Detroit: Corktown’s Michigan & Trumbull
Have you ever said...”That place sounds familiar” or “I have heard of this place but I don’t know why” well that is how we feel about this weeks Fun Food Friday adventure Michigan and Trumbull. If you haven’t heard about Michigan & Trumbull, you have now. We had heard so many good things about them over the past 6 months and though it took us a while to get there we finally did. What is Michigan & Trumbull? Well, for a lot of us it is a reference to a classic blast from the past, the location of the old Tiger (Briggs) Stadium. Today, Tiger Stadium is a distant memory and home to Condos, shops and The Corner Ballpark a stadium for Detroit’s Police Athletic League since 2015. While the ball park is gone the revitalization of Corktown has allowed for the old standards like Nemo’s and McShane’s to remain and has opened the door for many new restaurants in the area to flourish.
Michigan & Trumbull, which is not actually on the corner but a block north of Michigan on Elizabeth off Trumbull, is a pizza place serving up some really delicious food. While they specialize in pizza they do offer other things as well like their roasted carrots which we will get to in a bit. So lets go back to why they sounded familiar to me…Before Covid caused a lot of places to shut down Michigan & Trumbull made their home at the now closed Fort Street Galley. The Fort Street Galley was a food court/bar location in the Financial District on Fort Street at Shelby, it was home to places like Isla, Lucky’s Noble BBQ, Which Came First (who had the best Nashville Hot chicken sandwich) as well as Michigan and Trumbull. We had visited numerous times to have the chicken sandwich from Which Came First but never tried the pizza from M & T until recently.
Michigan & Trumbull came to be when Detroit natives Kristen Calverley and Nathan Peck lived in Pittsburgh and couldn’t find pizza that reminded them of home so they started making Detroit Style pizza and opened a spot in a Pittsburgh food hall comparable to Fort Street Galley. When Fort Street Galley opened in 2018 they jumped at the chance to bring their pizza back home. While working out of the Fort Street location they searched for a full time “brick and mortar” spot and finally in January of 2020 they opened their doors at their Elizabeth street location. It is located in what looks to be either an old garage or warehouse. There are no flashing lights or other signage that says “hey we are here” just a plain grey door that says Michigan and Trumbull pizza and their hours and a roll up garage door that may get opened in the warmer weather. Inside is very welcoming yet reminiscent of the garage or warehouse that used to take up the space years ago, you know cement floors and open ceilings. It is not a big place, maybe enough seating for 60ish people and they do have a bar. We were fortunate enough to meet both owners Kristen and Nathan when we were there.
Let’s talk about the food. What’s on their menu? Well as you might expect pizza (both white and red sauce styles), but they also have roasted broccolini or carrots, a few salads, “Boblo Boats” aka…calzones and a few choice sides. Their pizzas are traditional deep dish 8” x 10” 6 slice Detroit style pizzas, they do offer 18” 8 slice NY Style pizzas on Wednesdays and Thursday only. Of course we had their pizza, more specifically the Cowabunga Supreme and a side of the roasted carrots which we had heard so much about from other people and in online reviews.
The pizza was delicious, it’s all about the sauce and this sauce was good and there was just enough but not too much. I am a huge fan of deep dish because I like the burnt cheese crust it creates, Teresa prefers a thinner crust with less bread but she seemed to really enjoy this one. The roasted carrots lived up to the hype. Multicolored carrots that are roasted to perfection and served with a creamy goat cheese, romesco, honey, almond and cilantro. I personally could have eaten 3 or 4 orders of these, they were that good. They have a salad called the Yinzer that I personally would love but we didn’t have the chance to try. It is a mixed green salad with cheddar cheese, bacon, sweet onion and their Teader Fries (waffle fries with BBQ chip seasoning) served with cilantro ranch dressing. I know, it’s not really a salad but it sounds good to me.
We will definitely be back, we have become big fans. They are located at 1441 Elizabeth in Corktown and are open Wed-Sat from 1PM- 9PM, Sunday 3PM-9PM and closed Monday and Tuesday.
Until next time, live well, eat well and enjoy life!
- Keith & Teresa Becker