Jeremiah Bullfrog’s Square Pie City Opens in Miami’s Design District With Detroit-Style Pizza

A venture greater than 5 years within the making has lastly come to fruition for Miami chef Jeremiah Bullfrog.

This month, the previous chef to rapper Rick Ross reopened Square Pie City with its first standalone brick-and-mortar spot within the Magic City.

The Miami native informed New Times he started experimenting with square-pan pies in late 2016 with a purpose of opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant. After a number of setbacks, together with the pandemic, Bullfrog as a substitute selected to launch the idea through pop-up, making common appearances at Boxelder and Babe’s Meat Counter.

The chef later opened his first everlasting location inside Miami Beach’s Time Out Market in 2021, providing an expanded menu with a concentrate on the Motor City’s most iconic foodstuffs, the deep-dish sq. pie. A yr later, in May 2022, Bullfrog left the meals corridor to develop into a bigger, standalone location, resuming his pop-ups in cities like Nashville, Chicago, and Orlando whereas prepping for the transfer.

Now, Square Pie City is again in enterprise with a brand new house that opened earlier this month on the western fringe of the Miami Design District. The informal area affords a walk-up counter for to-go orders, a fast meal the place you’ll be able to snag $4 slices for lunch, and indoor seating for dine-in company. An on-line ordering platform on the web site can be out there for each takeout and supply.

The expertise, explains Bullfrog, is supposed to recreate the slice-shop vibe you’d discover at pizza retailers throughout the Northeast.

“We need individuals to have the ability to have that kind of expertise in Miami, the tradition the place you stroll in and inform the pizza chef the way you need your slice cooked — possibly you need it properly achieved, or add some pepperoni,” explains Bullfrog. “That’s why we put our deck oven subsequent to the counter. We need clients to have that dialog.”

Fans of Square Pie will discover the menu hasn’t modified a lot. You can nonetheless discover Bullfrog’s hottest pink and white pies with the choice for vegan or gluten-free substitutes ready utilizing the chef’s 72-hour, double-fermented dough. Like most Detroit sq. pies, the thick base is first topped with cheese earlier than it is smothered in a layer of sauce and baked to type the fashion’s quintessential crispy edges.

At the brand new restaurant, diners can select from a menu of half pies (4 slices), and full pies (six slices) priced between $17 and $34, or create their very own with a wide range of scratch-made toppings. Standout pink pies embrace the “Classix,” a mix of mozzarella, provolone, and Parmesan beneath a layer of “dat sauce,” Bullfrog’s proprietary marinara. There’s additionally the acquainted “Red within the Head, Fire within the Bed,” a spicy pie that gives warmth from Calabrian chilies and chili-infused oil.

White pies embrace the “All White E’rrythang,” topped with mozzarella, housemade ricotta, Parmesan, and roasted garlic, and the “Many Magical Mushrooms,” topped with caramelized cremini mushrooms, mozzarella, asiago, garlic, and a housemade porcini “mud.”

While most choices are acquainted favorites, there’s one new menu merchandise price getting enthusiastic about: Bullfrog’s new thin-crust, spherical pie.

“I’ve had one on my thoughts for a few years, mentally working how we’d do our model,” explains Bullfrog, who based mostly his skinny crust off reminiscences of Rotonda Pizza whereas touring in Rome.

Thin crust pies can be found throughout dinner service and bought as entire pies or tavern-cut slices for dine in or takeout. Unlike the deck oven cooked sq. pies, these are made utilizing a malt-kissed, low-hydration dough that cooks right into a flavorful, crispy crust from the excessive temperature of the in-house wood-burning oven.

For now, the pies can be found solely throughout dinner says Bullfrog. “You can take it to-go, however you actually wish to eat it there, when it comes out of the oven. Doesn’t get any higher than that.”

The wood-burning oven will even provide day by day specials, together with Bullfrog’s broccoli rabe, half-roasted cauliflower, smoked hen wings, and mortadella meatballs, the chef’s recipe executed by Babe’s Meat Counter. There additionally can be a secret menu providing one-off day by day or weekly specialty objects introduced through Instagram and a cocktail program designed by Mike Parish, previously of Broken Shaker, that can spotlight small-batch, vermouth-based spirits.

“There’s nonetheless a lot we’re ready to carry on line. There are a lot of enjoyable issues within the works. Something I’ve at all times been about is supporting our trade. It’s necessary, as restaurateurs, that now we have an ongoing dialog about what’s going to make Miami higher. We’re continuously making an attempt to make the area higher, so we are able to make Miami higher,” sums up Bullfrog.

Square Pie City. 3918 N. Miami Ave., Miami; 786-408-3591; squarepiecity.com.