A slice of home
THEY MISSED CT APIZZA SO MUCH, THEY BROUGHT IT OUT WEST WITH THEM
They missed Connecticut apizza so much, they brought it out West.
Pizza lovers across the United States know of New York thin crust and Chicago deep dish. California pies with gourmet toppings had their moment, and thick, crispy, square-edged Detroit pies have stepped into the spotlight more recently. New Haven apizza has been largely relegated to regional status, but these pizzeria owners are working to change that. They cut their teeth on charred New Haven crust, and missed their favorite Elm City pies so much that they brought tastes of Wooster Street across the country: the Bay Area, Denver, Chicago and Portland, Ore. And it’s not just New Haven pizzerias that are expanding; Stamford’s Colony Grill has opened in Virginia and recently announced two new spots in Florida. But here’s where
where you can get traditional apizza far from the Nutmeg State, still crafted by natives.
Piece Brewery and Pizza — Chicago, Ill.
New Haven native Bill Jacobs grew up eating apizza. Sometimes it was a lunchtime pie at Ernie’s during breaks from school, but most often, it was a trip to Sally’s (which will open a Stamford location this year.) His father would turn to him and his three brothers and say, “Guys, this is the best pizza in the world.”
Jacobs moved to Chicago in the early 1980s, and, finding the city “bagel bereft,” opened Jacobs Bros. Bagels with his siblings. He kept missing the thin-crust pies of his youth, especially living in the region so widely known for thick and heavy deep-dish style. When he and his brothers sold the bagel company in 1999, he put a business plan together and began to raise capital for what would become Piece.
“Some people looked at it and said, ‘You’re [expletive] crazy,” Jacobs said, laughing. “All these naysayers said, ‘You’re going to bring a New Haven style pizza to the land of deep dish? First of all, where is New Haven? What is New Haven?’ But keep in mind, that was 20-plus years ago.”
As Piece prepared to open in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood in July 2001, Jacobs invited a friend who had worked for Sally’s to teach him and his staff how to make pizza “the New Haven way.” He knew it would be a challenge, as it was sort of contrary to the Chicago pizza approach.”Chicago people like to do things in a big way,” he said. “Deep dish is very big, and it’s all about the stuff that goes into it, what they fill it with. New Haven pizza is just so sublime and subtle. You don’t want to put too many things on top, and that’s what we encourage.”
Piece’s New Haven-style pies, baked in a gas-fired oven, are available in small, medium and large sizes, all including grated Pecorino Romano, oregano and olive oil. There’s a traditional tomato pie without mozzarella, a direct nod to Jacobs’ beloved Sally’s, and a white pie without tomato sauce. Piece has also dabbled in East Coast-inspired seafood pies, including white clam and a recent lobster pizza.
Though Piece has a New Haven pedigree, it’s a Windy City brand, and Jacobs has collaborated with other Chicago restaurants and food businesses for specialty pies. Pizzas can be topped with Hot Doug’s spicy Atomic sausage, or crispy chicken from Honey Butter Fried Chicken.
White Pie — Denver and Colorado Springs, Colo.
Brothers Jason and Kris Wallenta were born in New Haven and later lived in Milford and Orange. Their family made trips to Sally’s Apizza “every weekend since we were born,” Jason said.
When the brothers moved to Colorado, they missed the pizza that was an integral part of their formative years, and vowed to open a pizzeria of their own. Though their first restaurant in Denver was actually a taqueria (Dos Santos, a taco and tequila concept), they later officially opened White Pie, a New Haven-style pizzeria, in 2017. White Pie now has locations in Denver and Colorado Springs.
“The idea was to try and replicate [the style],” Kris said. “Obviously, we don’t have the same ovens, we don’t have the same water, the exact same ingredients.”
Though their pizza ovens are wood-fired, not coal-fired like at New Haven’s most famous joints, White Pie’s pizzas “still get some of that coal crispiness,” Kris said. But the brothers said they’ve still had to tone down the char for some guests who aren’t used to the style.”You’ll get the Colorado and West Coast folk that think it’s burnt if we send it out too charred,” Kris said. “We have to dance that line a lot of times. A lot of times I feel we have to dial it back a little bit, just to not scare clientele...But then we’ll get [people] from the East Coast who are like, ‘Can I get it extra, extra, extra crispy?’”
White Pie’s top selling item is its namesake: a pizza with crème fraîche, cremini mushrooms, bacon and sunny-side-up egg. Other specialty pies include the Porky Porkorino, a red pie with sopressata, pickled chiles and hot honey, and the Ava Angelini, with fior de latte, prosciutto, ricotta and arugula. A seasonal fresh tomato pie, with local beefsteak tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil, is inspired by summertime specials at Elm City pizzerias, the brothers said.
