BACKLOT PIZZA + KITCHEN

Hoppen Hierarchy:★★★

District: Millard

Detroit-Style Pizza & Bar Classics

Perfect For: Drinks; Lunch; Casual Dining

Standout Dishes: Detroit Classic Pizza; Bourbon BBQ Chicken Pizza; Meatball Pizza

If not for his family, NBA player Seth Curry would be viewed in a very different light. He’s a valuable player with the 3rd-highest 3-point shooting percentage in league history.

But his brother is Steph Curry, a 4-time champion and 2-time MVP who’s widely regarded as the greatest shooter in basketball history. Expecting Seth to match Steph’s impossibly high standards isn’t fair—and yet we compare them because they share the same blood.

I fear the same happens with Backlot Pizza + Kitchen. It’s an excellent restaurant on its own, serving up awesome Detroit-style pizza. But it doesn’t quite live up to the high bar set by Backlot Taphouse, which, fair or not, colors the way it’s viewed.

Though nearly identical in name, the two Backlots are vastly different restaurants. Located in the heart of Aksarben, Backlot Taphouse is a sports bar passionate about serving local beers and a good time.

Backlot Pizza + Kitchen, on the other hand, is a sit-down, family-friendly locale with a slower pace, a larger dining area, and a bar operated by Inkwell with a cocktail/whiskey focus.

The shared DNA is Detroit-style pizza, a wholly-unique that now fully has Omaha’s attention. In addition to its rectangular shape, it has four qualities that clearly differentiate it from any other pizza style:

The dough is airy and bouncy with a pleasant chew. Imagine if a pizza were constructed with a delightful, buttery focaccia loaf as the base.
Detroit-style pies employ Wisconsin brick cheese, which has a higher fat content than mozzarella and creates more gooey, melty mouthfuls of creamy dairy.
That cheese is pushed up to the edges of the industrial steel pans its cooked in, creating a crispy “crown” during its trip in the oven. This cheese perimeter not only creates texture, but also a slight sweetness. Many Detroit-style pizzas are cut into fourths to maximize the number of bites featuring this beautiful cheesy wall.
The tangy red sauce is ladled on top of the pie to keep that precious dough from getting soggy.

Backlot Pizza + Kitchen nails these key elements. The caramelized crust, which often produces an audible crunch, is enough alone to make any skeptic a believer in Detroit-style pizza. The dough is chewy in the center yet crisp on the edges, and the pizzas have enough luscious cheese to make a cow lactose intolerant.

These defining characteristics shine brightest on Backlot’s simpler pizzas, and none more so than the Detroit Classic (featured in the header photo). Layered with char-n-cup pepperonis, which curl up into mini grease pools during the cooking process, this salty, fatty, cheesy concoction is an ode to everything that’s great about pizza; it’s one of the best you’ll find in Omaha. The Meatball Pizza is similarly uncomplicated, with mounds of savory beef replacing the crispy pepperoni.

The Cadillac is where Backlot starts to show its creativity. It takes those same gorgeous pepperonis and adds red cherry bell peppers and a drizzle of Mike’s Hot Honey for a nice sweetness. Cream cheese dollops distract and add a bit too much creamy texture with the Wisconsin brick cheese, but this is an excellent spin on the classic.

Then Backlot steers fully into the wild. The Bourbon BBQ Chicken forgoes the classic red sauce for a tangy, sweet BBQ splashed atop chunks of grilled chicken, red onion, and applewood smoked bacon, while the Aksarben Steak dots the pie with well-seasoned (if a bit chewy) hunks of flank steak and red onion before baptizing it with a creamy steak sauce.

These combinations, while far a far cry what the original product was intended when it was created in forged-steel pans from automotive plants in the 1940s, are delicious. The use of smoked cheddar is bold and wouldn’t work great with traditional red sauce, but the sharpness of this cheese balances out the other ingredients on these pizzas.

But the devil is in the details in Backlot Pizza + Kitchen. The base elements are awesome, but it’s minor miscues in execution that hold it back from matching the greatness of its sister restaurant.

The ingredients are unevenly and haphazardly added, leaving some bites to be chock full of meatball and steak while others are barren. The application of sauce is rather scant, causing some pieces to be rather dry and lacking that sweet, acidic tomato punch.

These aren’t unforgivable mistakes, by any means. But when compared to the near-perfection execution I’ve experienced at Backlot Taphouse, they do detract from the overall experience.

Part of that could be due to the fact that Backlot Pizza + Kitchen’s menu reaches farther than Backlot Taphouse’s. While the original focuses mostly on pizza, fries, and beer, Backlot Pizza + Kitchen offers wings, burgers, pastas, sandwiches, salads, sliders, and desserts—not to mention brunch.

I can’t help but wonder if that expanded menu affects the quality of the pizza. Does the fact that the kitchen is tasked with prepping for and executing so many additional items cause the quality of the pizza to slightly suffer?

That’s a question I can’t quite answer—I just know that my visits to Backlot Taphouse have produced elite pizza that’s caused me to reconsider my favorite style, while Backlot Pizza + Kitchen offers at B+ version of the same product.

However, it’s calmer atmosphere, family-friendly pace, and dedication to cocktails make Backlot Pizza + Kitchen a worthy visit.

To be clear, you won’t be disappointed with the pizza; it’s excellent. But if you expect the epic levels Backlot Taphouse achieves, Backlot Pizza + Kitchen’s attention to details keeps it from attaining those heights.