Connecticut is the buckle of the Northeastern pizza belt, which stretches from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts. More specifically, the New Haven style of pizza not only is one of the first uniquely American pizza styles, but it has been preserved by a cluster of family-run establishments which still in many cases use the original equipment, now almost a century old. Naturally New Haven might be considered Connecticut's pizza capital, but the state has dozens of great pizzerias. Few other places in the country have as much great pizza per capita (PPC). These are the best eight pizzas in Connecticut that we have had to date. More

Though New York may lay claim as the cradle of pizza in America, many people would say that New Haven has the best. Certainly, there are a higher ratio of good to bad pizzerias in the area than there are almost anywhere else in the world. The question is, who's got the best? More

Most great pizzerias are the product of one compulsive, obsessive person who lives and dies with every pie. Is it possible for a pizzeria to expand beyond two locations and maintain the quality that makes them great? It's like pizza-obsessed folks have decided that their collective ovens get too hot for them to consider adding a third pizzeria. More

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. More

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. More

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... More

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... More

Chicago Upstart Great Lake Has Country's Best Pizza Alan Richman (left) and Lucali proprietor-pizzaiolo Mark Iacono (right) hold a copy of the June 2009 issue of "GQ" in front of Iacono's Lucali (the No. 2 pizza in the U.S.) at press event celebrating the story's May 19 publication. The issue contains Richman's "American Pie," a list of the top 25 pizzerias in the country. In the June issue of GQ, food writer extraordinaire Alan Richman ranks the top 25 pizzas in the U.S. after visiting what he considers the top 10 pizza cities in the country. The story is much... More

Many New York–area pizza lovers may be headed to the shore this holiday weekend, to Connecticut or Rhode Island or Massachusetts—the northern half of what I called the Pizza Belt in my book Pizza: A Slice of Heaven. If you find yourself hungry, stuck in traffic or both, console yourself with a slice or pizza or two at any of the following places. More