Entries tagged with 'Frank Pepe's'
Posted by Adam Kuban, August 4, 2008 at 10:39 AM
Photograph by Robyn Lee
The Westchester County Business Journal has it that Frank Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana is opening a branch in Yonkers, New York.
"This will be our first venture outside our home base of Connecticut," said Kenneth Berry, chief operating officer of Frank Pepe's Development Company. He said the company hopes to build three or four more restaurants in Westchester over the next four to five years. William Fonte, of Trifont Realty, said the business partners are looking at sites in New Rochelle, Rye, North White Plains and Port Chester.
OK. But are they going to use a coal-fired oven?
"The only two differences between what we do now and what Frank Pepe did in 1925 is that we have air conditioning and refrigeration," Berry said. The pizzeria's sausage still is supplied by the original sausage-maker, another family business in its third generation in New Haven.
"Our menu is very simple," Berry said. "It's pizza, beer, soda and wine." In Yonkers, the testimonial-garnering Pepe thin-crust pizzas will be baked in a 14- by 14-foot, 30,000-pound oven custom-built on the premises that replicates the oven installed by Pepe in New Haven in 1938.
Hmm. That's not conclusive as to whether the replica oven will replicate the coal-burning process. I'll put in some calls and report back when I get word. [via Small Bites with a tip o' the hat to Walter Barrett]
Posted by Adam Kuban, July 31, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Clicking in to the Slice inbox today, we've got ...
Photograph by Robyn Lee
Hello,
Love your website. Just made it to Frank Pepe for the first time and thought I'd share.
Drove from New York City to Cape Cod this past Saturday and pulled over in New Haven. Couldn't remember the name of the pizza places in New Haven, so the first cop I saw I asked for directions to "that famous pizza place." He gave me directions to Frank Pepe.
I arrived there at 1:45 p.m., and even though it was 95 and humid, there was a line down the sidewalk. And even though I was alone, I had to wait 20 minutes for a table. I couldn't believe how many people were there. Hello, it's 95 and humid why aren't you all at the beach?
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Posted by Ed Levine, May 23, 2008 at 1:00 PM
A pepperoni pie from Johnny's Pizzeria. This Mount Vernon, New York, pizza joint should be your first pizza stop on any road trip north of New York City.
Many New York–area pizza lovers may be headed to the shore this holiday weekend, to Connecticut or Rhode Island or Massachusetts—the northern half of what I called the Pizza Belt in my book Pizza: A Slice of Heaven. If you find yourself hungry, stuck in traffic or both, console yourself with a slice or pizza or two at any of the following places.
New York
In Yonkers, New York, there is a branch of Totonno's in a Holiday Inn, believe it or not. The coal oven there turns out very solid pies. Not quite up to the level of the original Totonno's in Coney Island, but very fine all the same. 125 Tuckahoe Road, Yonkers NY 10710
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Posted by Adam Kuban, January 24, 2008 at 1:45 PM
$950 / 1br - steps to frank pepes in wooster square
Lage apartment in down town wooster square, on site laundry, off street parking, large eat in kitchen, free storage space, If interested please respond to this email or call me at (203)XXX-XXXX. please specify the address in the subject title when responding to this email. thanks
Tip o' the hat to Philip G. for the find.
Posted by Ed Levine, October 10, 2007 at 8:15 AM
According to the Yale Daily News, the legendary Pepe's Pizza, in New Haven, Connecticut, is contemplating opening more branches in college towns across the country. But I wonder: Is it possible to clone high-quality, family-owned and operated pizzerias across state lines?
Pepe's, a Slice favorite beloved by just about everyone, including Michael Stern of Roadfood, and me. Pepe's, which I named one of pizzadom's "keepers of the flame" in my book Pizza: A Slice of Heaven, had previously opened a branch in Fairfield, Connecticut, in 2005 and another in Mansfield, Connecticut, last month. I tried to go to the Fairfield branch but was repelled by the long line.
College town expansion sounds like a sound business strategy. College kids love pizza (actually, who doesn't), ditto for professors living on academic salaries, and Pepe's would be a cost-effective way for parents visiting their kids to take them out for some non-dorm food.
