Da Legna Opens Da Legna x Nolo: Restaurant & Brewery

If you've ever held one of those “I [pizza] New Haven” shirts in your covetous gaze, here's where to get one. There's your first bit of info in this story. Finding this place isn't difficult, it's right next to the entrance to I-91 on State St. in New Haven. That parts are easy. Finding out about Da Legna x Nolo is a bit more of a story. Thankfully, it involves pizza and drinks, and I'm here to tell you the whole thing.

You may already be familiar with Da Legna's earlier space, located farther down State Street's restaurant row, and separating itself from the scrum of the Elm City's pizza scene by focusing on creative, sourdough based pies inside a setting designed in a recent century. Seating space and parking were issues at the former spot, so when owner Derek Bacon and chef Dan Parillo spotted the old Jet Cleaners space (probably the only laundromat to be designed by a famous architect) open up down the street, they jumped on it.

Da Legna x Nolo is more "restaurant and brewery" than "brewpub." The name "Nolo" comes from "freight" in Italian, and refers to the brew system, trucked cross country from Portland Kettle Works, and Stefano Ferrara pizza ovens, shipped from Naples. "Da Legna" means "from wood," and refers to both the pizza ovens, and the Grillworks the wood fired grill in the kitchen. Pre-pandemic, the kitchen was turning out house made pasta, bone-in chops, burgers, and more in addition to what were initially Rome-style flatbread pizzas under the eye of former executive chef Joshua Ulmer. Realties of running a restaurant in 2020 mean the menu has been temporarily pared down to just pizza, cocktails, beer, and wine, with select specials, and the pizza is Da Legna style, with Rome in the rearview.

A five-barrel brewhouse sits like a gleaming jewel behind the huge front windows at Nolo, initially manned by Justin Maturo (ex-Erector Brewing), now the head brewer at Snow Republic in Vermont. It's an attractive sight under the only chandelier I've ever seen in a brewhouse, especially seen from the street or Nolo's front patio on a clear night. The entire space is fun to look at, with appointments from Reclamation Lumber, hollis+morris, and a huge mural commemorating the New Haven Railroad on the back wall. Paintings by local artists pop up on the walls all along the space on your walk to the upstairs mezzanine, with its lounge-y booths.

I started with the Margarita pizza to focus on the naturally fermented sourdough. This crust is on the fluffier side, which differentiates it from the usual New Haven strictures on crust depth, and it shatters slightly like Italian bread before you get to the chewy middle. That heavier crust holds up well beneath sweet San Marzanos, basil, olive oil, and a last minute topping of grated Parmesan. The whole vaults over the high bar already set to make it in the New Haven Olympic pizza games, and provides more evidence to support my theory that basic, unadorned pizza is the yardstick for any place's quality.

Far from the leanness of sport, where the living gets dirty in Connecticut is the arms race of baroque pizza toppings. This has always been a bit of a specialty with Da Legna, and even the current, reduced menu features pies with additions like rosemary chicken, brussels sprouts, Stilton and Stracciatella cheeses, or house made pesto.

I chose the Honeypot (or maybe I was its mark all along). This includes toppings of San Marzano tomatoes, sliced hot pepper, mozzarella, what appears to be half a diced onion, soppressata, and a generous dripping of truffle honey. It’s pizza dressed like a dacha in Sochi.

I would have liked to see a lighter hand with the onions, even though they were cooked down to sweetness, and the crust was a bit torched by the wood flame (which I don't mind, but bear it in mind when you order). That said, the soppressata was crispy, meaty, and paired beautifully with the occasional slap and tickle of hot peppers and sweet truffle honey. I’d call it a massive winner in the luxury segment. Pair this one with an Elm City pils brewed over the city line at NEBCo, and you’ll agree.

The pizza menu covers the bases at Da Legna x Nolo, including vegan creations, and there is a good, satisfying beer list, with NEBCo, Hull’s, Bad Sons, Counterweight, and East Rock - a stone's throw from the restaurant's pizza ovens - all represented. Appertif and digestifs can me mixed from a cocktail menu with about a dozen options created by Craig Ventrice (Kawa Ni, Jesup Hall), and anyone sharing my mildly heretical view that wine goes with pizza just as well as beer can likewise find succor in a list of about two dozen bottles.

I [pizza] New Haven, too, and I'll be pizza'ing at Nolo again.

Da Legna x Nolo; 858 State St., New Haven; 203 891 7704; https://jet2nolo.com