A New Haven Boy Meets Big-City Pizza

Growing up in New Haven, I came to love and appreciate coal fired brick oven pizza at Sally’s, Modern, and Pepe’s as a major foundation of my city’s food identity. The pizza is historic, critically acclaimed, but most of all, delicious. It’s always worth the wait and makes our city stand out amongst the rest.

The white clam pizza at Pepe’s has a perfectly charred and erect crust when you take to the slice away from the pizza pie and fold it in mid air. When folded, this flavorful crust deliciously bundles up the littleneck clams, garlic, oregano, and grated Pecorino Romano cheese when it enters your mouth. So fresh, so pure, and so New Haven! 

After high school, I brought my enthusiasm for New Haven pizza into many conversations I had with outsiders in college at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. I felt they needed to hear the truth, so if they ever wanted to have the best pizza, they knew where to go. 

“Pepe’s Pizza in New Haven!? What are you talking about!? The best pizza is in New York City!” exclaimed my friend Adriano, whom, we called AD, from Brooklyn.  We had many pizza debates my freshman year, sitting on a dorm room bed, pregaming with cheap alcohol and listening to ‘90s hip-hop.

“Na dude, trust me,” I’d respond, “pizza from New Haven is legit some of the best pizza in this country.”  I’d even pull out my iPhone, frantically searching for online reviews and top-10 lists to prove my point. He had to know.

As our friendship grew over this debate, AD once made a suggestion: “Bro, ext time you come to the City I’m going to take you to some of the best pizza you’ll ever have.” His stubbornness was as intense of my enthusiasm for pizza.
 
“Aight man!” I’d agree in drunken delight, “I’m down, but you gotta come to New Haven too so we can do a comparison!”
 
“Word, sounds good” AD would say, shaking my hand as if we made the deal of a lifetime with smiles beaming across our faces.

Unfortunately, during my college years, the comparison never fully happened, although AD did end up eating at Pepe’s once my sophomore year.  He was very impressed, but still not 100 percent sold. He kept urging to come and check out the pizza in New York.  Whenever I came to the City to visit him, however, we could never get ourselves organized to go to the places he would suggest (mainly this place called Grimaldi’s and his dad’s homemade pizza he made at his house … I know; I thought he wasn’t serious either).

The debate lingered throughout college, and I remained curious about the unexplored frontier of some of the best pizza on the East Coast. I had been to NYC many times throughout my life, and have eaten a lot of pizza there, but never at some of the places that were nationally recognized.

Furthermore, I remained insistent that New Haven was the most underrated pizza city in the United States and could compete with the best pizza out there, even if I hadn’t tried it!  I wasn’t sure if I was being ridiculous and biased, so I had to go out and venture into the unknown.  This is how the idea of the pizza tour began.

Fast forward to the fall of 2016, thre years after college and grad school, and after years of research and consultation with online reviews and people about the best pizza spots in the city, my friend Rick from college was prepared to take this journey with me.

Rick, a friend who shares my quirky and adventurous enthusiasm for pizza, said he would be happy to spend an entire weekend sampling NYC’s best pizza to find the best, and to see if it was superior to any of the places in New Haven.  After back-and-forth text messaging and consultation with New York City natives and top 10 lists, we composed an itinerary, and I came down to the city for a weekend to get the adventure rolling.

For the first phase of our pizza tour in October, we visited the following locations: John’s of Bleeker Street, Joe’s Famous Pizza on West 4th, Prince St. Pizza, Emily, Paulie Gee’s, New York City Pizza Supreme, and Lombardi’s Pizza.  Over the course of two days, we had pizza for lunch and dinner and then a second, late-night dinner.  At each place, we ordered a classic cheese (slice or whole pizza) and/or their most noteworthy pie. (The amount of pizza depended if we had other friends or people coming with us.)

Rick would always take an intimate picture of my eating of the first bite, and he wouldn’t let us leave the establishment until we finished the pizza and I posted the picture on my Instagram, accompanied with thorough review.  At first this would frustrate me, but I came to realize that it helped make sure the review was accurate, authentic, and real.

The major takeaways from this pizza tour phase were the following:  Pizza in New York City is historic. dating back to Lombardi’s in the Nolita in 1905. If you’re looking for a great Sicilian pizza slice, Prince St. is the place to be with its spicy pepperoni square. New York City also has classic, thin crust, coal-fired pies similar to New Haven in John’s of Bleeker Street. There are many new-age, Neapolitan pizza places (coal or wood-fired) with innovative sauces like Paulie Gee’s Sake Mountain Way (a pizza with a tomato sauce that has garlic, onion, heavy cream and Sake reduction) and innovative ingredients like the Colony Pizza at Emily (a red-sauce pizza with toppings that include pepperoni, pickled jalapeños, and honey!).

