Salvatore Carlino is aware of what it takes to make the right New York slice: He grew up in his mother and father’ pizza store, Papa Leone, in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay, and now owns his personal pizzeria, Lucia, with areas in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
So when a New York Occasions reporter referred to as to tell him {that a} member of Congress deliberate to declare New Haven, Conn., and never New York Metropolis, the pizza capital of the US on the Home ground, Mr. Carlino’s response was swift.
“This needs to be a prank name,” he mentioned, insisting. Twice.
“Oh, no,” Frank Tuttolomondo, who owns Mama’s Too in Manhattan, mentioned when he realized of the trouble. “No approach; they’re outta their minds.”
However in actual fact, Consultant Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut on Wednesday plans to learn a press release into the Congressional File that can declare New Haven to have “the very best pizza within the nation,” she mentioned in a information launch earlier this week. “It’s not even shut.”
It retains going. She may even name Connecticut “the pizza state.” Sorry, nutmeg.
Although the town’s chewy, charred pizza has lengthy gained acclaim amongst pizza followers and locals, some in New York Metropolis, when knowledgeable of the deliberate declaration, mentioned that it was no contest — their state was way more extensively referred to as the house of the best pizza in the US.
New Haven pizzerias have made the world “probably the most revered and acknowledged pizza meccas and locations within the nation,” the Congressional File assertion reads, including that the household companies have been “a foundational stone of our neighborhood and an financial driver for greater than a century.”
Created by coal- and brick-fired ovens, New Haven’s signature dish is called “apizza,” pronounced “ah-beetz,” with roots in Naples. Essentially the most well-known pizzerias embrace Frank Pepe’s, established in 1925; Sally’s, which dates to 1938; and Trendy Apizza, which dates again to 1934.
Collectively they’re identified regionally because the Huge Three, and their homeowners have been anticipated to be on the Capitol on Wednesday, a part of a delegation of greater than 100 Connecticut pizza makers, legislators, veterans and neighborhood leaders available to witness what lots of them described as a historic second for New Haven pizza.
“New Haven and Connecticut have been an epicenter of knowledgeable pizza making for greater than a century,” Colin Caplan, who leads New Haven pizza strolling excursions and co-produced a New Haven pizza documentary, mentioned in a press release this week. “There’s a degree of pizza alchemy happening on this space surpassed by nowhere else.”
New Haven is residence to greater than 75 pizza-making institutions, in response to Ms. DeLauro’s workplace. Compared, a New York Metropolis Well being Division database reveals 1,610 pizza operations throughout the 5 boroughs.
Whereas Ms. DeLauro’s assertion can be largely symbolic, the very considered Connecticut doing something higher than New York struck a nerve amongst pizzaiolos and New Yorkers alike. This was significantly delicate on condition that many imagine New York Metropolis is residence to the nation’s first pizzeria. The workplaces of New York Metropolis Council and the state each weighed in via their social media accounts.
Mr. Tuttolomondo, the Mama’s Too proprietor, mentioned that he’s had New Haven model pizza as soon as, but it surely was chilly so he couldn’t give a good evaluation.
“For me, fingers down, New York Metropolis is the primary pizza capital of the world,” he mentioned. “You’ve gotten each model right here. You’ve gotten Neapolitan guys doing Neapolitan pizza making higher pizza than makers in Naples. From spherical to sq., lengthy to quick, you have got the whole lot on this metropolis.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Tuttolomondo mentioned he acknowledged that pizza is a private expertise.
“Pizza basically, there’s nostalgia concerned, there’s recollections,” he mentioned. “You may go to at least one place and it could possibly be the very best place on this planet. When you had your first slice of pizza at Pizza Hut it may resonate with you in a sure approach.”
Paul Giannone, who owns Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint, took a diplomatic method.
“There isn’t a capital,” he mentioned. “Washington is a political city, and also you’re speaking to a pizza politician.”
Whereas pizza types are “a matter of style,” he did add that New Haven isn’t even his favourite place for pizza in Connecticut. That might be Zuppardi’s, in neighboring West Haven, which makes an excellent contemporary clam pie, he mentioned.
“We bought the very best,” Victor Conde mentioned outdoors of L & B Spumoni Gardens within the Gravesend neighborhood of Brooklyn on Tuesday. “It melts in your mouth. It’s all the time contemporary. I’ve by no means had a nasty slice right here.”
Mr. Conde, who grew up close by, summed up a basic sentiment concerning the Connecticut designation felt by many New Yorkers: “Yeah no,” he mentioned. “That’s loopy.”
Maggie DeMarco Mieles, whose father, Domenico DeMarco, opened Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn’s Midwood in 1965, mentioned there have been three issues that all the time created controversy: faith, politics and pizza. Mr. DeMarco, who died in 2022, has godfather standing amongst New York slice devotees, linking the cooking of Southern Italy and the gas-oven pie beloved by New Yorkers and vacationers alike.
“I believe my Dad would say, to every his personal,” mentioned Ms. Mieles, who now runs the pizzeria along with her household.
For her, the very best slice has the freshest substances, integrity behind a recipe and an excellent staff behind the pie.
Mr. Carlino, the Lucia’s proprietor, went a step additional. For him, the very best New York slice is inexpensive; balanced in substances; mild, ethereal and crispy — “and never in Connecticut.”