But is the pizza going to be any good? Is it going to do justice to Frank Pepe's name and legacy as one of the true pizza giants in this country? Can you make a good coal-fired oven tomato pie beyond the Connecticut state line? I have my doubts.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 22, 2007 at 10:36 PM
It always becomes an issue when a highly regarded pizzeria opens a second location -- will the pies be as good at the new branch? Will production at the original branch suffer as a result of the new venture? The New York Times on the new Fairfield, Connecticut, branch of Frank Pepe's:
To the average aficionado of thin-crust pies, the chewy, somewhat salty dough dished up by Fairfield’s Frank Pepe is every bit as good as any coming out of New Haven. One reason for that is the use of a coal-fired oven, which generates far more heat than most gas or electric installations. Another, a waitress told me, is that the batter (and red sauce) is whipped up every day from scratch.
Spicing Up the Great Pizza Debate [New York Times]
Posted by Adam Kuban, February 22, 2007 at 6:00 PM
One of the (many) nice things about working at Serious Eats as its managing editor is that Slice now has access to some great video. We've been slaving away at Serious Eats world headquarters, making some good movin' pictures for you to watch, and this, IMHO, is one of the best. In it, we've worked with Michael Stern, who, along with his wife, Jane Stern, are the mad geniuses behind the Roadfood franchise—books, magazine columns, and the website. Here, Mr. Stern visits Frank Pepe's in New Haven. Tune in, turn on, and pig out!
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 12, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Ed Levine, of Slice's parent site, Serious Eats, went to New Haven, Connecticut, on Wednesday and files this report. —The Mgmt.
WORDS BY ED LEVINE .::. Two years ago, when I was writing Pizza: A Slice of Heaven
, I spent a couple of days at Pepe's Pizza in New Haven, Connecticut. I’ve been eating Pepe’s excellent pizza since the '60s, when my oldest brother went to school in New Haven.
I’ve always loved just about everything about Pepe’s—the huge oven that dominates its interior; the smart, sassy waitresses; the incomparable crust with a crisp exterior and tender interior; the tangy shower of Romano cheese that lends just the right amount of tang and saltiness to the pizza; the meaty locally sourced sausage chunks; and, of course, the incomparable clam pie, which has the perfect ratio of clams to crust. Most of all, I love the fact that Pepe’s fabulous pizza is the legacy of the hard work and perfectionism of Frank Pepe, an illiterate southern Italian immigrant who built Pepe’s with his blood, sweat, and dough. Although Frank Pepe passed away in 1969, his spirit lives on at Pepe’s in the many photographs and paintings of him that adorn the walls at the pizzeria and even the pizza boxes there.
What I discovered in those two days would have taken the smile off the face on the box. His nine descendants who collectively owned the business were at war. Things had gotten so bad they were thinking of selling or closing it. And what’s worse was that the pizza was suffering as a result of this internecine family warfare. The pies were still damn good but maddeningly inconsistent. I ended up feeling not very sanguine about Pepe's future.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, October 30, 2006 at 3:05 PM
The previous post about Ed Levine's top pizza picks drew some emailed and IMed responses that the choices were mostly all coastal and that there were no Chicago joints on it whatsoever. Well, here's a list that ran earlier this month in USA Today. In it, Jeff Ruby, coauthor of Everybody Loves Pizza (along with Penny Pollack), gives the paper his and Ms. Pollack's top spots:
Metro Pizza [four locations, Las Vegas NV; metropizza.com]
"The pizza menu at this gourmet oasis in the desert reads like a map of regional flavors. With grilled shrimp on the New Orleans, barbecued chicken atop the Memphis and pineapple on the Honolulu, there's something for everybody...."
The Cheese Board Pizza Collective [1512 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley CA 94709; map]
" 'The Cheese Board is a collective, owned by its members, that brings sustainable agriculture to the pizza table,' Ruby says. Each day the menu, featuring a single sourdough vegetarian pizza, is decided collectively by the group...."
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Posted by Adam Kuban, October 30, 2006 at 11:48 AM
Pity poor Ed Levine. When his workday doesn't involve ordering one of each doughnut at a well-regarded New York City doughnuttery, he gets to eat pizza from some of the country's best pizzerias and write about it for Details magazine. His findings cover some familiar ground to readers of Slice and of Mr. Levine's 2005 book PIzza: A Slice of Heaven, but there are some new entries to be savored.
Pizzeria Bianco [623 East Adams Street, Phoenix AZ 85004; map]
"The sauce tastes like a distillation of the ripest tomatoes."
Di Fara[1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn NY 11230; map]
"... a Di Fara slice has a one-of-a-kind flavor."
Totonno's [1524 Neptune Ave., Brooklyn NY 11224; map]
"Order the white pie, made with ricotta, mozzarella, and enough fresh garlic to ward off a roomful of vampires."
