Quest for Best Pizza Makes 2 Stops in New Haven

Ah, the quest for the ultimate pizza. It’s a true odyssey as our taste buds change and we determine that prosciutto is no longer a disgusting topping.

Most of us do this as a hobby but one lucky GQ writer went on a 2,000-mile trek to 10 U.S. cities to find the 25 best pizza places.

After 109 pizzerias and 386 pies (he must have worn stretchy pants), the writer, Alan Richman, decided he liked New Haven’s pie so much he picked two pretty famous joints for the list. 

Number 6 is Sally's Apizza. Richman’s a fan of white pie with potato.

He took some digs at the ambiance, but the pizza won him over.

“… a tour de force, a white (no tomato sauce) pizza prepared with thinly sliced potatoes cooked to an artful golden brown, a scattering of equally faultless onions, and a masterful touch of rosemary, all perfectly complemented by Sally’s crust, a bit denser, chewier, and thinner than the one up the block at the equally fabled Pepe’s.”

Which leads us to... Number 12, Frank Pepe, better known as Pepe’s. Richman liked the Original Tomato Pie best.

“I love the crust here—rather thick, quite soft, with nooks, crannies, colors, and char. I felt the same about the tomato sauce, not exactly what you would expect on pizza, a little more like a mild, chunky cooked pasta sauce,” he says.

The only flaw he saw was the need to eat it with a knife and fork.

But of course, we already knew all this.  NBC Connecticut visitors went the other way with these two New Haven institutions when we asked you in a Golden Local debate: 66 percent picked Pepe’s and 34 percent picked Sally’s.  

By the way, Richman thought the top place for pizza overall was in Chicago.  So what does he know?
 

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