My Family's New Haven Pizza Love Story

One of the joys and privileges of living in New Haven is having the world’s best pizza near our doorstep.

And this was celebrated Wednesday when about 110 New Haven pizza people — the makers of those pies and their friends — flew on a chartered jet to Washington to hear the Elm City officially declared “the Pizza Capital of America.”

The New Haven Register sent three — THREE! — staff reporters and a photographer down there to cover this event. Oh yeah, page one, baby, plus an entire page of photos and text inside.

The entourage met U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, our esteemed representative, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to hear her make the pizza capital declaration. Later she read it into the Congressional Record on the floor of the House of Representatives.

During the outdoors ceremony New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker led the crowd as everybody chanted: “Nothing a-beats New Haven ah-beetz!” As DeLauro said in her declaration: “In my hometown of New Haven, Connecticut there is a specially crafted food that draws people from across the country to the city. It is called apizza — which is pronounced ‘ah-beetz’ — and is the original way ‘la pizza’ was pronounced in southern Italy.”

DeLauro called this fine food “a celebration of small business and of Italian-American culture.”

She listed just a few of the thousands who have made the pilgrimage to New Haven to taste our pizza: Ted Kennedy Jr., Bill Murray, Frank Sinatra and Bill and Hillary Clinton — that couple feasted at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana while they were at Yale Law School.

Colin Caplan, a New Haven historian and foodie who wrote “Pizza in New Haven” and co-produced the documentary “Pizza: A Love Story” with Gorman Bechard and Dean Falcone, loves to wax poetic about this. Here’s what he told one of those Register reporters: “It’s for us to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got the best.’ When we talk about New Haven pizza we’re really talking about the original pizza. This was the original stuff and that’s why it’s the pizza capital. It’s important. It’s American history. It’s pride. It’s legacy.”

People are always arguing over whether pizza was actually born in New Haven. Caplan, who has done extensive research on the subject, once told me: “Pizza started in Naples in the 1700s.” And so the text above the title of the documentary states: “Pizza wasn’t invented in New Haven, it was perfected there.”

When I arrived in New Haven in 1977 I didn’t know a damn thing about its pizza. But I made a new friend at the New Haven Register, Ed Petraiuolo III, who as a paisan and Elm City native, quickly and eagerly got me over to Wooster Street. As everybody who lives here knows, that’s where Pepe’s is. And that’s where Sally’s Apizza is.

Eddie informed me that Pepe’s and Sally’s and Modern Apizza, a few blocks away from Wooster Street, are “The Holy Trinity” of New Haven pizza. They are all “first tier.”

When Eddie sat me down at Pepe’s, alongside my wife and future bride Jennifer Kaylin, he sternly told us that one is never to eat a pizza with silverware. That would be the mark of a newbie, an ignorant person not suited to enjoy such a delicacy. We have tried to follow this rule ever since.

And at some point during the great friendship we formed with Eddie until cancer took him from us in 1987, we three made a solemn vow that if ever the air raid sirens warned of impending nuclear bombs, we would get a Pepe’s pizza to go and enjoy our last meal on the New Haven Green.

You might ask: Pepe’s? Why not Sally’s? Because Pepe’s was Eddie’s favorite. And because once when we were waiting in cold weather at the entrance to the indoor alcove at Sally’s we saw a waiter tell a young woman with a toddler in a stroller that she had to wait outside, just like everybody else. You don’t forget such things.

There were times when we moved out of New Haven, called away by job opportunities and young restlessness. But always we returned. We joked that this city is like a magnet drawing us back. I used to say it was the history of the place, noting that my ancestors helped settle the city hundreds of years ago.

Oh no. It wasn’t the history that drew us back.

It was the pizza.

When we bought our first home in New Haven in the late 1980s we lived on the west side of town, not close to those first tiers. But we had a wonderful second tier, an easy walk down our street — Ernie’s Pizzeria. This was how our daughters, not even five years old, were introduced to New Haven pizza. A fine introduction! (Those pies are made from tomatoes grown behind the pizzeria.)

Yes, and when all those pizza people went down to Washington on Wednesday, there was one pizza maker who didn’t go — Pasqual DeRiso, the longtime owner of Ernie’s. (His parents, Ernesto and Jennie DeRiso, opened the place in 1971 when he was 10.) Why didn’t he go to Washington? He had to stay in New Haven and make the pizza.

The pizza place my wife and I most often choose these days is Modern. We think it ranks right up there with Pepe’s and Sally’s and we find it convenient for take-out and home consumption. I absolutely hate waiting in line for anything, and so I avoid going to Wooster Street unless it’s off-hours.

I also give Modern credit because its owner, Bill Pustari, has refused to open franchises out-of-town. This is quite unlike the owners of Pepe’s and Sally’s, who have allowed new operations in places such as Mohegan Sun, Fairfield County, Bethesda, Md., Alexandria, Va., etc. etc.

One of my favorite food experiences of all time came in February 2018 when I sat down at Modern with Caplan, Bechard and Falcone as they were promoting their “Pizza: A Love Story.” We were greeted by Pustari himself and we consumed four pizzas together around a big table as the trio bubbled over about their beloved “pies” and their place in New Haven history.

In my column about this meal, I quoted a promotional teaser for the film: “What made Frank Sinatra send his driver from Hoboken, New Jersey to New Haven just to pick up pizzas? What makes rock stars includes in their riders that New Haven pizza must be served in the (Toad’s Place) green room? What made film director Steven Spielberg send a private jet to the New Haven airport to pick up 50 pies for his son’s wedding? What makes people wait in line for hours for New Haven pizza?”

During our meal Bechard acknowledged, “We are ridiculous pizza snobs.” Caplan derided Chicago’s deep dish pizza as “puff pastry.” And he called the pizza of Los Angeles “embarrassing.” When I asked the three about the “Pepe’s” being served outside New Haven, Falcone said, “They have to dumb it down…It’s not as charred. You’re not going to have the same New Haven experience.” Bechard called it “the Disney version.”

I refuse to eat at those places. I too am a “pizza snob.”

Yep, it’ll be an original Pepe’s pie that my bride and I take down to the New Haven Green if The Big One ever hits our town. We will die in bliss, a happy couple.