Posted by Michael Stern on December 22, 2001
“Sally” was Sal Consiglio, the nephew of Frank Pepe; and in 1938, about a dozen years after Frank Pepe’s opened New Haven’s first pizzeria, Sal broke away and started his own just down Wooster Street. Sal himself is gone, but his wife Flora still runs the old pizza parlor. So Sally’s and Pepe’s are still in the same extended family. There are some aficionados who love one much more than the other; but in truth, each has its charms, and both make superb pizza.
Sally’s has soul. The place glows with old-neighborhood feel: wood-paneled walls, booths with well-worn Formica-topped tables, ubiquitous images of Frank Sinatra (a fan of Sal’s cooking) all over the walls. And the pizza packs a wallop. It is generously topped, well-oiled and comes on a thin crust that is smudged and gritty underneath. While the kitchen’s version of the New Haven specialty, white clam pizza, is second-rate (made using canned clams), it does turn out two outstanding pizzas that are Sally’s alone: fresh tomato pie (made only when good fresh tomatoes are available) with thick circles of tomato, creamy mozzarella, and hails of garlic; and broccoli rabe pie, heaped with bitter greens when they are available at the Long Wharf produce market. Although it is not formally listed on the menu, Sally’s multi-meat “Italian bomb” (sausage, pepperoni, bacon, plus lots of onions) is also significant.
Old friends of Sally’s are treated like royalty. Newcomers and unknowns might feel like they have to wait forever, first for a table, then for their pizza, and they will likely endure a staff who are at best nonchalant; but no one comes to Wooster Street for polished service or swank ambience. It’s great, thin-crust pizza that counts, and on that score, Sally’s delivers the goods.
And by the way, the second word in the name of this restaurant, Apizza is the old Connecticut way of giving the place a Southern-Italian flair. It is properly pronounced a-BEETS.
Overall: Worth driving from anyplace
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Reviewers "Must Eats" List
Fresh tomato pizza
($10.00)
"Pictures of Frank are everywhere on the walls of Sally's. This is the best one, but there are plenty of 8x10s of him as well as other celebrity fans of Sal Consiglio's place."
Michael Stern
"Oh, what a luscious crust! It's thin, but it's got a good chew."
Michael Stern
"Fresh tomatoes are available most of the year at Sally's, even when they are not formally in season."
Michael Stern
"Sally's remains what it has always been: Wooster Street's neighborhood pizzeria."
Michael Stern
"Sally's does not formally list a "round-the-world" pizza on its menu, but we ordered this one with the works. Note the blistered blackened edge to the crust: to aficionados of thin-crust pizza, this is a thing of beauty."
Michael Stern
