Paczki are round Polish doughnuts filled with prune, rose-hip jam or custard and dusted in icing sugar or glazed. Eaten by the thousand on Fat Tuesday in Hamtramck.

Paczki arrived in Detroit with Polish immigrants in the 1880s. They are the Polish answer to using up lard, eggs and sugar before Lent, traditionally eaten on Tlusty Czwartek (Fat Thursday) and Fat Tuesday. By the 1950s Hamtramck's Polish bakeries collectively sold over a million on Paczki Day; New Palace Bakery on Joseph Campau, founded 1908, is the last surviving Polish bakery from the original wave. Detroit-area news stations cover the lines wrapping the block on Fat Tuesday each year, and Faygo released a paczki-flavored soda for the 2020 edition.

2 editor picks for Paczki in Detroit, ranked by editorial score. All Detroit signature dishes · Paczki across every city.