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Posted by Ed Levine, February 16, 2006 at 8:43 AM
Here's the American Pizzeria Timeline, which includes only two non–Pizza Belt entries, Tommaso's and Uno's:
1905: Lombardi's, on Spring Street in New York City, is granted the nation's first license to sell pizza.
1910: Joe's Tomato Pies opens in the Trenton, New Jersey, Chambersburg neighborhood.
1912: Papa's Tomato Pies in Trenton opened by Papa, who learned his trade at Joe's.
1924: Anthony (Totonno) Pero leaves Lombardi's and opens Totonno's in Coney Island, New York.
1925: Frank Pepe opens on Wooster Street in New Haven, Connecticut.
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Posted by Ed Levine, February 15, 2006 at 11:10 AM
You've heard of the corn belt and the rust belt. But what about the Pizza Belt, the part of America that gave birth to what Jeffrey Steingarten calls Neapolitan-American pizza. The Pizza Belt starts in Philadelphia and runs through Trenton and the rest of New Jersey. It extends throughout New York, Long Island, and New Haven and ends in Boston. Think of it as the Interstate 95 belt, with a few detours along the way.
It was in New York that Neapolitan immigrant and grocery store owner Gennaro Lombardi was granted the nation's first Ilcense to sell pizza in 1905. Lombardi's, in turn, spawned Totonno's in 1924 and John's in 1929 and, in an apparently unrelated move, Patsy's in East Harlem in 1933. Joe's Tomato Pies opened in Trenton in 1910, followed by Papa's Tomato Pies in 1912. New Haven was next, where a Neapolitan immigrant Italian bread baker named Frank Pepe opened his eponymous Pizzeria Napoletana in 1925, followed in short order by Paul's Apizza in 1932, State Street Apizza (now called Modern Apizza) in 1934 and finally Sally's in 1938 (founded by Frank Pepe's nephew, Salvatore Consiglio). In Philadelphia, Salvatore and Chiarina Marra opened Marra's in 1927. The Tacconelli family started baking bread in their Port Richmond neighborhood in the 1920s, though they didn't start making pizza until 1946. Similarly, in East Boston, Francisco Santarpio baked bread at his eponymous bakery until Prohibition ended in 1933, when he took over the adjoining storefront and began serving pizza. Seven years before that, Anthony Polcari opened Pizzeria Regina in Boston's North End.
Why did all these pizzerias start in the same 33-year period? What did they have in common? Did Frank Pepe work at Lombardi's before moving to New Haven? Here's what we do know. There was a tremendous wave of southern Italian immigration in the late nineteenth century. These immigrants all came in through Ellis Island, and then fanned out along the Eastern Seaboard looking for work among relatives, neighbors, and friends who had come from the same area in Italy. New York, of course, was where they landed, so it made sense for a certain number of them to look for and find work there. Trenton had hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs and a burgeoning Itallan-American community called Chambersburg. New Haven had many factories (including Colt Industries), as well as a plethora of fishing and port-related jobs. Philadelphia (South Philly) and Boston (East Boston and the North End) both had fast-growing Italian-American communities with thriving commercial centers.
What can we conclude from all this? That the development of America's pizza culture closely followed southern Italian immigration patterns. If the southern Italians had come into this country through Duluth, Minnesota might have been known as the Land of a Thousand Pizzas.
Ed Levine is a regular contributor to the New York Times Dining section and is author of New York Eats and New York Eats More. He also maintains a blog: Ed Levine Eats. This entry is an excerpt from his book Pizza: A Slice of Heaven, published on Slice through special arrangement.
Posted by Ed Levine, February 13, 2006 at 4:13 PM
Once upon a time, around the turn of the last century, pizza in America was an inexpensive peasant food, made casalinga (home-style) by southern Italian immigrant women in their kitchens. Adverse economic conditions had forced four million southern Italians to come to America by 1900. Descendents of all the seminal American pizza makers indicated their ancestors learned to make pizza by watching relatives make it at home.
