My Favorite Dish: Zuppardi's Apizza's Clam Pie in West Haven

In the early 1920s, Dominic Zuppardi brought his master bread-making skills from southern Italy to New Haven and after several years of working for others creating artisanal breads and “abeetz,” he opened Salerno’s Bakery on Donnelly Place in New Haven in 1932. Two years later he moved to Union Street in West Haven and opened Zuppardi’s Bakery, and in the 1940s Dominick handed the reigns to his son Anthony. In the early years, Anthony produced a small variety of apizzas, primarily the traditional tomato pie, and as the menu grew (a customer favorite was Anthony’s Italian fennel sausage), he decided to focus on apizza and rebrand the family shop Zuppardi’s Apizza. After Anthony’s passing in 1988, his children and grandchildren assumed the familial leadership to ensure the continuation of Dominick and Anthony’s tradition and almost 90 years after Dominic opened on Union Street, Zuppardi’s Apizza is still considered one of the best in the New Haven area.

The Special: Red pie with mozzarella, mushrooms, and Zuppardi’s homemade fennel sausage.

Zuppardi’s has been on my gotta-try list for a long time and numerous social media articles recently reminded me to move it to the top of my list. I recently visited the Slice Shop in Ansonia, and immediately knew a trip to West Haven was required. The original Union Street neighborhood is still filled with one- and two-family homes, not commercial properties, and you feel a sense of the local community when you arrive, this is more than an apizza shop, it is part of the local history. When I entered, I was greeted with a smile and instructed to sit wherever I would like. I sat in the front dining area, which has seating for 50 in booths and tables, plus there is a second dining area in the back with tables for an additional 100 guests. The walls are adorned with numerous black and white photos of the family. The place filled quickly with locals.

The entire front side of the menu describes the rich history of Zuppardi’s, plus the twelve pre-determined pies. The B-side offers a few salads and raw clams plus the thirty additional toppings that can be used to design everyone’s favorite combination.

The server approached and I ordered two of their pre-determined pies:

“Fresh Clam - Zuppardi’s take on this New Haven classic is second to none. A white pizza prepared with shucked-to-order littleneck clams baked on fresh dough with a mixture of garlic and spices. It is widely considered one of the best clam pizzas in the country” and “The Special - This pizza is a Zuppardi’s classic! Our original special is a red pizza topped with mozzarella, mushrooms, and Zuppardi’s homemade fennel sausage.”

What can you say when you reach apizza Nirvana? I want to thank the Pizza overseers for placing Zuppardi’s clam pie in front of me. The crust was perfect, the clams were perfect, the garlic was perfect, and adding a couple of squirts of the lemon wedges made it even more perfect. It was beyond spectacular. The crust…light and airy, with just the right amount of crispy medium-brown coloring on the bottom. The toppings were just clams, garlic and a few seasonings. The clams were still moist, without any toughness and the garlic avoided the burnt-bitter zone. Add the crunchiness of the crust and there is no better pie in my history. It was off the charts.

I was still in the apizza-perfect zone when The Special arrived. It was piping hot…gotta let it cool, not only to save the roof of the mouth but to let the flavors reconnect. Where the clam pie focused on minimalistic moderation, The Special appeared to reside in the other extreme…there was a lot of topping. The first item I noticed was the unevenness of the char on the edges, while one side was brown, the other raised concerns with its blackness. My first bite was a piece of the sausage, wow, great fennel backnotes, not too salty, not too chewy, excellent. The mushrooms were pretty ordinary, taking a back seat to the sausage, the ‘moz had a good stringiness but not much flavor. The sauce had a good rich deep tomato-ey goodness. Trying to raise the slice was impossible, the dough was crisp on the bottom (somewhat burnt in a couple of places), but, surprisingly, not cooked through, there was too much sauce for the crust to attain the desired crispiness. I finally managed a bite with all the flavors, they did not convey the OMGs that I experienced with the clam pie. It needed salt. A few shakes of the grated parm did the trick to add saltiness. I tried three different slices to approach the nirvana of the clam pie and to justify the social media hype. Unfortunately, I did not get close.

{Update October 2023 – I re-visited on a busy Saturday afternoon and ordered The Special again. It was a different experience. The crust was perfectly cooked, crispy on the bottom and was almost fully capable of handling the toppings. The mushrooms were completely different, with a great earthy flavor and no addition grated Parmesan was required. This was a great pizza.]

With almost 90 years of history, Zuppardi’s is doing something that people love. I was excited when I arrived and incredibly over-impressed with the clam pie, it gains immediate admission to the apizza hall of fame. With the competition in this neck of the world at the pinnacle of apizza-perfection, Zuppardi’s clam pie is a contender for the best of the best. Maybe it was an off day for The Special, but it would need to greatly up its game to be in the same stratospheric discussion with its clam cousin and the other New Haven rivals.

ZUPPARDI’S APIZZA, 179 UNION AVENUE, WEST HAVEN, CT @zuppardisapizza