What Sets New Haven Pizza Apart From Other Thin Crusts?

There's nothing quite like biting into a slice of thin-crust pizza — the crispy crunch of crust, accompanied by the hot pie's heartwarming play of sauce and cheese is enough explanation. But there's one thin-crust pizza style that has been turning heads since its introduction to the pizza scene in the 1920s and 30s, and it hails from New Haven, Connecticut. What sets New Haven pizza apart from other thin-crust styles, like New York, Neapolitan, or even St. Louis, is its bake in a very hot brick oven (traditionally fueled by coals), along with a longer fermentation of the dough in refrigerated temperatures. These unique dough-handling and high baking temps result in a perfectly imperfect oblong circular crust that is crispy and charred once cooked under the dry heat of the coals, as well as deeply chewy and flavorful.

Beyond the tell-tale crisp and chewy crust, before you order a pie, it's important to know that New Haven pizza is rarely referred to as simply pizza — it's apizza (pronounced "ah-beetz"). The vernacular as well as the pie itself were derived from Italian immigrants from Naples, who made homes in U.S. states like New Haven in the early 20th century. If you visit New Haven, it's likely you'll be directed to the original apizza spot, Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, started by former Napoleotano, Frank Pepe in 1925.

If you've ever had thin-crust Neapolitan-style pizza (for instance, the Margherita), you know a nice layer of tomato sauce and toppings like fresh mozzarella, olive oil, and basil are key. While a New Haven pie boasts Naples roots, its assembly and toppings are uniquely of the place. Drawing from the importance of good sauce (as is featured on a Neapolitan marinara), the classic apizza is a tomato pie, topped simply with a flavorful helping of sauce and a bit of cheese.

Hard cheese like Parmesan or Pecorino is sprinkled on lightly at classic apizza joints like Pepe's, or the other two infamous New Haven restaurants: Sally's Apizza and Modern Apizza, which earned the U.S. title of Best Pizza of the Year in 2023. Unlike rival thin crust pizzas from New York which hold lots of toppings and are cut into massive slices meant to be folded, New Haven apizza isn't known for an emphasis on the cheese. In New Haven, it's more about the sauce. Of course, beyond the classic tomato apizza, there are local favorites like those topped with a garlicky medley of clams and cheese, and other topping fancies like meatballs at Modern Apizza. Or try the potato pie at Sally's, complete with sliced spuds and rosemary.

In addition to taste, thin crust New Haven apizza is known for its unique and slightly-oval shape. Compared to smaller, single-serve Neapolitan pies, pizza in New Haven comes in a variety of sizes. The slices aren't huge like New York, but they will have a classic differentiating char (which some people might confuse as burned edges). Though some pizza shops in New Haven have departed from the classic coal-fired ovens, opting for other fuels like oil, leaving the pizza in the oven to char is part of what makes apizza, well, apizza.

The extra fire gives New Haven pizza flair compared to other thin-crust pizzas, along with the flavors of char and smoke. Thin crust pies made in St. Louis, for example, don't use yeast in their dough, so the texture is more akin to a thin flatbread and the flavor is not as bready. New Haven apizza, on the other hand, with its slower cold-ferment process and glutinous dough, achieves both crispness and chewiness. Perhaps it's the flavor and textural contrasts of the crust along with a saucy topping that make it so good; perhaps it's tradition. If you've never tried this type of thin-crust pizza before, you need to get your hands on a slice; and for good or bad, there's as yet only one place you can do that.