Pete's New Haven Style Apizza

A while back I noticed that a new pizza place had opened by the Columbia Heights Metro stop -- Pete's New Haven Style Apizza. This caught my eye, since I'm from the, um, Greater New Haven area. And it's true that the region has good pizza. (I only realized this after leaving for Minnesota and discovering that much of the pizza there, while perhaps meeting the strict legal definition pizza, generally bares little resemblance to a proper pie.)

I finally went over to try it out last night. I somewhat smarmily told the cashier that I was from the New Haven area and was interested to see if it could live up to my memories...she turned out to be one of the co-owners, and came over to talk to me after I got my slices. We chatted briefly about the poor quality of native DC "Jumbo Slice" pizza (but better than MN, I must say). She and her husband lived in New Haven for a number of years, so they have some claim to the title.

As for the pizza: It's pretty good, though calling it "New Haven Style" is always going to lead to arguments about what that actually means. Personally, I was picturing Pepe's and Sally's, the two iconic New Haven places. The co-owner said that they weren't going for that at all, and their favorite place is in East Haven. In any case, the sauce was the aspect that was most on the mark as far as what I know from CT -- not very much of it, but flavorful because it's less processed than what you usually get. The cheese and toppings (sausage, pepper, onions, some other stuff I can't remember) were good, though I think the cheese is usually browned a bit more in CT. The crust tasted good, especially compared to the many pizza crusts that are merely cheese platforms with no identity of their own, but Pete's was chewier than I like it.

So, good overall, I think I'll stop in for a slice from time to time. And they get major props for being one of the few counter service places to ever give me a glass (as opposed to a disposable cup) for tap water...