The impossibly thick cheesy crusts are reheated, then ladled with sauce, sprinkled with Parmesan, and doused with hot honey. The basic recipe stays the same, but Rice may switch up the dough from time to time, adding ingredients like rosemary, beer, or hot Cheetos. Although these days he mostly makes plain dough, he says he might bring back the hot Cheetos pizza (the Cheetos are pulverized and folded into the dough, painting it a deep pink color) if there’s a demand. (Yes, please—there is a demand.)
Invented in a former Detroit speakeasy by a family who baked the deep-dish pizzas in big steel rectangular trays used by the automotive industry, the square cuts are a strange and miraculous thing. It isn’t really pizza so much as excellent fried bread loaded with traditional pizza toppings. It is also seriously addictive.
Unlike Neapolitan or tavern-style pizza, Detroit-style pies are all about the inch-thick crust. Rice’s crust is superb—chewy with a terrific wide crumb, and flavorful without being overwhelming. The Dough Labs pizza is both classic and rather minimalistic, without inches of cheese or pepperoni or other toppings, which allows the technique and the flavors to speak for themselves.
If you can’t get to Ministry, Rice is also coming to the new Patterson Park Farmers Market, every Tuesday from 3-7 p.m at Pulaski Monument on the corner of Linwood and Eastern. Nothing like a rectangle of excellent pizza to fortify your hunt for seasonal produce.