The Definitive Guide to New Haven Pizza
by Eater Staff
There are regional pizza styles across the US, but none is perhaps more storied than New Haven-style pizza. Here now, Connecticut food writer Amy Kundrat breaks down the style and explores the city's historic pizzerias. New Haven-style pizza is the latter; a hotter, crispier, and dirtier descendant of Neapolitan style pie. What ribs are to Ka
nsas City, cheesesteak to Philadelphia, and crabcakes to Baltimore, pizza is to New Haven. If you grew up in or around the Elm City, your pizza parlor allegiance can be fierce. So how did Connecticut's second largest city become ground zero for some of the best pizza in the United States? Just what is New Haven-style pizza? First, a bit of history. At the turn of the twentieth century, New Haven became a popular town for Italian families who settled in the United States during the country's diaspora. Neighborhoods such as Wooster Square became home to many displaced southern Italian families primed with palates that appreciated the thin-crusted Neapolitan style pizza of their homeland. What makes New Haven-style pizza inimitable goes much deeper than the charred, thin-crusted oblong pies of Wooster Street. New Haven has its own pizza patois and signature moves. Here's a lexicon to help you decipher them:
A New Haven Pizza Lexicon
It's apizza, not pizza
The word "apizza" is itself a distinguishing characteristic of New Haven. The "a" is a harbinger of the Italian dialect spoken in the Naples region. Sally's and Modern still use it proudly and a handful of places in the region use it as a deferential nod to their stylistic New Haven roots. Coal
In the twenties and thirties coal was abundant and cheap. It is also still responsible for the blistered, sooty, and smoke-imbued flavor of the pies at Pepe's and Sally's. Modern also initially relied on coal, in the form of coke fuel, but has long-since turned to an oil-fueled open flame brick oven. It's not burned, it's charred
What all apizza has in common, regardless of the fuel source, is intensely hot brick ovens, and pies left intentionally longer on their decks, producing a signature deeply charred crust. Some may call it burned, but that's wrong: In New Haven, it's charred. A long, cold fermentation
New Haven-style pizza dough relies on a longer fermentation than that of its quick rise New York style pizza neighbor. Allowing the dough to proof more slowly over the course of an overnight refrigeration, in combination with letting the dough come to room temperature before shaping and baking, allows for a much more nuanced flavor and chewy crust. "Mootz"
Most of the old timers in New Haven call their whole milk aged mozzarella by a single syllable: "mootz." You can get away with this on or around Wooster Street if you 1) grew up using the word 2) are Italian American and want to give it a go, or 3) work in a pizzeria and/or have some flour on your shirt. "Mootz" is a topping
Mozzarella is considered a topping so always be sure to specify "mootz" or "no mootz." If you don't ask for it, it won't come on your pizza. Tomato pies
The first pies made in New Haven were topped with tomato sauce. No rivers of cheese, nary a topping in sight, just fresh and tangy hand crushed tomatoes cooked simply by the heat of the oven. Die-hards still prefer light or no cheese to appreciate the simplicity of New Haven's tangy tomato sauce and charred crust, and today almost all New Haven pizza parlors have their own take.
