Pizza And Beer! Made In House At NOLO

Pizza and beer have long made for a winning combination.

A new State Street restaurant and microbrewery ups the culinary ante by not only delivering on thin-crust pies and hoppy beers, but also by baking and brewing those goods in house.

On Thursday afternoon, city officials and the culinary creatives behind NOLO held a ceremonial ribbon cutting at the new restaurant’s 687 State St. location, a 4,500-plus square-foot location that used to house Jet Cleaners.

Founded by former Da Legna owner Derek Bacon, the restaurant has been serving pizza, beer, and more since officially opening its doors in early December. Bacon originally spearheaded the project with his Da Legna co-owner Daniel Parillo, but the partners decided to keep the two State Street pizza restaurants under separate ownership. So Bacon is now the owner of NOLO and Parillo the owner of Da Legna, with Parillo still overseeing NOLO’s pizza-making operations.

“For my money,” city Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana said in praise of Da Legna’s pizza, ​“it belongs in that Holy Trinity of Pepe’s, Modern, and Sally’s.

“What better way to celebrate,” he continued, ​“than a perfect match of locally crafted beer and locally produced pizza.”

For NOLO (Italian for freight train) isn’t just the latest pizza place in town. Bacon is also collaborating with Erector Brewing Collective’s Justin Maturo, who runs a small-batch, five-barrel brewery out of a glass-enclosed front room at the State Street restaurant. The imperial stouts and pilsners and IPAs that Maturo brews are then served just a few feet away to the same customers chowing down on NOLO pizza.

Maturo described the restaurant-brewery concept as a ​“culinary brewery,” where some of the ingredients and tools used in NOLO’s kitchen, such as smoked peaches and other preserved fruits, are incorporated into Erector’s beverages.

“We’re kind of intertwining food and brewing,” he said.

“It seems like a marriage made in heaven,” Mayor Toni Harp said at the ribbon-cutting event. ​“Or in New Haven, anyway.”

But despite the headline-grabbing combo of locally made pizza and beer, NOLO’s executive chef Joshua Ulmer is also trying to sneak onto the menu some some Italian and Southern-inspired dishes that reflect the restaurant’s commitment to local craft.

Ulmer, a New Jersey native who has headed kitchens in New York City and Savannah, Ga., singled out the Beet Scarpinocc, a delicate shoe-shaped pasta stuffed with beet, citrus, goat cheese, poppy seed and aged balsamic, and the burnt honey lamb ribs, served with braised collard greens and spiced pecans, as examples of gourmet offerings for diners looking to venture outside of pizza.

“There’s a lot of passion and time behind it,” Ulmer said about the hand-made pasta on the menu. About the honey lamb ribs dish in particular, he said, ​“It’s a beautiful plate.”

Watch the full ribbon cutting press conference below.