Posted by Michael Stern on July 11, 2002
At Pepe's, the greatest (and original) of the pizzerias on New Haven’s Wooster Street, you walk into a room with an open kitchen in back where white-aproned pizza men enact a ritual originated by Frank Pepe more than seventy years ago: bombs of dough are flattened on a marble table, clouds of spice are strewn in an instant, and long wooden bakers' peels are used to inject pizzas deep into the coal-fired oven. It is a hypnotic scene, untouched by time or fashion.
Crust is what makes a Pepe’s pizza outstanding. It is Neapolitan style -- thin but not brittle, with a real bready flavor. Cooked at high temperature on the brick floor of the ancient oven, it is dark around its burnished gold edge, and there is a good chew to every bite. The pizza men aren’t too fussy about scraping the oven floor, so it is likely the pizza’s underside will be speckled with burnt grains of semolina and maybe even blotched by an oil spill where another pizza leaked, all of which give the mottled oval a kind of reckless sex appeal that no tidy pie could ever match.
The great, little-known irony of Pepe's is that Frank Pepe, New Haven pizza's Zeus, was allergic to mozzarella ... and to tomatoes! His favorite pizza was olive oil and oregano on bare crust, dotted with little bits of anchovy. To this day, Pepe's premier pizza is made without mozzarella or tomato sauce. It is called a white clam pie, and it is nothing but crust strewn with freshly-shucked littleneck clams, olive oil, garlic, oregano, and a dash of grated Parmesan. Without a mozzarella mantle, the dough develops wicked resilience, its mottled surface frosted gold with grated cheese. Mozzarella with onion (but no tomatoes, and perhaps a bit of garlic added) is another long-time favorite, as are the more traditional sloppy configurations with tomato sauce, cheese, pepperoni, and sausage. Broccoli and spinach recently have been added to the kitchen’s repertoire; they are well suited to a white pie with mozzarella and garlic. But if you are coming to Pepe's for the first time, try the white clam pie. It's roadfood heaven.
Note: When Pepe's is closed on Tuesday, its adjoining sister store, The Spot, is open. The Spot's pizzas are excellent, the same style as Pepe's, although somehow lacking the magic of the original. And just up the street from both these institutions is Sally’s Apizza, which many connoisseurs consider to be the best of them all.
Overall: Worth driving from anyplace
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Reviewers "Must Eats" List
white clam pizza
($12.00)
"The texture of a white clam pizza is almost as wonderful as the taste. Note the tender clams, the soft-cooked bits of garlic, the chewy crust .... ah, heaven!"
Michael Stern
"When the warden asks us what we want for our last meal, this is it: Pepe's white clam pizza."
Michael Stern
"Part of the experience of a meal at Pepe's is waiting -- first out in the street for a table, then at the table for the pizza to arrive. By the time you get it, your tastebuds are screaming in desperation."
Michael Stern
"This metal arch over Wooster Street welcomes visitors to New Haven's Little Italy: home of the best pizza on earth."
Michael Stern
