Defiance of Conventional Wisdom drove us that day, my friends. Raw defiance. Rebellion, pure and simple. Hmmnn. Or was it? Could it have been old fashioned naked lust for great pizza, in triplicate?
The Question: Is there a Top Pie on Wooster Street, and if so, is it Pepe's as pizzaouli the world over seem to believe?
Four pie-eaters took up this question on a balmy Saturday afternoon, just before the lines begin to form outside Pepe's, and well before Sally's begins to back up onto Wooster Street, in New Haven. That is: Which of the Three Powers of Wooster Street is most worthy of the title "La Primo Pizzeria"?
The Rules were simple: order the same pie in each place, order the same stuff on top, and order the same size each time. Period. Let the crusts fall where they may. The prices at all three Powers are remarkably fair. We'd term them mid-range costs for high-end products.
The Order: one large with sausage, garlic and peppers.
First: to The Spot (Pepe's Annex) behind Pepe's. This small restaurant
has a middle corridor, to the left are the pie chefs and the oven,
to the right, the dining room. On the wall: a simple blackboard
listing the olives, the onions, the pepperoni and other items
available on the pizza here. That's it.
These pizzas are baked in the original oven Frank Pepe, first Don of Pizza, used for years, and it works better than any in the big place next door that bears his name. The products spill out like Degas spiked by Picasso. The canvas is a Thin Crust, painted with rich red sauce, hot and aromatic, the pizzas exit the oven garlanded with green and black and brown and white things on top.
Stop! Can this Moment in Life be forever frozen? Can we remain thus in perpetuity? Alas, no. So we lift a wedge.....
Crunch! The crust here is thin, not-quite burnt, and crisp. Your ears and jawbones hear and feel the lovely resistance it gives to each bite. Crunch. The nose is filled with scents of smoky tomato, yeasty crust, and velvety sausage. The garlic gives it needed twang. The peppers are sweet and not overcooked. O! a common whine 'mongst the cognoscenti, but not here my friends, not here.
A thought: Does the staff here have a mild inferiority complex, sitting as they do in the shadow of fame and Pepe? You decide: we told our waiter that our next stop was Pepe's and he said, "Why? Both places are owned by the same people." as if all employees work with the same levels of productivity and success, as if he did not know how truly fine the chefs here do their jobs.
Eyeball Appeal: we rate it nearly the full 20/20, a 10/10 being something like a Pizza Hut or Domino's standard. Each eye rates the pie: the left one is the Thinking Side (cost, speed of delivery, size, etc.) whereas the right eye is the Emotional - Sensual Side (aroma, color, texture, and how piping hot it is or is not). The Spot product is gorgeous to behold. You are indoors, so use a flash camera while recording the Moment of Your Awakening.
Next, over to the Main Theater, the Big Room. The Hasp of the Pizza Belt. Ground Zero in the fame department. Pepe's. To our delight, our waitress (upon quizzing from the journalists within our group) is one of Frank's grand-daughters, a winsome woman who knows her pie.
Pepe's consists of several dining rooms feeding off the kitchen. The kitchen here is about the same size as the Spot in its entirety, and the place does enormous volume. We'd asked our man The Scout of Fine Pie to go in several weeks in advance to do a product check, and his succinct report: "Undercooked crust". Were the boys wheeling 'em out, dang the public? We'd see firsthand.
She brought us our large within the time in takes to down a beer and check out the patronage: families, kids, couples and here and there other professional pizza eaters appraising the goods. All in all, a fine place to absorb what is arguably one of the most, if not the most, famous pizzas in the world.
One of our party recalled asking a pizza maker in Buenos Aires "What is the best pizza you ever had?" and getting a rapid response: "No doubt, Pepe's in New Haven." We'd see firsthand.
First, the crust was thin with dark spots around the perimeter where the heat toasted the dough. Lookin' good. Pulling up a wedge, the thing drooped at the tapered end....Wedge Test trouble, no doubt. Sure enough, the crust was done on the perimeter, but undercooked in the middle.
Just as the Scout had forewarned. Otherwise, a lovely pie, the meat was juicy and the peppers done just so, and a fabulous pie but for that pesky undercooked crust aspect.
We asked our waitress about this and related our Spot experience as well. "Well," she confided, "we have had some quality questions with some of our new workers in the kitchen." When we told her one of us (not me, another guy) was writing for an airline magazine, she implored him not to quote her, and he did not. Presumably, she has fired or fixed the persons responsible by the time this hits the web.
Eyeball Appeal: 16/18.
When we told her of our (positive) experience next door, she seemed not to hear our favorable impression and said, "We are trying to upgrade the Annex to the level of Pepe's." Mais non, mademoiselle. Switch that.
Sally's... Can one not love a place with walls covered with mementos like the big portrait of Frank Sinatra, or the cartoon by Garry Trudeau, or the endorsements of presidents Bush and Clinton,--Yale men of electoral college note?
No. One must love this place. Crammed and always jammed, with its oven in the back of this narrow room, I once asked the sweat-soaked chef how hot does he run his oven? "Fucking hot" came the response.
And that makes for brilliant pies.
Eyeball Appeal: 18/17.
Flawless, thin crusted. Generous toppings. Perfection. So good. So tasty. Is it better, actually superior to the Spot? We ate a mouthful more. Agony. Something is missing. Call the waiter over here. Sir, did you put garlic on this pie? He consulted his order pad.
No garlic.
Yet, eight out of ten ears heard the word Garlic included with the order! Only the two ears that mattered-the waiter's-did not. Alas. Once omitted, forget it! So, we enjoyed a third great pie, but Sally's was DQ'd for failing to meet our order. DQ'd for leaving off the garlic!!!
La Primo? The Spot. It should annex Pepe's after giving their cooks a bit of training on How It Is Cooked. And to our friends at Sally's: listen to the public when we order. We won't be trifled with.