After bouncing around the New Haven area for a while, Mike’s Apizza settled into its current West Haven location in the 1970s. A father and son operation, they serve classic New Haven style pies in West Haven, which is really south of New Haven and actually close to the eastern shoreline. Despite the confusing geography, this pizza is actually pretty close to the classic coal-fired pies they sling in the “Pizza Mecca.” Somewhat thickish, the dough is very firm, surprisingly more tough & chewy than crispy and crunchy. The crust is airy and lighter than it looks, with significant char, bordering on burnt in some areas. The cheese is a basic shredded mozzarella blend, fairly standard taste, sharpened by a dusting of Parmesan sprinkled atop, drumming up a tad more flavor and yielding a rather pungent smell. The parm definitely dulls the sauce a smidge, which actually isn’t bad, still enough tomato flavor bursting through in the absence of distinctive spices, providing just enough tangible taste. Overall, this pie is much better than your average football pizza but falls slightly short when compared to classic coal-fired New Haven style in both taste and texture. Not quite a destination pie but incredibly solid all-around if this is your Friday night go-to pizza. Truthfully, if you’re in the area, you might as well go a little bit further north to New Haven and get the real thing instead of settling for an imitation pie. But there’s room for improvement here; a less chewy and more crispy dough to go along with a lighter, less burnt char on the crust would help tremendously. Also, jazz up the sauce a bit with some spice and kick; in need of more distinction, it just doesn’t dazzle. Nonetheless, this is extremely solid, yet unspectacular cloned New Haven style pizza on the outskirts of “the pizza capital of Connecticut.”
