Pepe’s Pizzeria – The World’s Best Pizza

I felt it was an atrocity to have this much veggies on this pie but it was still great

What is there to say about Pepe’s Napoletana Pizza that hasn’t already been said? Not much, so I will just keep it short, Pepe’s is the best pizza I have had in my life! I have eaten pizza in Italy, Chicago, New York and everywhere else in between, and in my opinion, nothing can match Pepe’s. I understand that any New Yorker or Windy City resident reading this, are taking a second from fighting each other about their cities pizza to say “who is this jerk talk’ in bout Connecticut Pizza?”, and wishing a severe beating would fall upon me. I am in no way a pizza expert, or claim to be, but I do know what I like. I first had Pepe’s as a teenager; we would trek 45 minutes up I-95 to New Haven, and wait on line for another hour at a chance to stuff our pie hole (no pun intended) with this classic pizza. 

Frank Pepe, opened his doors on Wooster Street in 1925, and has been churning out coal fired, thin crust pizzas ever since. On my first visit to Pepe’s, the thing that struck me was the large old-school ovens, and the fact that they served only pizza, wine, and soda (serving the same soda since 1925, Foxon). Then there was the pizza, oddly shaped and slightly charred in some places with some of the purist tomato sauce to rest on top of dough. I usually get a salami and sausage, but people rave about the white clam pizza, I may get adventurous in the near future and take a stab at it.

After dominating the safe confines of New Haven for three quarters of a century, Pepe’s has branched out by opening locations in Fairfield, Manchester, Yonkers, and Uncasville (Mohegan Sun Casino). Most recently, I visited the Fairfield location. It was a Friday night, and even this location was sporting a line that stretched outside, no comparison to what the New Haven location would look like on a Friday. The Fairfield location was decorated and styled to look like the New Haven location. The large pizza prep and oven area was an exact replica of New Haven’s and helped to make me feel like I was at the original. I didn’t feel there was any let up in the taste of the pizza. Sure, it’s always better to be at the original, but I was left with that feeling I always have after I leave, like I just ate the best pizza on earth.

MY ATTEMPT AT A PEPE”S STYLE PIZZA