Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana

157 Wooster St.
New Haven, CT 06511

(203) 865-5762

www.pepespizzeria.com

We headed down to Wooster Street for Frank Pepe's, founded in 1925 and currently operating a handful of locations by surviving relatives within Connecticut and New York. We switched it up for the second pizzeria. As Pepe's is known for it's fresh clam pie, we went with the white pie for this visit. There were about 15 people in line and we were anxious to get into NYC, so we ordered a pie to go and ate it in the car.

$23.95 White clam pie with bacon (7)
In addition to freshly shucked clams, we got bacon to give the pie a surf 'n' turf flare. The clams were great and although the bacon was average, that grizzle juice on clams was reminiscent of bacon wrapped shrimp. Good flavor combination.

My girlfriend and her sister thought this was a better pie than Modern. I thought it was competitive, but I would give the edge to Modern. I was stuffed at this point and it may have made sense to jog into the city as we had dinner reservation later that night.

Modern Apizza

874 State St
New Haven, CT 06511

(203) 776-5306

www.modernapizza.com/


On our drive from Boston to NYC, New Haven, CT was conveniently located midway on the route. With New Haven making quite the culinary statement, we decided on three well known pizzerias (Modern, Pepe's, Sally's) and the oldest hamburger house in the US, Louis Lunch. Two on the way there and two on the way back. Unfortunately, Louis was on vacation, so Sally's was the sole stop on the way back to Boston. Modern was the first stop on our drive down to NYC. We got there around lunch time and were seated immediately.

$15.25 Medium Sausage, Eggplant Pie (8)
We had a medium pie with half sausage and half eggplant. I'm not sure how eggplant got the nod, but I believe I was silent during the voting process. I thought it was the best of the three New Haven pies. It came out crisp with a nice slightly charred crust. The sausage was of great quality and had a deep, well developed flavor. The eggplant was surprisingly good. It was breaded, which gave it a contrasting texture. Far better than the soggy eggplant slice I had at Lombardi's years ago.