During a recent pizza pilgrimage to New Haven, Connecticut, several residents confidently informed me that this Ivy League college town at the mouth of Long Island Sound had been declared the “official pizza capital of the United States.”
These proud boosters were less confident, though, when it came to answering my follow-up question: “By whom?”
You can be sure the title was not ceded by the pizzaiolos of New York City, one of whom told the New York Times, when asked about New Haven’s claims to pizza supremacy, “They’re outta their minds.”
In fact, the assertion that New Haven is the nation’s pizza capital was made in the nation’s actual capital in May 2024, when U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro—of Connecticut, it probably goes without saying—entered a statement declaring that designation into the Congressional record.
At a subsequent gathering on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to celebrate the symbolic title, New York Rep. and NYC native Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was reportedly heard “throwing in a playful BOO!” on behalf of her hometown.
Since then, Connecticut has only doubled down on its pizza bona fides, with tourism officials and politicians pushing the pizza-capital thing in marketing materials and initiatives like the new Pizza Capital Trail connecting the state’s best-loved pizzerias.
While I wouldn’t dare to proclaim once and for all which place in the USA has the best pizza (I’d like to make that very clear for my many loved ones in Chicago), it’s true that New Haven won’t disappoint culinary-focused travelers looking to experience a unique, historic, and fiercely defended pizza culture for themselves.
Here’s what to know, where to go, and what to eat to try a slice (or 10) of New Haven’s rich Italian culinary heritage.
How New Haven Became a Pizza Capital
Like many northern U.S. cities, New Haven spent much of the second half of the 19th century striving to establish itself as a leading producer of old-timey goods, with factories devoted to manufacturing corsets, carriage parts, and Winchester repeating rifles, among other things.
Newly arrived Italian immigrants made up a huge proportion of the workforce, especially at Sargent & Co., a maker of locks and hardware. The company was said to usher Southern Italians straight from Ellis Island to the factory floor in New Haven.
By 1910, the city had the most Italian Americans per capita of any spot in the U.S., writes Colin M. Caplan in his exhaustive 2018 book, Pizza in New Haven, a chronicle of seemingly every pizza oven ever fired within New Haven city limits.
After the new residents, many of them originally from Naples and the Amalfi Coast, began settling in neighborhoods like Wooster Square—the center of New Haven’s Italian American community—it didn’t take long for Italian bakeries to open and start churning out “tomato pies” to feed workers and their families.
Caplan has his own tour company, Taste of New Haven, to fill visitors in on this history—and fill them with pizza. Guides lead small groups around Wooster Square and other culinary hot spots, stopping at old and new pizzerias as well as pointing out landmarks like former factory buildings and Wooster Square Park, where cherry blossoms bloom in spring.
The empty pedestal formerly occupied by a statue of Christopher Columbus now serves as backdrop for what seems a more appropriate tribute to the neighborhood’s key demographic: a bronze family of Italian American immigrants, toting battered suitcases and, as the title of the work puts it, Pointing the Way to the Future. Sculpted by Marc Anthony Massaro, the monument was installed in the park in 2024.
Be forewarned: The moderate amount of walking involved in Taste of New Haven’s Little Italy Pizza Tour will definitely not counteract the 10 full pizza slices, with optional beer, wine, and soda, all covered by the $95 ticket price and all meant to be consumed during the tour’s roughly 3-hour running time.
The Big Three of New Haven Pizza Places—and What Makes Them Special
Two of the city’s three most renowned pizzerias are on the itinerary of Taste of New Haven’s Wooster Square tour, and when I took the guided stroll during a winter weekend, both restaurants had customers lined up outside well before 11am.
The Wooster Square institutions are Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (157 Wooster St.), opened in 1925, and Sally’s Apizza (237 Wooster St.), which came along in 1938. Both operations remained family-run for decades; Sally’s was bought by a hospitality company in 2017, though the family remains involved.
You could call the two businesses rivals, but the competition doesn’t seem especially rancorous. In fact, Frank Pepe was an uncle and something of a mentor to Sal Consiglio, who opened Sally’s and ran the place with his wife, Flo.
True New Haven legends, Sally and Flo became beloved by generations of neighborhood kids, Yale undergrads, and visiting celebrities, even though Sal reportedly spread the tomato sauce on his pizza dough with his bare hands. He died in 1989; Flo followed in 2012; the kitchen now uses a ladle.
