Grigg Street Pizza Opens in Greenwich with Artisan Sourdough Pies

Right off the busy Greenwich Avenue, is Grigg Street. There’s not much on it besides an independent bookstore, The Perfect Provenance’s parking lot, a soon-to-open coffee shop, and a basement level space that previously housed Lord of the Pies. The white tiled walls of the subterranean restaurant remain. But now they’re partially decked out with Jimi Hendrix, The Sex Pistols, and Pearl Jam posters that go along with the current residents’ eclectic, mostly rock playlist, a perfect soundtrack for Matthew Watson and Jon Corbo as they pound, stretch, spin, and roll dough at Grigg Street Pizza. 

Pizza making is a switch up for the two longtime friends and Greenwich residents, who were formerly partners in the string of Corbo’s Deli locations. After the sold their part of the deli business they wanted to continue working together. “We missed that face-to-face interaction,” Watson says. “I’m making your food. I want that. We yearned for that feeling again.”

Matthew Watson (left) and Jon Corbo (right) pose—with slices—outside of their “just off the Avenue” pizzeria.

With pizza, they’re getting that again. But make no mistake, Grigg Street Pizza is no run-of-the-mill corner slice shop. Call it artisan if you want to. The philosophy here is quality ingredients and local ingredients whenever possible, using a few vendors, and to make everything, or damn near everything, in-house. “Nothing is coming out of a bottle. We’re making our salad dressing. We want everything to be legit,” Watson reveals.

Corbo interrupts to praise his friend. “This man can cook,” he says about Watson (who’s a French Culinary Institute grad). “I wanted to be a part of that. I don’t think anything we make, or very few things we make, have more than 4-5 ingredients. We want to let that shine.”

Some of those quality ingredients? Bianco DiNapoli Tomatoes for their red sauce, homemade mozzarella, and house-ground fennel sausage should you opt for it. A few drizzles to entice you and enhance your pie include habanero-garlic infused honey and roasted Chile de árbol hot oil.

And pizza, obviously, is the star of their show. Specifically…sourdough pizza. Each pie is full-sized, cooked in a gas oven, and spun carefully for an even char and well doneness. What they’re achieving here with the mother-based dough, with no commercial yeast, and naturally leavened for three days is a lightness that doesn’t make you feel too full. It’s crispy. It’s got a little chew.

How pizza ended up being the thing for two former deli guys is simple. “Everyone loves it,” Watson says. “I had years playing around with it, trying lots of pizza. I’ll eat it every day now, but even before, I’d eat it a few times per week or more. You can feed a family with it, it’s inexpensive.”

Fresh out of the oven: a homemade fennel sausage, broccoli rabe, and red onion pizza

They’re also into the hurdles it presents. “I find it interesting, especially with sourdough because there are always challenges dealing with temperature and so on,” Watson says. “We’re going for consistency in flavor but also texture. It’s our challenge to figure out how to make the texture even more consistent. We’re glad that so far no one has said about our pizza, ‘Well…I don’t know…’”

Speaking of challenges, Watson and Corbo faced another when it came to opening up. Their original plan was to debut during the Greenwich St. Patrick’s Day Parade. COVID-19 prevented that from happening. They waited a while and ultimately decided to fire up their ovens at the end of April.

The response was positive. In May they sold out every single day via pre order. Corbo recalls coming in every day to see receipts spilled out onto the floor for next day orders, for orders two weeks ahead, and some customers who would order every Friday for a month. “We couldn’t have this coming out party like we wanted to but the response to us being here has been positive,” Corbo says. “We’ve also gotten lots of help from neighbors and the faculty at Greenwich Academy where my wife teaches. For a month, they helped pass out slices, they washed dishes, and one of my friends is a DJ who spun records in the shop.”

You might recognize that fresh cheese finish—applied towards the end of the cook—if you’re a fan of or have eaten at Pizzeria Beddia in Philadelphia. Watson mentioned he “definitely borrowed that” from Joe Beddia’s cookbook.

For now, Watson and Corbo plan on firing up around 100 doughs each day, plus salads, three days per week on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 4 – 8 p.m. They’ll soon add more days and lunch service depending on the issues presented by the pandemic. In September, look out for sandwiches to debut on the menu.

Until all that happens, Corbo tells us that he and Watson are bowled over by the community support. “We’re loving the response so far of people saying, ‘We’re glad you’re here doing this,’” he says. “We want this street to be cooler and it’s exciting to be a part of it with other independent businesses. We’re committed to quality, so all of that, and the response, makes us think we’re onto something.”

1 Grigg Street; Greenwich
203.717.1190; https://www.griggstreetpizza.com/