nothin New Documentary Takes A Bite Out Of New Haven | New Haven Independent

New Documentary Takes A Bite Out Of New Haven

When the film Food Haven opens on Zinc owner Donna Curran and Kitchen Zinc owner and chef Denise Appel, they are shoulder-to-shoulder at a table, Appel still in her chef’s coat. Something she has said has Curran laughing through her sentences.

Does food bring people together?” Appel asks. For sure. Yeah. But how?”

It could be any afternoon at Zinc, in the quiet that come before opening hours. Except Jim O’Connor is filming them across the table, and already thinking about what the next question is going to be.

Lucy Gellman Photo

Filmmaker Jim O’Connor at WNHH FM.

O’Connor is the director of Food Haven, a new documentary exploring the city’s restaurants and bars. Friday night, the film opens at the third annual New Haven International Film Festival at Gateway Community College.

For O’Connor, it’s a big first — a directorial debut, on a project for which he did 100 percent of the work.

Raised by vegan parents in Orange, O’Connor wasn’t always interested in food. But he was intrigued by New Haven, with its pizza culture, sustainable sushi experiments and vegan strongholds. New Haven felt like a mystical place” to him, reserved for special family outings and, years later, excursions with his teenage friends. He found that his memories of growing up were often tied to food, from still-pink hamburgers at Louis‘ Lunch to pizza dripping with long strands of hot, oozy mozzarella. 

Food Haven Photo

Curran and Appel at Zinc.

But Connecticut also felt small to O’Connor. In his early 20s, he moved to Los Angeles, following filmmaking ambitions. To pay his bills, he started bartending. As he spent nights mixing drinks, something started to get under his skin: customers’ eyes widened at the mention of New Haven. Sipping on their gin and tonics and vodka gimlets, they’d mention the city’s rough reputation. He would defend it, argue for why it was actually a great city. Homesickness began to come in waves.

It took being away from New Haven to realize how much I really appreciated it, and how much I wanted other people to appreciate it as well,” he said in a mashup episode of WNHH’s Deep Focus” and Kitchen Sync.”

Food Haven Photo

Ravoli at L’Orcio.

O’Connor moved back and started bartending at 116 Crown. Working under owner John Ginnetti, he found himself gushing about the city’s food scene — and scrambling to find out more about the city’s restaurants. Ginnetti introduced him to Ordinary co-owner Tim Cabral. Cabral introduced him to friends of his. The deeper O’Connor got into the bar scene, the more he wanted to talk about it. 

I was really excited to talk to patrons at the bar about where they should go in New Haven,” he said. It kind of snowballed from there.”

What snowballed, specifically, was the idea of directing a celebration of culture” film about New Haven, where he could profile the people, places and foods on which his memories were built. After securing a grant for a six-month film project in 2016, he jumped into work, turning to the chefs with whom he had personal connections and asking if they would let him into their kitchens and sit down with him at their tables.

I tried to find a lot of smaller restaurants that I thought deserved more publicity, and still go to those Union Leagues, those higher up [restaurants] that have a lot of recognition,” he recalled. He thought of the restaurants he referenced when he called New Haven a culinary gem. Claire’s Corner Copia. Zinc and its little sister Kitchen Zinc. Caseus. Ordinary. If the chefs in those places mentioned another restaurant, he added it to the list — homemade pasta at L’Orcio, goat biryani at Thali, sizzling meat at the Long Wharf taco trucks.

In mid-2016, he started shooting film, and didn’t stop until he’d collected some 50 hours of footage.

Food Haven Photo

Bun Lai, John Brennan, Jason Sobocinski in “Food Haven.”

Food Haven is the result. With Elm City gourmand (and party biker) Colin Caplan stepping in as a narrator, O’Connor assembles a New Haven plate that shows us why he has chosen to stay. The film isn’t totally representative of New Haven’s culinary scene — omitted is, for instance, Grand Avenue’s culinary mosaic — but it is soaked in memory, introducing you to both O’Connor and the city through his adventurous palate.

In one scene, Claire Criscuolo, owner of Claire’s Corner Copia, makes a daring admission: She doesn’t go other places to eat very often. In another, Miya’s Sushi chef Bun Lai stares skeptically at a pink hamburger topped with cheese whiz, befuddled by Louis’ Lunch as Caseus owner Jason Sobocinski and Elm City Social chef John Brennan scarf down their burgers. In another, Francesco d’Amuri and Alison De Renzi of L’Orcio make handmade ravioli, wrapping spinach and cheese in a thin dough the color of the sun. 

New Haven is kind of this underdog city, and I feel like they kind of get swept away,” O’Connor said. About the chefs, he added, I love everything that they offer and they do.”

There’s so much going on in such a small area, and every time I go out, I just love and enjoy New Haven,” O’Connor continued, and I wanted to show that as best as I could.”

To listen to the interview on WNHH, click on or download the audio above. To find out more about the New Haven International film fest, click here.

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