One of the most underrated qualities about New York City is the plethora of extremely decent dollar slice spots that are open until the wee hours in the evening.

After this first phase I became more educated in the great pizza of New York City, but the pizza tour was not over.  Rick and I knew there were still more places to explore in New York that we couldn’t get to in a three-day span, and the tour needed to also include a thorough review of New Haven pizza as well to get the full perspective on everything.

For the second phase of our pizza tour, we visited the following locations:  Di Fara Pizza, Lucali’s, and Rubirosas.  The major takeaways were the following:  Di Fara and Lucali’s in Brooklyn have incredibly delicious, thin crust pizza with freshly grown and imported ingredients, that include large pieces of basil on top. Lucali’s Calzone is the best calzone out there with a creamy combination of 5=five cheeses and a delicious marinara dipping sauce, And lastly, Di Fara’s Pizza has only one pizza maker, by the name of Dom Demarco, who’s been the head hancho in the kitchen since 1964!  This dude is very old, he’s the only one making the pizza with his freshly imported ingredients from Italy, and he does not care at all that his customers wait several hours for a pizza.
 
After these pizza tour expeditions to New York, Rick and I had to come back to New Haven.  We had to get some perspective, finally figure out where the best pizza is, and see how New Haven compared in general.

Just as on our New York trips, we committed to the same Instagram review format at Frank Pepe Pizzeria, Sally’s Apizza, and Modern Apizza.  The major takeaways from the New Haven trip were the following:  The coal-fired, brick ovens at all of these establishments make a perfectly charred, flavorful crust. Sally’s is the best pizza in New Haven, with a more charred, flavorful crust than the other places and with a better tasting and balance of cheese and sauce. The white clam from Pepe’s is one of a kind. And the Clams Casino pie from Modern is also a close contender.

After deciding that Sally’s may have the best pizza in New Haven, Rick and I were tormented throughout the rest of our day as to whether or not the pizza topped anything we had in New York City. This is incredibly difficult to write as a native New Havener, but New York City contains the best pizza I have ever had at Di Fara in Midwood, Brooklyn.  Even though Di Fara does not have a coal-fired brick oven, which I figured to be a determining factor for quality pizza in general, it still reigns supreme.  Dom Demarco’s pizza at Di Fara is one of a kind with a thin crust (which is cooked to perfection and keeps the slice erect when semi-folded in the air) and fresh, imported ingredients from Italy.  These imported ingredients include the San Marzono tomatoes (which make a sweet, pure, and chunky marinara sauce), the buffalo mozzarella (which he shreds by hand on every single pizza), the parmesan cheese, and the extra virgin olive oil (which he drizzles in a circular motion when the pizza comes into and out of the oven).  Finally, before the pizza is served, he grabs a bunch of whole basil leaves, holds them over the pie, and scissors them on top of it.  It is the infusion of the basil with the imported olive oil, parmesan, San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella which make this pizza incredibly delicious, sweet, rich, creamy, with a herbaceous aftertaste that completes the tasty bite.  Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn is the best pizza I’ve ever had, and may vey well be the best pizza in the country.

If I had to make a top 10 list of all the pizza I ate, it would be the following: 1. Di Fara 2. Sally’s Apizza 3.  Lucali 4.  Frank Pepe Pizzeria 5.  John’s of Bleeker St.  6.  Paulie Gee’s 7.  Emily 8.  Prince St. Pizza 9.  Modern Apizza 10.  Lombardi’s Coal Oven Pizza.

Although every pizza was special in its own right, this list attempts to address the entire quality of the pizza, which includes the flavor of the crust, the balance of crust, sauce, and cheese ratio, and the quality of the ingredients on the pizza.  I understand some of my fellow New Haveners may be upset that the number one spot is not from the Elm City, but we are still a great city with great pizza.  Feel free to check out all of the reviews on my Instagram @mightymax203 under the hashtag #maxandrickspizzatour.

I also realize there are plenty of other great pizza places out there in New York and New Haven I have not had and fully reviewed in my Instagram (Zuppardi’s, Gramaldi’s, Robertas, L&B Spumoni Gardens, Totonno’s, Joe and Pat’s to name a few), so if you have other places I should seek out and review, feel free to do so and DM me on Instagram.

Max Stern, who grew up in New Haven, is a high school history teacher in Worcester.