Emmy Squared Pizza: Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Grand Street in Williamsburg runs through one of Brooklyn's more self-assured dining corridors, where the conversation about what counts as serious food has long since moved past fine dining credentials. In this context, Emmy Squared operates in a category that New York's pizza culture has only recently taken seriously: Detroit-style, pan-baked, thick-crust pizza with the kind of structural discipline that separates it from the borough's deep-dish pretenders. The format demands patience and precision in ways that thin-crust Neapolitan does not, and Emmy Squared has built its reputation on executing that format consistently.

Detroit-Style in a Neapolitan City

New York's pizza identity is shaped almost entirely by the thin, foldable, coal-oven slice. The Detroit variant pulls in a different direction: rectangular pans, high-hydration dough, cheese pressed to the very edge so it caramelizes against the pan, and sauce applied on leading rather than underneath. The result is a crust with a honeycomb interior and a crackling, lacy perimeter that bears no resemblance to the sourdough-adjacent base of a Neapolitan pie. Emmy Squared's positioning within New York's pizza scene reads as a deliberate counter-argument to the city's dominant tradition, and the Williamsburg address is apt: this is a neighborhood that has consistently rewarded formats that know what they are and do not try to be something else.

For a useful comparison in how format defines identity, consider the gap between Emmy Squared and the tasting-menu tier of New York dining. At Le Bernardin, Atomix, or Per Se, the cooking is inseparable from its conceptual framework. Emmy Squared operates differently: the format is the concept, and the craft is expressed entirely through execution of that format. That is not a lesser ambition. It is a different one, and one that a city with as many dining registers as New York has room for.

The Drinks Program in a Casual Format

Emmy Squared's editorial angle on the wine and drinks program matters here precisely because casual pizza formats in the United States have historically underinvested in the cellar. The assumption has been that pizza drinkers want lager or a Coke, and that wine is the domain of white-tablecloth rooms. That assumption has been eroding across American cities over the past decade, and Williamsburg has been one of the neighborhoods leading the erosion. Bars and restaurants in this part of Brooklyn have increasingly built wine lists that reward attention, favoring natural and low-intervention producers, skin-contact whites, and light-bodied reds that pair well with acidic tomato and browned cheese.

This shift in what casual dining is expected to offer is visible across the country. At Smyth in Chicago, the pairing program operates at a level that would fit a three-star room. At Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, the cellar has long been the headline rather than a footnote. Even at the farm-to-table register, as seen at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, the beverage program is considered a co-equal element of the experience. Emmy Squared, at its price point and format, sits well below those rooms in ambition and price, but the broader trend they represent, that American diners increasingly expect a thoughtful drink alongside any serious food, applies here too.

Where Emmy Squared Sits in the Broader New York Picture

New York's restaurant tier stretches from the $400-a-head omakase counter at Masa to the $4 slice at a counter in Midtown, with Emmy Squared occupying a self-aware middle band where the product is crafted and the environment is relaxed. This band has grown considerably in the past decade, partly because rising rents in Manhattan pushed interesting operators to Brooklyn, and partly because a generation of New York diners came to trust neighborhood restaurants with genuine craft agendas more than they trusted uptown formality.

Williamsburg in particular has absorbed a large portion of that migration. The Grand Street location gives Emmy Squared access to a densely populated catchment of residents who eat out frequently and have strong opinions about food quality. That is a demanding audience for a pizza concept, and longevity in that environment, which Emmy Squared has demonstrated, functions as its own form of endorsement. For context on what the wider New York dining scene looks like across categories, our full New York City restaurants guide maps the field in more detail.

Beyond New York, the format Emmy Squared represents, regional American pizza styles refined through careful sourcing and technique, has parallels at casual-fine operations in other cities. Providence in Los Angeles and Lazy Bear in San Francisco operate in completely different registers, but they share the same broader cultural moment: American diners are willing to take a specific format seriously if the execution justifies the attention. Emeril's in New Orleans, Addison in San Diego, and The Inn at Little Washington each occupy distinct regional niches built on the same principle. Emmy Squared does so within a single, highly specific format.

For those interested in how European regional dining traditions have shaped American casual formats, it is worth looking at how Italian trattorias, such as Dal Pescatore in Runate or mountain cooking at Atelier Moessmer Norbert Niederkofler, have sustained deep local loyalty through format consistency rather than reinvention. Emmy Squared's Detroit format operates on a version of that logic: it does one thing and does not drift from it. Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg and Eleven Madison Park each demonstrate that a defined format, rigorously maintained, is often a more durable identity than novelty-driven menus. The price points are entirely different, but the underlying strategy is not.

Know Before You Go

• Address: 364 Grand St, Brooklyn, NY 11211
• Neighbourhood: Williamsburg, Brooklyn
• Format: Detroit-style pan pizza, casual dining
• Getting There: Williamsburg is accessible via the L train; Grand Street is within walking distance of multiple subway stops
• Price Range: Mid-range casual; contact the venue for current menu pricing
• Dress Code: Casual