Changing their culinary hats, owners Donna Curran and Denise Appel closed the doors of Chow Dim Sum and Wine Bar in March and reopened them — to serve pizza.
The restaurant’s new face is a better vehicle for the aims of Curran and Appel: to provide good, inexpensive food with local ingredients. “Ingredients are a lot more readily available to us” than with Chow, said Appel.
The restaurant/ former bar occupies a space in back of Appel’s showpiece Chapel Street restaurant, Zinc.
The transformation prompted mixed reactions from customers.
“Either you were with us or you weren’t,” continued Appel. “Some people thought we’d just be a regular red pie restaurant. But Zinc and Kitchen Zinc together provide local, artisanal food. It’s our food.”
Their template is the traditional Neapolitan pizza, drawing from locally grown ingredients and the handmade touch of carefully constructed dough, the component in which Appel strove to meet “perfection.” Zinc’s crust is thin throughout the heart of the pie like most New Haven pizza, but slightly thickens on the perimeter in an eccentricity Appel intends to become their signature.
In addition to their close relationships with local food providers, the pair utilizes the farmer’s market downtown and in Wooster Square.
“It’s not economical. Sometimes it’s a lot more expensive,” said Curran. “But in these days when you get E.coli mixed up in your cookie dough, you want to know where your food’s coming from.”
And they make sure their diner — and whoever else is interested — knows it. The back room’s walls are lined with an arsenal of carefully selected, locally brewed beers like the Elm City Lager and East Hartford’s Old Burnside Ten Penny Ale. Their menu, which reads more like a nutrition label than a basic selection, details their homemade Berkshire pork sausage and applewood smoked bacon, found on the most popular BLT pizza.
Some simply come to enjoy the atmosphere at Kitchen Zinc, which is airy, open and demure. Joan Verniero, an author, and Susan Lovitt, a health professional, sat on the newly renovated patio. “I’ve come to Zinc before,” Verniero commented. “We were about to go our separate ways again, and we decided to come in for a drink.”
“We thought that it was free dumpling night, but we’re not disappointed,” said Jessica David, accompanied by her friend Cindy Schwarz.
Across The Street,
The Traditional Stuff
Earlier the same afternoon, an even wider community appreciation of pizza was taking place on the edge of the Green. About 150 pies worth of appreciation.
The 14th annual Pizza Festival was begining, run by ALSO-Cornerstone and its volunteers. Over 500 pies were donated from local pizzerias in the area for the four-day event, which benefits outreach programs in New Haven. The event raised approximately $11,000 in revenue for the organization in 2008.
“New Haven pizza’s the best in the world. The thin crust is the certain style of the New Haven pizza,” said Heidi Smith (pictured), an Arts & Ideas Festival stage manager. Since it’s for a good cause, she said, “it’s even better!”
Bar, Modern and Eli’s were among the restaurants providing the traditional New Haven pie to all who came — and cleared — the pizza from the tent in the span of an hour.
Pizza, said case manager Lynette Jordan, “is one of the major things that everyone likes. It’s also portable and easy and that’s something we try to do in our team all the time.” Their outreach in the New Haven streets and in its soup kitchens to the seriously mentally impaired is an example of this, according to Jordan.
ALSO-Cornerstone extends recovery to New Haven’s mentally ill and substance abusers through 24/7 shelter facilities, prevention and treatment.
Claire Bien, Director of Communications with ALSO-Cornerstone, recounted the 1994 brainstorm between the organization’s executive personnel, where they asked themselves, “‘What’s unique to New Haven? Pizza!’”
“I lived in Manhattan for 44 years,” said attendee Andy Greif. “This pizza is better than New York pizza. It’s not as greasy… smaller slices, but still filling.”
“It’s fun, it’s nice. It’s the first time we’ve come for the pizza,” said mother Johanna Cuevas as she gestured to her son Sean. “He likes the bacon more.”
For Steve Mayo and his son Danny, the festival was another notch in their belt. “My son is a pizza connoisseur. He wants to go to as many pizza places as he can,” said Mayo. “This’ll just be one more he’s documenting. We’ve been to about 30 or 40 restaurants.”
On the very perimeter of the Green, Kitchen Zinc faces outward in a line of stores. Zinc’s adherence to the basic and transparent is a conservative quality not detectable in the sprawling crowd, cheeks packed with pizza. There’s a simple makeup they will forever share: the cheese, the sauce, and the crust.
ABEEETZ!