New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
‘Charred’ podcast to celebrate Connecticut pizza
As New Haven’s apizza scene continues to gain national recognition, with writeups in the New York Times and Washington Post among others, local expert Frank Zabski is looking to parlay his own pizza enthusiasm and expertise into a new media venture.
Zabski, who opened New Haven Pizza School in 2022, launched “Charred: A New Haven Pizza Show” earlier this month with Kevin Begley, a radio host on Star 99.9 FM. The show, which will feature discussions about New Haven pizza and other Connecticut styles, will be available on YouTube and all podcast platforms.
Begley was one of Zabski’s first pizza students, he said. The two stayed in touch over time, and Begley later asked Zabski to be a part of the inaugural Connecticut Pizza & Brew Fest in Bridgeport last summer, which featured pizza and beer tastings and educational panels. They timed the “Charred” release with a news conference earlier this month, where they announced the date of this year’s festival.
“The first episode is an intro — it’s about my experience, Kevin’s experience, we kind of go over what makes New Haven-style pizza specific, like the char, the leoparding (baked spots on the crust),” Zabski said. “Then we ask people for their feedback.”
The second episode, which they’ll release this week, will feature Big Green Truck Pizza and Next Door founder Doug Coffin. Zabski said he and his co-host have a cumulative library of “about 100 topics” to chat about as they develop the show.
Zabski said he and Begley plan to bring in a Regional Water Authority representative, for example, to “dispel some folklore about water” and how it affects pizza dough.
“Our focus will be New Haven-style, but we’re also going to have some Greek pizza, some bar pizza like Colony and Riko’s ... we’re going to try to cover the gamut of things,” he said.
Zabski, a West Haven native, said he started his pizza career at age 12, working for his church’s carnival and learning how to make pizza fritta, or fried dough with sauce and cheese. As an adult in 2012, he launched a pizza truck
as a side project in addition to his career in information technology, and ran that for four years until he decided to step away from the industry.
But his passion never subsided, and he channeled his interest into other outlets, launching a Facebook group, All About New Haven Style A’pizza (Ah-beetz) in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The group now has more than 18,000 followers, who share their pizzamaking adventures and dining experiences. Zabski and his friends also started the Pizza Gavones YouTube channel a few years ago, where they reviewed pizzerias around the state as a comedic trio.
“I don’t have any pedigree to Wooster Street, or any of those places,” he said. “But I’ve spent thousands of hours reading and researching, and I love history. And I love the history of how the immigrants came over here from Italy and brought this pizza with them, and it was a very simple recipe.”
Zabski said he envisions “Charred” becoming a call-in type show, where listeners can interact with the hosts and
share their own opinions and thoughts. He’s hoping it becomes a premier space for apizza fans.
“There (is) a handful of different people, groups, influencers that talk
about pizza in Connecticut ... but there’s no one place, up until now, that focuses on all the pizza in Connecticut, and has more of a show, than a random posting of things,” he said. “That’s that goal.”