Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana - Review

Intro
Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana - Highly Recommended
157 Wooster Street, New Haven, CT
Phone: 203-865-5762

NY'ers can usually lay claim to having some of the best hot dogs, best bagels, and best pizza in the US. Sadly, after checking out Frank Pepe's in New Haven, CT; I think Pepe's clam pie is the best non Sicilian slice I've had outside of Italy. Definitely lived up to the hype. Overall, I give the restaurant a 86/100.

My Menu
1) Clam Pie with White Sauce ***
2) Tomato Pie with Mozarella *

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way * Good ** Great *** What the F – in a good way

Dish Comments
1) A serious what the f moment that made me consider moving to New Haven. Well...not really, but it was a hella good slice. The 'za had such a unique dough - insanely flavorful, uber thin and crispy, and slightly chewy throughout the entire pie. When you picked this bad boy up, it didn't sag like a NY slice. NY slices, while I love them, don't get that crispiness throughout the entire pie - it's chewy, but usually more wet. This slice was exactly like what we had in Rome. But, where it diverges is the toppings on this sucker. Topped simply with sweet, juicy, briney, earthy, clams, oregano, some type of grated cheese (maybe pecorino?), tons of garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. So f'n good and a great continuation of our New England seafood fest. I so f'n want a whole pie right now...
2) Same dough as the clam pie, so of course it kicks massive ars. But, the topping here reminded me more of the slices I had growing up in NJ - evenly covered shredded mozzarella and tomato sauce. I liked this pie, but I like the great NY tomato/mozz pies better (e.g. Lombardi's, Grimaldi's, Totonno's, etc.) where there's an even coverage of tomato sauce (Pepe's was a tad too sweet for me) and small pockets of mozarrella. Also, the bottom crust get's a better char/flavor in the NY pie's that are still allowed to have a coal oven which complements the tomato and mutz nicely. Any who, good stuff, but after eating the clam pie anything would be a letdown. This sucker is amazing straight from the fridge though.

Overall Restaurant Experience (86/100)

• Food 9.0/10 – The best dough and the most like Italy. I basically ate the whole clam pie by myself...my wife had one and half slices :) Oddly enough, since the pies are super thin, the pies get cold very quickly...strange, but I didn't have that problem with the clam pie.
  
• Service 7.0/10 – We waited in this foyer thing and I guess it worked like an honesty system. No sign-in sheets, the waiter just comes in and ask who's next. We waited for 5 minutes and this other couple that just walked in said we were. Before we could say anything, they were already seated. Uber irritating, but didn't want to cause a scene as there were plenty of families eating there. We were seated like 2 minutes afterwards, so not that bad. The service was slightly slow, but the waitress was nice.
• Atmosphere 7.5/10 – Oddly enough, the place reminded me of a New England seafood restaurant/bar. Booths, white walls and a long bar. The cool thing is seeing that massive oven and a huge pizza paddle that they wield to get the pies in and out of the oven. Crowd consisted of lots of families. Got there at 12pm on a Sunday and there was no line. At 1pm, the line was 15-20 deep.
  
• Price 9.0/10 – For the 2 small pies, it was $25 - a great deal considering how happy I was. We ended up having 4 slices as leftovers too, but if we forced ourselves we definitely could have finished them.
  

Closing Comments
This clam pie is my favorite non Sicilian slice ever...no joke. I've had the clam pie from Lombardi's a couple of years back and I don't remember having this same what the f moment with it. I will def try again to compare. If I could have a Pepe's Clam Pie and an LB Spumoni's Sicilian slice I would be uber happy...not sure which I would like better, but it would be a hella fun time trying to decide.