Introducing Colorado to apizza wasn’t easy at first, Jason said.
“There definitely was some pushback, with the pizza being so charred and crispy,” he said. “Everything in Denver was like New York style pizza, where it was big and chewy, and there’s not an emphasis on sauce, more about cheese. It’s like night and day to bring New Haven. And everyone’s like, ‘What is this, why is this pizza so small, why is it so thin, why is it so crispy? It’s burnt.’”
“But we were so lucky that we had such a small restaurant and we have a cool little neighborhood, where everyone really came out to support it. They’re like, ‘This pizza’s amazing, all these flavors, the char.’ It blew everybody away. Since we first opened White Pie, it’s just been a huge hit. And we’re lucky that people appreciate it and found a love for New Havenstyle pizza.”
Pazzo— San Carlos, Calif.
Though he was born and raised in New Haven, Andy Gambardella doesn’t have a specific allegiance to one Wooster Street pizzeria. His family went back and forth between Sally’s and Frank Pepe’s, which would years later expand across the state (with Fairfield County locations in Danbury and Fairfield.)
“It was easy to decide if you felt like having clams on the half-shell,” he said, because then they’d choose Pepe’s, which used to serve them as an appetizer.
Gambardella has owned fine-dining restaurants in the Bay Area, including the former Gambardella’s in Menlo Park. When he opened Pazzo in 2014, he told his son he was going to “make [pizza] the way I like it, the way I think it should be.” Seven years later, the pizzeria is doing well, he said, thanks in part to media coverage in San Francisco and beyond.
There are clear nods to New Haven originals on Pazzo’s menu: a tomato pie (called San Marzano here) with garlic, oregano, pecorino and Parmigiano, and a baby clam pie, with pecorino, mozzarella and garlic. Though Gambardella eventually had to add a “no mozzarella” note to the San Marzano menu listing, he said it’s become a popular seller once diners try it.
Although he couldn’t get a coal-fired oven, Pazzo’s wood-burning oven delivers enough authentic char on the crust, Gambardella said. Sometimes customers who aren’t used to the style will call after picking up their order, to tell him the pizza looks burnt.
“I ask them, ‘Well, did you try it?’” he said. “[They’ll say] ‘No, we just opened the box and the pizza’s burnt.’ And I’ll say ‘OK, taste it and if you don’t like it, call me back.’ And they usually never call back.”
Pazzo also carries another taste of Gambardella’s hometown: six flavors of Foxon Park soda, made in East Haven. When food writer J. Kenji Lopez-Alt visited the restaurant last May, he sang the pizza’s praises on Instagram, sharing photos of the pies with a bottle of the white birch flavor — a New Haven favorite, but not well-known elsewhere.
“Birch beer, we couldn’t sell the stuff [before],” Gambardella said. “And then [when] Kenji mentioned it, that’s all people want now.” pazzosancarlos.com.
Dimo’s Apizza — Portland, Ore.
Chef Doug Miriello grew up in Stamford and lived throughout Fairfield County before moving to the West Coast a dozen years ago. His family frequented Pepe’s most often, specifically The Spot, the site of the pizzeria’s original Wooster Street location. Last year, out of a catering job during the pandemic and with a baby on the way, he started Dimo’s, a pizza pop-up named for his beloved grandmother Grace Dimo.
Dimo’s apizza features classics (cheese pie, pizza rossa, margherita) and specialty options, like cacio e pepe, a “Hail Mary” with soppressata, rosemary, Calabrian chili, tomato confit and Castelvetrano olives; and “The Tribute,” a direct homage to Pepe’s white clam pie with woodroasted clams, garlic, parsley, Parmesan and lemon. His version uses a clam aioli made from the clam liquor, which becomes the base of the pie.
To get the desired crispiness and char, Miriello starts his pies in a gas deck oven and finishes them in a wood-fired oven. “That for me is like my poor man’s way of creating a coal oven that I obviously wasn’t able to build very easily,” he said.
In addition to apizza, Miriello tries to fill the void of other East Coast foods in PDX, offering chicken parmesan, roast beef and Italian grinders on specially-made sesame baguettes. He also soothes homesick Northeasterners with a menu of breakfast sandwiches on custom-made poppyseed hard rolls: egg and cheese with bacon or Taylor ham.
“A bacon, egg and cheese on a hard roll is such a beautiful thing that just doesn’t exist outside of the tri-state area,” he said.