A few friends of Slice visited New Haven, Connecticut, recently (both independent of one another) and loaded up on pizza at some of the city's most celebrated pizzerias. First up on Sunday was pizza photographer Hong-An Tran (who we interviewed here a couple weeks ago). She and a couple of friends hit up Bar, Frank Pepe's, Modern, and Sally's in that order. Only at Sally's were they blown away, it seems.
If you are only a casual pizza fan, you'd be excused for underestimating Connecticut's contributions to the slice-o-sphere. After all, isn't it NYC and Chicago that get all the attention from TV shows and food writers too lazy to go beyond the tired Big Apple–Windy City rivalry? In fact, parts of Connecticut have had world-class pizza operations for upwards of 85 years. That's not to mention all the relative newcomers (emphasis on relative) that have opened in the nearly nine decades of Nutmeg State pizza ascendancy. Let's take a look at some of the options for those unfamiliar with the state's crusty, cheesy, saucy offerings.
[Photograph: Adam Kuban] At first I thought this was just a random, absurd name for a pizzeria. It wasn't until I parked the car and walked around the corner to shoot the sign that I finally got the pun. Sgt. Pepperoni 956 Main Street, Manchester CT 06040 860-783-5818...
When we just couldn't eat any more, I told one of the guys behind the counter that the clam pie was amazing because it appeared to be made from freshly shucked clams. His reply: "I hope it tastes like freshly shucked clams because that's exactly what was on the pizza. Why do you think it took so long for your clam pie? We shucked every one of the clams after you ordered your pizza."
Connecticut has a rich pizza tradition—mostly centered on New Haven. But there's a oft-celebrated gem in Stamford called Colony Grill that serves up some lean, mean bar-style pizza. It is well worth visiting if you are ever in the area—in fact I URGE YOU TO GO. Just be sure to order your pie with the signature hot oil topping.
Serious Eats–Slice overlord Ed Levine here has been on my case about getting to the new Frank Pepe's in Yonkers for a while now. He wanted to see how it stacked up to the original in New Haven, Connecticut. See, the Frank Pepe family has been on a small tear in the last few years, opening branches of the famed New Haven pizzeria throughout Connecticut—first in Fairfield, then Manchester, then at the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville. Then they opened one in Yonkers, New York. This was sort of a big deal in pizza circles, since there's a fair amount...
Flo Consiglio adds up the receipts by hand in a back booth at Sally's Apizza in New Haven, Connecticut. [Photograph: Adam Kuban] I thought I had lost this photo of Sally's Apizza matriarch Flo Consiglio in a hard-drive crash. But I was able to recover some files from my camera's memory card today. Flo is a real character, as I found out during a recent visit to Sally's. But more than that, she's what our man Ed Levine calls a "Keeper of the Flame," a direct link to some of our country's fading food heritage. Here, after the jump, I...
[Photograph: Coalhouse Pizza] Lost in the holiday shuffle—this rundown on Eating in Translation of the pies on offer at recently opened Coalhouse in Stamford, Connecticut. As you can tell by the name, Coalhouse is another addition to the fast-growing legion of coal-oven pizza places nationwide. According to EiT's Dave Cook, the head pizza dude at Coalhouse came from just-closed Anselmo's in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a move that seems prescient now in retrospect. Coalhouse has been open since early November. It seems to serve pies that pay a nod to Connecticut pizza tradition—a cherrystone clam pie, a hot oil pie...
Clicking in to the Slice inbox today, we've got a message from longtime reader TJ, who wrote to Slice in early September asking, "If I could only eat at one NYC pizzeria besides Di Fara, what should it be?" I opened that one up to discussion here, and it looks like TJ's taken all our advice into consideration and has his pick—Patsy's East Harlem. But he mentioned New Haven pizza, and I've got some thoughts on that. Feel free to chime in once again, folks. --The Mgmt. Our pizza order at Sally's (from left): tomato slice and mozzarella pie, plain...