In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi applied to the New York City government for the first license to make and sell pizza in this country, at his grocery store on Spring Street in what was then a thriving Italian-American neighborhood. In 1912, Joe's Tomato Pies opened in Trenton, New Jersey. Twelve years later, Anthony (Totonno) Pero left Lombardi's to open Totonno's in Coney Island. A year later, in 1925, Frank Pepe opened his eponymous pizzeria in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1929, John Sasso left Lombardi's to open John's Pizza in Greenwich Village. The thirties saw pizza spread to Boston (Santarpio's in 1933) and San Francisco with the opening of Tommaso's (1934), followed shortly thereafter with additional openings in New Jersey (Sciortino's in Perth Amboy in 1934 and the Reservoir Tavern in Boonton in 1936). In 1943, Chicago pizza was born when Ike Sewell opened Uno's. What did New York, New Haven, Boston, and Trenton have in common? Factory work available to poorly educated southern Italian immigrants. Pizza at this point was very much an ethnic, poor person's food eaten by Italians in the urban enclaves in which they had settled.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 29, 2004 at 11:47 PM
dynamic duo Frank Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana and Sally's Apizza were the two stops Slice made during the Pizza Club road trip to New Haven, Conn., on Saturday. Plenty of pizza was ordered from both venerable establishments. Above left is a large mozzarella pie (background) and a large white-clam pie (foreground) from Pepe's; above right is a large mozzarella pie from Sally's. Both pizzerias are so popular that lines form down the block, as can be seen below (Pepe's left, Sally's right).
words by Adam K. :: photographs by Adam K. and Amanda G. | Three cars. Seventy-nine point nine miles. Ten people. Two pizzerias. Nine pies. One hundred and twenty-some dollars. That's the Slice New Haven trip by the numbers.
We left Greenpoint, Brooklyn, at 12:30 p.m. Saturday and arrived at Wooster Street, home to New Haven's famous Frank Pepe's and Sally's Apizza, around 3 p.m. We were there to try New Haven–style pie, which only a few among us had had before. We'd heard that the pizza in this seaside Connecticut town was as good as, if not better than, New York's best and we wanted to try for ourselves. Our plan was to get hit Frank Pepe's around 2 p.m., eat some pie, take some photos, talk to some folks, and then get out and get in line at Sally's Apizza by 4:30 p.m. for the joint's 5 p.m. opening. (A kind reader had tipped us that we needed to be outside Sally's by that time to get in for the first seating of the day.)
We arrived a little later than planned and got on line at Pepe's around 3:15 p.m. After a 15-minute wait, we were in. The short wait gave Seltzerboy and I a chance to talk to filmmakers Michael Dorian and Joe dos Santos (left, from left) of Cat Price Productions. The pair were shooting video for a documentary about pizza and were in New Haven killing two birds with one stone—documenting Pepe's and talking to Slice editors.
The prospect of appearing on the silver screen was appealing, but we were hungry, and our table was ready. We crammed eight people (two would show up about 15 minutes later and take a second table) into a long booth and were greeted by Donna (right), our superfriendly waitress. Donna welcomed us to Pepe's and was more patient with us than we probably deserved, what with us getting up, taking photos, wandering around to look at the enormous kitchen and gigantic oven, and asking tons of questions. Her down-to-earth charm was the first of many differences between Pepe's and Sallys, but more on that later. We were relieved to see her remove the "No Clam Pies Available Today" sign from the door soon after we sat down. This is New Haven, afterall; clam pies are said to have been invented here, and we had to sample one at each place.
We ordered three large pizzas. One white (no sauce) clam pie, one with mushrooms, and one with mozzarella. Now in New York, we'd call that a "plain" pie. But New Haven ain't New York, and when we ordered a "plain" pie, Donna asked us, "What do you mean by 'plain'? 'Plain' here is just red sauce with a sprinkling of Parmesan, flavored with garlic and oregano." Hence we ordered "one with mozzarella." But the New Haven–style plain pie sounded good too, so we ordered a small one (left foreground; in the background, Seltzerboy holds a mozzarella slice, crust-side up to show the camera the tasty bits of charring from the coal-fired oven).
One of the main differences between New Haven and New York pizza is the crust. While still a thin crust, it's a little thicker and doughier than New York–style. Second is the sauce-and-cheese balance; New Haven pie seems to run a little heavier on the sauce. At Pepe's, this wasn't a bad thing, as the pizzeria's mixture had an exceptionally fresh tangy tomatoey taste. Nor was it a problem at Sally's, but the sauce didn't seem as, well, peppy. Third is that both New Haven places seemed to leave the pies in long enough that the oil separated from the cheese, rose to the top of the pie, and almost seemed to "fry" the mozzarella, giving it a mottled golden-brown color. These factors were true of both Pepe's and Sally's and are visible in the pie shown at right, which is from Sally's.
