In a move that should surprise no one who knows him, Tucson pizzaiola Mat Cable took a little pizza side trip en route to a cooking gig with the Italian Consulate of Boston.
Actually, it was more of a pizza pilgrimage, a 24-hour stopover last week in a city that has two of the oldest pizzerias in America.
Frank Pepe is one of the countryโs oldest pizzerias and the trailblazer of New Haven, Connecticutโs coal-fired pizza tradition.
New Haven, Connecticut, where Cableโs ancestors had settled from Italy generations ago and some family still call home, is regarded as one of the great pizza cities of the world, Cable will tell you.
Cable
Proof of this can be seen on Wooster Street in New Havenโs Little Italy section, where Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, opened in 1925, and Sallyโs Apizza Restaurant, which followed in 1938, still reign supreme to a host of next genโers, including Modern Apizza on nearby State Street.
โFrank Pepe has been voted multiple times as the best pizzeria in the country. And then thereโs Sallyโs Apizza,โ Cable said hours after he and fellow Tucson City of Gastronomy chef ambassador Obadiah Hindman had visited both landmark restaurants located down the street from one another.
At New Havenโs historic Sallyโs Apizza Restaurant, they still cook their tomato pies over coal.
The pair made the stopover last weekend, a day before they were due in Boston to help Italian chef ambassador Mario Marini prepare a dinner for 350 at the Italian Consulate of Bostonโs Festa della Repubblica Italiana โ aka Republic Day.
Cable and Hindman, with Hindmanโs wife Paula, flew into Hartford, Connecticut, on May 30 and drove the 40 minutes to New Haven. They hit Wooster Street just as the sun was setting and the dinner crowd was starting to gather.
Zio Peppe/Fresco Pizzeria & Pasteria chef-owner Mat Cable couldnโt help himself on a recent visit to New Havenโs historic Wooster Street pizzerias; he had to sneak a peak into the kitchens.
Frank Pepe and Sallyโs Apizza use coal-fired ovens similar to the one that Naples immigrant Gennaro Lombardi used in 1905 when he opened the countryโs first pizzeria in New York. The coal gives the crust a unique char that you canโt get from wood- or gas-fired ovens.
Lombardi established the template for the Italian bakers who followed, including Frank Pepe, who worked at a pasta factory and bakery in New Haven while selling his tomato pies to fellow Italian immigrants along Wooster Square. He took over the bakery in 1925 and rebranded it his namesake pizzeria.
New Haven native Salvatore โSallyโ Consiglioโs mother, Filomena, pushed her son into the business after buying a restaurant with a bread oven on Wooster Street. He opened it in 1938, incorporating his familyโs distinctive tomato sauce over their signature chewy, crispy thin crust with the classic coal char.
Cable, chef-owner of Tucsonโs Zio Peppe and Fresco, couldnโt help himself when he snuck a peek into Frank Pepeโs kitchen that Friday night as the cooks prepped pies and stoked the coal flames in the brick oven.
Tucson chefs Mat Cable, left, and Obadiah Hindman made a pitstop at two iconic New Haven pizzerias en route to Boston last weekend. Hindmanโs wife, Paula, center, tagged along
โMattโs a pizza guru, right? And his family is from here. So it was like a homecoming and a pilgrimage,โ Hindman said the day after as they made the 2ยฝ-hour drive to Boston. โWe had a good time last night.โ