The third member of the holy trinity, Modern Apizza (874 State St.), founded in 1934, is located about a mile to the north of the other two.
All three are time-tested purveyors of New Haven–style pizza, otherwise known as “apizza.” This term is pronounced ah-beetz, with an emphasis on the second syllable. In his book, Caplan chalks up the pronunciation to the Neapolitan dialect, while acknowledging the spelling is pretty much a Connecticut-only phenomenon.
The defining characteristic of apizza is its thin crust, aptly described by social critic Camille Paglia, of all people, in a 1984 appreciation quoted by Caplan. “The dough is smoky, gritty, and charred,” explains Paglia, yet “so chewy that it makes your jaws ache.”
The essential char of a well-made New Haven pie could be a result of the city’s pizza pioneers relying on coal-fired ovens rather than wood-burning ones. Food writer and native New Havener Hannah Goldfield (a Modern partisan) writes in The New Yorker that apizza should leave your hands “covered in soot.”
As for toppings, to dine like a Sargent & Co. factory worker, circa 1910, you’ll need to opt for a traditional tomato pie sporting only red sauce, a little olive oil, and some grated pecorino or Parmesan—in other words, no mozzarella.
Those plain pies are still on menus all over town, but mozzarella did eventually enter the picture at New Haven pizzerias during the 1930s. I for one appreciate how that cheese adds a creamy complement to the tangy tomato sauce and chewy-charry crust.
Specialty Pies and Other Innovations
Other key features of apizza include its oblong shape, the metal cooking sheet and parchment paper it’s served on, and the preferred accompanying soft drink, a locally made Foxon Park white birch soda, which tastes like wintergreen chewing gum in fizzy liquid form.
Despite the similarities you’ll find across New Haven pizza joints—they number 63, according to the Connecticut governor’s office—I don’t mean to suggest they’re interchangeable. Each of the biggies has its subtleties and specialties, as well as its defenders and detractors. I give you permission to try as many as possible to develop your own informed opinions.
As Goldfield points out, many establishments distinguish themselves from the pack by perfecting a specialty pie, such as the famous white clam pizza at Frank Pepe (topped with fresh seafood chunks to add some brine to the proceedings) and the mashed potato with bacon iteration at Bar (254 Crown St.), a ‘90s-era addition to the scene near the Yale University campus.
With regard to the dining experience, Sally’s probably has the best old-school ambience, with its brown vinyl booths and wood-paneled walls decorated with memorabilia and signed photos of the restaurant’s many famous fans. Frank Sinatra was so devoted he’d send out for Sally’s all the way from New York. Bill and Hillary Clinton became aficionados when they were students at Yale Law School.
If you have room in your schedule (and your stretch pants) to widen your scope beyond apizza, the city’s exceptional Italian gastronomic offerings encompass a lot more.
There’s cannoli at Libby’s Italian Pastry Shop (139 Wooster St.), located right next door to Frank Pepe and, after all, you need something to snack on while waiting in line. The more traditional Neapolitan pizzas at Zeneli (138 Wooster St.) will help you compare and contrast with the usual New Haven style. And to stock up on Italian foodstuffs to take home, you can browse the Italian market at Gioia (150 Wooster St.). Return at dinnertime for freshly made pasta and cocktails, preferably from Gioia’s rooftop if the weather’s nice.
Don’t be surprised if you become an evangelist for New Haven’s Italian food—though you should know that particular gospel is already spreading.
Frank Pepe has opened a total of 17 locations at this point, including nine outside Connecticut. And Sally’s has made incursions into Massachusetts, with a new spot in Boston’s Seaport area coming soon.
There may be some loss of a crucial, ineffable New Havenness at those outposts, however. Our own Pauline Frommer, who knows her way around a pizza slice after years of updating the Frommer’s New York City guidebook, told me that when she visited an out-of-Connecticut link in the Frank Pepe chain, the pizza just wasn’t as satisfying.
It’s sort of like how bagels taste better in New York. And no, the city will not be accepting challenges to that claim.
New Haven, Conn., is conveniently reached by Amtrak train from New York (about 2 hours) or Boston (about 2.5 hours). Once you arrive, the city is easy to navigate without a car, whether on foot or via ride-hailing apps. Go to Amtrak.com to find tickets.
Alternatively, the drive to New Haven takes about 90 minutes from NYC or about 2 hours from Boston.