SOURDOUGH PIZZA
‘ESQUIRE’ NAMES CT PIZZERIA A ‘BEST NEW RESTAURANT IN AMERICA’
Nana’s Bakery & Pizza is one of the “Best New Restaurants In America,” as chosen by Esquire magazine. The Mystic restaurant, which specializes in naturally leavened bread and organic sourdough pizzas, opened in October 2020.
Nana’s fried-to-order sourdough doughnuts, in flavors like cinnamon sugar, cardamom espresso and savory cacio e pepe, “taste like melting cumulus clouds,” wrote Jeff Gordinier, the magazine’s former food and drink editor. He also praised its New England pizza with clams and bacon, writing that it “tastes like clam chowder if it spent a few months in Italy and had an epiphany in Naples.”
Gordinier also noted that Nana’s menu items “[rise] to a higher level thanks to deep fermentation and the careful hands of baker David Vacca and chef James Wayman, one of the unsung pioneers in American cooking.”
“I’m just proud of our team and what we’ve been able to accomplish,” Wayman said by phone Thursday. “I just love Nana’s so much. I think it’s welcoming and approachable to everybody...To get this kind of recognition for just a little bakery and pizza shop is really wonderful.”
Sourdough is foundation of Nana’s naturally leavened pizza dough, with 13-inch thin-crust round pies ($10 to $18) and thickcrust sheet pies ($18 to $25, also available by the slice.) Nana’s Tomato is a classic construction, with tomato sauce, olive oil and basil and the option to add mozzarella. A Bolognese pie uses beef and pork Bolognese sauce made by Mystic sibling restaurant and butcher shop Grass & Bone, along with local Finback cheese from Mystic Cheese Co.
Other pies on the current menu feature wild mushrooms, braised local pork carnitas with limecured cabbage and guajillo pepper sauce, and roasted squash with brown butter sage pepitas.
Breakfast includes egg sandwiches, pastries and a full coffee program, with organic beans from Canyon Coffee. Sandwiches, small plates, soups and salads round out the afternoon menu, with daily specials. Rotating baked goods feature cookies, brownies, muffins, scones and other sweets.
Nana’s is also expanding to Westerly, R.I., Wayman said, with a location set to open early next year as part of the United Theatre renovation. The new bakery, located in the Canal Street building, will have seating for about 21 guests.
Condé Nast Traveler magazine recently named Mystic as one of “seven small towns in America
that are secret food destinations,” and Nana’s was featured in a Robb Report writeup in August, titled “Meet Nana’s, The New Restaurant Making The Best Pizza in Connecticut.”
“I’ve been in this town for years, and it’s a beautiful place to live, and and I love it here,” Wayman said. “I don’t feel like it’s ever gotten its, kind of, due, for what a special place it is...the farming community here, the chefs and restaurants are amazing, we have this incredible seafood. It’s really cool to see it getting some attention nationally.”
Esquire chose 40 restaurants for the feature, enlisting Gordinier, food writers Omar Mamoon and Joshua David Stein, and culture and lifestyle director Kevin Sintumuang to report the piece.
“Together and separately, we traveled thousands of miles and dined at hundreds of restaurants,” Sintumuang wrote. “The experiential miles we logged will last us a very long time (or at least until we start reporting next year’s Best New Restaurants list).”
The Esquire writers also chose Dimo’s Apizza in Portland, Ore. as one of the 40 picks. Chef-owner 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.
“It’s not standard for a pizzeria to make its own hand-pulled mozzarella. Even less common is double baking a pizza in a gas deck oven and a wood-fired oven. But over at Dimo’s, proprietor Doug Miriello does all of the above in an effort to re-create the coal-ovenbaked, extra-charred, thin and crispy, long and oblong-shaped “apizza” that he ate as a kid in Connecticut,” Mamoon wrote.
Nana’s New England pie is like “deconstructed clam chowder” on a pizza crust, with clams, thinly sliced potato, bacon, garlic butter and a touch of cream. At left, freshly baked sourdough bread.