Paul Bass Photo
Arvinas's John Houston adds oregano in the BAR kitchen.
A taste of next-generation New Haven corporate philanthropy emerged Wednesday — from a brick oven.
The brick oven was in the kitchen of BAR on Crown Street.
There, Mayor Justin Elicker and CEO John Houston of Arvinas prepared a newly dubbed “Arvinas” pie. BAR will sell the pie through April. Two dollars from each purchase, up to $5,000, will go toward the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven’s annual Great Give fundraising marathon for nonprofits.
Science Park-based Arvinas, which develops cancer-fighting drugs, is one of New Haven’s fast-growing “economy of the future” biotech companies. The 400-person company is expanding to 160,000 square feet on three floors of the under-construction 101 College St. biosciences tower.
Houston (pictured above at right) said his employees came up with the idea for the pizza promotion. It represents a new spin on an old expectation of major employers “giving back” to their home communities. Elicker urged New Haveners to order the pie. He called it “pizza that tastes good and does good.”
Elicker and Houston followed their remarks by heading to the BAR kitchen, where pizza chef Leo Rojas showed them how to make “The Arvinas.”
Then he gave them a turn.
“The Arvinas” turns out to be a six-month rebranding of an existing local-themed BAR pie called “The Portrait of New Haven.” Elicker began assembling it by spreading the tomato sauce …
… followed by Houston sprinkling on mozzarella from East Haven’s Calabro shop.
Elicker grabbed BAR-roasted red peppers to spread across the pie, followed by Houston’s handfuls of basil.
Ricotta from Hamden’s Liuzzi Cheese came next.
The meat topping, of course, came from New Haven’s Lamberti’s Italian Sausage, topped (pictured above) with parmesan.
Houston popped the finished product in the oven …
Paul Bass Photo
… one of a parade of pies feeding the crowd for Wednesday’s debut event. To meet the campaign’s goal, patrons will need to buy 2,500 “The Arvinas” pies at BAR by the time May Day rolls around.
Coincidentally, a separate event took place at the same time inside BAR with echoes of civic culture from generations past. In the back room former members of iterations of the bygone Dixieland Galvanized Jazz Band reunited for an afternoon jam. Joel Schiavone (at center of the above photo), the developer behind the new-urbanist revival of downtown’s College Street entertainment-apartment district in the 1980s, was among them. Schiavone was a regular with the bands when he was remaking downtown. He also played with them at spots like his former New Haven Restaurant in the district.
In the back of BAR Wednesday, he and his former bandmates kept that memory alive.
What a weird promo/photo-op