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New Haven-style pizza, locally known as apizza, is a style of Neapolitan pizza common in and around New Haven, Connecticut. It originated at the Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana[1] and is now served in many other pizza restaurants in the area, most notably, Sally's Apizza, Bar Bru Room, Grand Apizza, and Modern Apizza. This geographically limited pizza style has gained considerable culinary and historical importance.[2][3]
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American pizzerias generally consider a plain pizza to be crust, tomato sauce, and mozzarella. In a New Haven-style pizzeria a "plain" pizza is crust, oregano, and tomato sauce with a little bit of grated pecorino romano cheese sprinkled on. Mozzarella (called "mootz" in the New Haven-Italian dialect) is considered to be a topping; a customer who wants it must ask for it. When Frank Pepe began making his "tomato pies" on Wooster Street in the early 1920s, the only varieties were "plain" and "marinara" (tomato sauce, grated cheese, and anchovies).
Later on, Pepe invented the "white clam pie" - although not due to allergies to tomatoes and mozzarella, a common misconception. Pepe's restaurant used to serve littleneck clams on the half shell at the bar which he eventually decided to put on the pizza.[4] The white clam pie is crust, olive oil, oregano, grated cheese, chopped garlic, and fresh littleneck clams. Since then, the white clam pie has become the signature pizza among the New Haven pizzerias, who try to discourage any customers from ordering it with mozzarella.
What sets New Haven-style pizza apart from other styles is its thin crust. Brick or occasionally high temperature gas oven cooking bakes the crust to a very crispy shell (often burnt black in spots, desirably known as "the char") but leaves the inside soft.
New Haven-style pizza is traditionally baked in a coal white oven and is sold whole rather than by the slice. Many New Haven-style pizzerias also serve East Haven-based Foxon Park soft drinks.
Use of the term "apizza" ( /əˈbiːts/ ah-Beetz) is mostly confined to the Italian-American enclaves of southern Connecticut, and derives from Neapolitan dialect. The dish is more widely known throughout the region as simply "New Haven-style pizza", as opposed to "New York-style pizza" which remains the dominant style of pizza-making throughout the rest of the Northeast.
Although most commonly available in the New Haven area, New Haven-style pizza has begun to spread to other parts of Connecticut. It has been available in the Italian-American areas of Bridgeport and other shoreline communities for many years. It is beginning to be served in areas typically not known for large Italian-American populations, including towns in northern and central Connecticut as well as farther away in Stayton, Oregon,[5] Washington, DC,[6] Chicago, Illinois,[7] San Diego, California,[8][9] West Chester, Pennsylvania,[10] Key West, Florida,[11] and Farmington Hills, Michigan.[12]