About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

Pizzeria Biga offers a thin-crust, fast-cooked pizza in a trendy, loud atmosphere. While the flash-cooked, “authentic Italian” pizza is an interesting gimmick, the result is hit or miss and can be likened to any number of restaurants that offer gourmet pizza.



Pros

• Quicker than your average pizzeria
• Good deal for lunch
• Good with kids

Cons

• Loud
• Cramped seating

Description

• Pizzeria Biga has authentic Italian pizza that is flash cooked in two minutes.

• The restaurant also has valet parking and a beer sommelier.
• Gelato is the restaurant's signature dessert.

Guide Review - Pizzeria Biga Restaurant in Southfield

Pizzeria Biga is located in the former space of Il Posto, a fine-dining restaurant, on Franklin Road in Southfield. While the location is the same, the atmosphere and menu couldn’t be more different. These days, the space has high ceilings and an open kitchen with two enormous pizza ovens. It is decorated in brick and steel and crammed packed with square tables. The result is a loud and trendy eatery. There is also a nice-sized outside patio in warmer months.

Lunch

For lunch, Pizzeria Biga offers a pizza package that includes both a soft drink and soup or salad. Even so, a single pizza could easily feed two.

The Roasted Eggplant & Garlic Soup was rich, well flavored and lightly salted. The puree was also nicely textured in that it was neither too lumpy, nor too thin. The addition of farm cheese, pumpkin seeds or croutons, however, would have made for a nice contrast.

Pizza

The flash-cooked pizza at Pizzeria Biga is billed as authentic Italian pizza. In fact, according to Bacco Ristorante Owner Opens Pizzeria Biga in Southfield, an article published in The Oakland Press, Chef and owner Luciano Del Signore credits his hometown in Italy for the style.

So, what makes up Pizzeria Biga's definition of an authentic Italian pizza?

Apparently, the biggest factor is a wafer-thin, flaky and bubbly crust. In Pizzeria Biga, this is accomplished with a yeast-infused dough that is flash cooked at high temperatures for two minutes.

The second factor is the use of fresh ingredients. While Pizzeria Biga offers several topping combinations, patrons can also create their own pizza from a long list of ingredients that includes duck prosciutto, fried hot peppers, roast fingerling potato, pistachio and Italian tuna. Tip: It is easy to dominate the wafer-thin crust, so it is undoubtedly better to take advantage of the chef’s expertise in combining flavors.

The Farm Egg Pizza had red sauce, fried zucchini, and ricotta cheese. The “egg” was cracked on top of the pizza before it was flash cooked in the pizza oven. Unfortunately, this resulted in an unevenly cooked egg. Part of the egg was hard cooked and mixed nicely with the rest of the ingredients, while part of the egg white was uncooked and formed a clear puddle in the pizza’s center. Likewise, the pizza itself was unevenly presented. Some of the pizza slices were mushy and/or very salty, while other slices combined the ingredients just right and had a flaky, crispy crust.

The Fingerling Potato Pizza from the “white (no-sauce)” category of the menu was the better choice. The ingredients – house blend, dolcelatte, rosemary and artichoke hearts – didn’t over power the crust, which bubbled nicely around the edges and was flaky and light. The pizza was also much less salty than the Farm Egg Pizza, and the subtle flavors were more easily discerned.

Service:

The waiter was nice enough and kept our glasses full. He was also able to explain the restaurant’s flash-cooking method.