When in Connecticut
I did a search of TFL and there is no record I can find of anyone ever posting about the fantastic pizza available in Connecticut, specifically in my home city of New Haven.
I suspect, therefore, that the TFL pizza-lovers out there (who eat restaurant-baked pizza) won't know that our small city is famous, around these parts anyway, for pizza, or as it is often written and spoken, "apizza."
Our pizza is at least famous enough to have a number of Wikepedia entries. I offer links to the two most famous apizza emporia, both on Wooster Street in the Little Italy section of the Elm City: Sally's Apizza and Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, a.k.a. Pepe's. If you're ever out this way, you will be happily surprised to taste the joys of coal-fired, brick-oven baked, thin-crusted pizza.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally's_Apizza
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Pepe_Pizzeria_Napoletana
Soundman (David)
Although we haven't eaten at Pepe's in New Haven - eating at Pepe's outside of West Hartford is a trip to pizza heaven. We have nothing even close in upstate NY.
Lucky you!
Judy
The first time I had pizza it was at Pepe's in 1943. The next time was about 40 years later and the man who waited on us was the same one who waited on us back then. I plan to go there this fall with my son who insists that Sally's is better. I guess we will have a discussion about where to go for pizza. This time we arrived about one hour before they opened and of course ther was a line out on the widewalk already.
Did you know about the legend of the woman in the window on on e of the side streets. If yoou drove by you could see her looking out the window for years. The story was she was waiting for her son to come home. Unfortunately he was shot comiong out of the Bijou Theatre that used to me on Church Street.
Great story, caviar!
There are a few things in this world that are so good that they don't need to change. Pepe's is one of them. It looks the same, inside and out, as it did the first time I ate there.
I never heard about the woman looking out the window. I can see her in my mind's eye however. I have seen pictures of the venerable old theater, Poli's Bijou which became the Loew Poli-Bijou. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Unfortunately it was long gone by the time I arrived in the Elm City. The Lincoln Theater too has been and gone, but Sally's and Pepe's are timeless!
Soundman (David)
Hi Judy,
Little did I know, when I moved to New Haven in 1980, how little I knew about good pizza! The first time I went to Wooster St. the lines were long for both places, and I thought the friend who took me there was crazy, as we waited an hour to get a pizza. When, at last, I took my first bite, I knew how wrong I was!
Sally's is quite small, so the wait can be long there. Pepe's is large by comparison. There is also another restaurant on the Pepe's lot, The Spot, which is actually the original Pepe's building, opened in 1925, before they expanded in the 1940's.
I should have also mentioned Modern Apizza, on State Street, which for many locals is the equal or better (not possible!) of Sally's and Pepe's. Modern is great and the wait to get a table is short by comparison.
I'm glad to hear that Pepe's expansion has worked out. Everybody should have some of this great pizza!
Soundman (David)