What started as a traveling pizza truck in 2013 by Frank Bernardo, turned into a brick & mortar location in Milford, CT in 2017. Trying to capitalize on New Haven coal-fired pizza popularity with the name, this joint actually serves wood-fired strip mall football pies sliced into New Haven style slivers, masquerading as New Haven pizza minus the authentic taste & texture. With very light char, the dough has a crispier body than I anticipated to go along with a somewhat smokey undercarriage coated in semolina seeds to prevent moisture buildup. Despite the moderately crispy texture, the slices are surprisingly floppy near the tips; however, the fantastic flavor & crunchy consistency of the crust is the crux of this pizza, easily the best attribute. Aside from the way it’s sliced, the wood-fired dough is very un-New Haven-like. A notch above generic, the shredded mozzarella blend is melty with an oily orange tinge from the mostly manageable grease flow rendering a slightly salty flavor that impedes the taste of the cheese. That saltiness carries over into the sauce, with is more savory than sweet with solid seasoning providing some spice & zip to go along with a touch of garlic flavor & a smidge of oregano yielding a borderline bitter but overall delicious taste. All in all, this is very good strip mall football pizza with taste & texture both on the plus side, nowhere near authentic New Haven coal oven pizza, but a valiant effort nonetheless. This actually tastes more like gas-oven pizza than wood-fired, with a relatively crisp texture & minimal char; very good imitation New Haven pizza but I’d rather go the extra miles for the real thing. Also, if they’re truly trying to cash in on the New Haven style, they ought to change their name to “Apizza Place,” but that would be borderline blasphemous.