But, back to Pepe's. The pies arrived about 20 minutes after ordering. We found out that "large" was an understatement. They were huge, oblong, roughly 20-inch-diameter pies cut into numerous irregularly sized slices (see photos at top for an idea). The crust among all the large pies was pretty consistent: crisp, chewy, and light with a golden-brown bottom with evidence of the tell-tale coal-oven char here and there. It was doughy almost like bread and had a nice salty taste that complemented the tangy fresh tomato sauce. While consistent among pies, the crust thickness varied from superthin to puffy thick on each pie, often becoming puffiest at the end crust, resulting in "too much empty real estate for my taste," as Amanda G. noted. (See the photo at left, just above; the slice on the left illustrates the puffy lost-real-estate concept.) Even in these spots, though, the worst that happens is that you end up eating what "tastes like really good Cosi bread," as pizza-clubber Joe D. put it.
With such a large group, opinion was all over the place, but the mushroom pie was the unanimous last-place finisher. The mushrooms were rubbery and looked like they might have been the canned variety. Though not everyone's favorite, the top pie was the white clam. With fresh whole clams (below left) cooked perfectly, it was more about what the clams weren't—they weren't rubbery or too "clammy" tasting and didn't leave a bad aftertaste as low-quality clams often do.
classic fare Must-have dishes at Pepe's are the white-clam pie (above left) and the mozzarella pie (above right). A portrait of Frank Pepe (below right) hangs on a wall at his restaurant.
Slice correspondent Tien Mao inquired as to the origins of the clam pie and was told that Frank Pepe himself came up with the idea as a lark. The local fishermen in New Haven always had bushels of clams on hand, and Mr. Pepe had the idea of putting them on pizza. After baking one up, he was surprised it worked and hence the clam pie was born. By the time we left Pepe's (around 4:15 p.m.), we were told that Pepe's had gone through six bushels of clams since opening at 11:30 a.m. I had to look up how big a bushel was, and it's 35.239 liters. Six bushels equals roughly 223 quarts, or about 56 gallons (give or take some for dry-weight/liquid-measure discrepancies).
Want another amazing number? How about 500 pies a day? That's roughly how many we were told came out of Pepe's enormous oven. On a Saturday, that's 1.33 pies every minute. And the oven is more than capable of handling this volume. Perhaps one of the most striking things about Pepe's is its gargantuan oven with gigantic prep area and oarlike pizza peels to match.
carrying coal to new haven The beast above is the oven at Pepe's. That's not a wall with an oven built in. That whole thing is the oven. One worker is using what appeared to be a vacuum cleaner to sweep out dusting flour while another sweeps up what looked like ashes. OK, now see the photo below right? See that wooden stick running parallel with the counter? That's the handle of a pizza peel. That handle is the depth of the oven. Did I not say the oven was big?
The oven floored us all. The pizza peels were long. We're talking looooooong. So long that the board end of the paddle rested on a special shelf bulit into the oven wall and the handle then extended upward at a 45-degree angle and rested on a hook built into the ceiling (see Joe Schumacher's post, fifth photo, for reference). At one point, the pizzaiolo at the oven opened the coal door (see Tien's sixth photo) and you could feel the heat from about 25 feet away.
This oven, however, is not the original. Don't get me wrong. It's as old as it looks—circa 1936—but the original oven, and the original Pepe's, is just around the corner. Called "The Spot," this original location, established in 1925, was so popular that Pepe's had to expand in 1936 to the building we've documented here. The original building's coal-fired oven dates to the 1880s.
After eating, Slice met Gary Bimonte, Mr. Pepe's grandson and a co-owner and manager of the place. Mr. Bimonte, who was as welcoming as his wait staff, related bits of Pepe's history, noting that the place has served presidents Reagan and Clinton (Bill really likes the pizza, huh?) and that it was once slated to host Hillary but the Secret Service nixed it ("Too many rooftops around here," Mr. Bimonte said, "We ended up catering that one off-site").
All total, we dropped $100 at Pepe's—including tip—for the four pies, two pitchers of beers, and one bottle of diet birch beer. We estimate that Greg and Mike at the second table spent about $16. That $12.50 per person bought so much food that we were stuffed long before we even made it to Sally's Apizza, just down the street. What about Sally's, you ask? More to come later today ...
For now, click through to the jump to see photo outtakes from the day.
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WANT MORE?
Tien Mao on the trip to New Haven.
Joe Schumacher on the trip.
New Haven discussion on the Slice Pizza Peel
Pizza Therapy on Frank Pepe's.
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