The term “Brooklyn Style Pizza” was coined by the Domino’s Pizza Company chain of America in 2006, when it started selling its Brooklyn Style Pizzas.
Their “Brooklyn Style Pizza” had a thinner crust than their other pizzas, and had cornmeal cooked into the crust to make it crispier. The chain also touted “extra large Brooklyn-style sausage or pepperoni.” The pizzas are cut into 6 slices.
In Brooklyn, New York, there actually is not set style of pizza, but there are some generalities that can usually be — or often be, to be safer — made. The pizza crust is usually airy and cracks when you bend it. The cheese used is usually a blend of skim and whole milk mozzarella. Some Brooklyn pizzerias such as Totonno’s even use slices of fresh mozzarella, sprinkled with Romano. Grimaldi’s also uses fresh mozzarella. In general, the sauce used is less sweet than commercial tomato sauce and may even be tomato paste, straight up. Most pizzas in Brooklyn are sliced into 8 pieces.
Pizzas in Brooklyn generally don’t have cornmeal on the crust, and pizza-makers in Brooklyn are puzzled by Domino’s saying “extra large Brooklyn-style sausage or pepperoni”, as they don’t use extra large pieces of meat.
Totonno’s (opened 1924) in Coney Island claims to have been the first to have developed a Brooklyn-style pizza. Other well-known pizzerias in Brooklyn making it in this style are Di Fara’s, Franny’s, and Grimaldi’s.
Sources
Domino’s rolls out Brooklyn Style Pizza. Pizza Marketplace. 26 October 2006. Retrieved July 2009 from http://www.pizzamarketplace.com/article.php?id=6081.
Kuban, Adam. Domino’s Brooklyn Style Pizza. “slice america” column in Serious Eats. 31 October 2006. Retrieved July 2009 from http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2006/10/dominos_brooklyn_style_pizza.php
Kuban, Adam. ‘NY Times’ to Domino’s ‘Brooklyn’ Pizza: Fuhgeddabouddit. “slice america” column in Serious Eats. 7 November 2006. Retrieved July 2009 from http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2006/11/ny_times_to_dominos_brooklyn_pizza_fuhgeddabouddit.html
Severson, Kim. “Brooklyn Style Pizza” Meets the Real Deal. New York Times. 8 November 2006.