Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [8]
Modern Apizza
874 State St.
203–776–5306
New Haven, CT
LD | $$
While it is less famous than Pepe’s and Sally’s, Modern Apizza, a 1930s-era pizzeria on State Street in New Haven, is one of the earth’s best pizza parlors. In addition to its superb pies, it is especially likable for the fact that you will not have to wait forever for a table.
“Our brick oven reaches temperature in excess of 700 degrees,” Modern’s menu warns. “Some pizzas may blacken around the edges, and even lose their perfect shape due to contact with the brick floor of the oven.” Okay with us! While a few places around the edge may be charred, the whole pizza has a swoonfully appetizing smoky taste, and you see why when you devour slices off the paper on which the pizza rests atop its round pan. The paper appears strewn with charred little bits of semolina from the oven floor, most of which cling to the underside of the crust, creating a slightly burned hot-bread flavor that no wussy metal-floored pizza oven could produce.
Modern’s specialty toppings include broccoli, sliced tomato, artichoke, and clams casino, which is clams, bacon, and peppers. It is known for the Italian Bomb, which is a joy to eat despite the fact that it totally overwhelms its crust: sausage, pepperoni, bacon, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and garlic. There is also a Vegetarian Bomb topped with spinach, broccoli, olives, peppers, mushrooms, onion, and garlic. As for the New Haven favorite, white clam pizza (hold the mozzarella, please), Modern uses canned clams, not fresh, meaning there is less soulful marine juice to infuse the pizza; nevertheless, it is delicious—ocean sweet and powerfully garlicky, and built on a crust that puffs up dry and chewy around the edges, but stays wafer thin all across the middle.
The Olive Market
19 Main St.
203–544–8134
Georgetown, CT
BLD | $$
Full disclosure: We live around the corner from the Olive Market and we’re good friends with the guys who run it. When we are home in the morning and need to grab a cup of really good strong coffee or a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, the Olive Market is where we go. So, although its main specialty—Uruguayan food—doesn’t exactly fit the definition of Roadfood as an expression of local culture, and although its inventory includes hoity-toity olive oils, imported cheeses, and boutique pasta, we do love it enough to recommend it to anyone passing through.
In fact, it is a swell place for a quick breakfast or lunch that’s fairly easy on the wallet. The menu ranges from French toast and pancakes to exotic grilled sandwiches and ultra–thin crust pizzas. Grilling things is the house forte. Pizzas and flatbread sandwiches inhale a smoky savor from being cooked on the grill. Especially notable is a sandwich known as a chivito. That’s a protein-eater’s delight of sliced steak with thin layers of ham and provolone cheese plus a fried egg, all on a beautiful hunk of bread crowned with a single olive.
On weekend nights the Olive Market goes from casual to awesome. That is when co-owner Fernando Pereyra shows off the cooking of his native Uruguay by offering, among other things, a stupendous “Gaucho dinner” for two or four people: an immense platter crowded with skewers of filet mignon, individual pork ribs, spicy chicken wings, teriyaki chicken skewers, and unbelievably luscious little lamb chops. In the center of this feast are ramekins of peanut dipping sauce, garlicky chimichurri sauce, and, of course, olives.
By the way, the coffee upon which Jane insists here is a specialty known as a cortado—strictly for those who like it ultra strong. Normal coffee and espresso drinks are also available.
Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana
157 Wooster St.
203–865–5762
New Haven, CT
LD | $$
Also at 238 Commerce Dr., Fairfield, CT ( 203–333–7373)
Dating back to 1923, Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana is a brash neighborhood joint on New Haven’s pizza parlor row that makes what we have long considered to be the best pizza on earth. Any toppings are fine (pepperoni especially so), and