Pepe's Pizza (New Haven) - A Little Bit About a Lot of Things A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

March 8, 2010 Pepe’s Pizza (New Haven)

So are you a Sally’s or a Pepe’s?

So are you a Sally’s or a Pepe’s? New Haven’s fiercest rivalry. Both pizzerias are located on Wooster Street in Little Italy. We stopped in at 4:30 and ordered take out. You can see the line already outside Pepe’s, and it was packed inside. Sally’s doesn’t open until 5, but there was a lone man waiting for them to open at 4:30.

Pepe’s was founded in 1925 by Frank Pepe, an Italian immigrant. Sally’s was opened in 1938 by Pepe’s nephew, Sal Consiglio. I, personally, am a Sally’s gal, but they weren’t open, and when you’re itching for a clam pie, you just have to make do. Never heard of a clam pie? Oh how you have been missing out. All the pizzas are thing crust, cooked in a wood oven. They use freshly shucked clams, not the canned kind, and add olive oil, garlic and oregano. You can get the pizza with cheese (which costs extra) but I never do, the cheese takes away from the flavor of the clams. Normally no cheese on my pizza would kill me. 6 months ago cheese and I broke up…and a few weeks ago, while in Vermont, cheese and I, we had a dirty love affair. But that’s now in the past and we are back to being broken up.

The clams are salty and delicious, they taste like the sea-heavenly! The crust is thin and crispy-but the main star is really the clams. They have other kinds of pizzas, but honestly, I’ve never tried them because I love the clam pizza so much-why stray from a great thing!

When you walk into Pepe’s you see the huge open kitchen and the guys making the pizzas. Pretty cool. There is a fair amount of seating inside, simple and clean, but if you plan on going during dinner time, it’s best to get take out (and even then, there can be a wait). There is a lot next door for parking, but it fills up quickly, and there is also street parking.