Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria in New Haven is a legendary pizza place. Every year the website ‘The Daily Meal’ ranks the top 101 pizza places in the United States. The number one this year was the legendary Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria in New Haven. While Pepe’s is good, it is not even in the top three pizza places in New Haven.

My dad and I are pizza fanatics and after we went to Pepe’s, we were very let down by the quality and we agreed the quality of Pepe’s is overrated. Our disappointment in Pepe’s sparked our quest to find the best pizza in out of New Haven’s many options.

We visited all of the classic New Haven pizza places: Sally’s, Zuppardi’s, Modern and Bar. Every great pizza place in New Haven is known for either its white clam pizza or its handmade sausage, and in some cases both.

Ranking fifth was Zuppardi’s, a classic family pizza place that looks similar to Westport Pizza, it has a few tables and you can see the kitchen from where you sit. My dad got the white clam and I got the sausage. They were both good pizzas but nothing to write home about, it just wasn’t special.

Fourth is Pepe’s. My dad again got the white clam and I got bacon and sausage. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good pizza, but I had heard it was the best pizza in the world so I expected that would be the greatest thing I’d ever eat, but when it wasn’t, I was so let down that I couldn’t even enjoy it.

Placing third was Sally’s. When you walk in it looks like a vintage 70’s pizza place, a little worn down and everything was made of wood. My dad got the sausage and meatball, and I ordered the sausage and bacon. Overall they were both great pizzas, and the sausage was absolutely delicious.

Coming in second was Bar. Like the name suggest, Bar is, in fact a bar, where the brew their own beer and make pizza. I ordered the sausage pizza and my dad ordered the interesting mashed potato and bacon pizza. The sausage lived up to the hype, it was incredibly flavored and knowing it was made on sight was incredible. I was very surprised by how good the mashed potato and bacon was. It had a texture to it that was different than any other pizza,  fluffy like mashed potatoes, and it had the great tastes of both the mashed potatoes and the bacon.

The best pizza was Modern. I had the sausage and my dad got the hot cherry with sausage. Their handmade sausage was incredible, it was the best pizza I’ve ever had.

New Haven is the best pizza city in the area, but it’s 40 minutes away, there are great pizza’s in a more convenient locations. At the end of the day, I would rather just go to Fairfield and have a Colony pizza, which is just as good, then go to New Haven and have any of those.