As three friends and I pulled up to the restaurant at about seven o’clock on a Saturday night, we saw the line snaking out the door and around the building. We sat out in the cold Connecticut air, which wasn’t fun in a t-shirt and shorts, but it was promising to see so many people waiting to eat this place’s pizza. After forty-five minutes of waiting, we were shown to our table. The first thing that I noticed once I was inside was the very bland décor. Our booth was made of green plastic with a synthetic leather cushion. The table was fake wood on a plastic base. The kitchen is open to the dining room, and the loudness of the chefs yelling orders, combined with the tables full of kids around us made it hard to hear the person right next to you. It was certainly nothing to write home about so far.
After we experienced the lacking décor, we got a taste of what the service, or lack thereof, was going to be like that night. It was 15 minutes before our waitress, Tanya, came to our table and mumbled, “What do you want?” We ordered one large pepperoni pizza, one large sausage pizza, a couple of salads, and 2 liters of Foxon Park orange soda. The distinct lack of effort or caring by the wait staff was making me concerned about the coming meal. I started to wonder whether the pizza was going to be worth the $20 per pie price tag.
After another long wait, my salad came out. It was a small pile of iceberg lettuce in a plastic bowl with two grape tomatoes, a single ring of red onion, and a few croutons. It came with a packet of Ken’s Creamy Italian dressing. It wasn’t bad, but it was nothing special, and Pepe’s didn’t seem to make any attempt to hide that fact.
We waited again for our pizza. We were beginning to realize that long waits characterized the Pepe’s experience. Finally, the pizzas came out, and they honestly didn’t look like the world famous pies they were supposed to be. They were irregularly shaped and cut into pieces that made no attempt to be uniform. They came out on huge full sized baking sheets, which were slid onto our table, taking up around 90% of the table’s surface area. The crust was charred, making the pizza look very ugly. On the baking sheets were piles of napkins, four plates, and silverware that was so thin that you couldn’t cut a piece of pizza without bending it. I pulled a slice off of the sheet and put it on my place, which was hanging off the side of the table because we didn’t have any extra room on the table.
Until this point in the meal, nothing had impressed me.
Then I took a bite of the pizza.
The most noticeable thing at first was the mixture of textures in the pizza. First, there was the firmness of the quarter inch thick pepperoni slices. Then there was the scalding hot gooeyness of the fresh mozzarella cheese, and the thick chunkiness of homemade tomato sauce. The crust was unlike anything I had ever tasted. It had a thick chewy layer at the top, and a thin, crispy layer on the bottom. On the very bottom of the pizza there is an interesting texture given to it by the charcoal fired brick oven. It’s very dry and rough, in sharp contrast to the greasy cheesiness on top of the pizza.
After the texture hits you, the flavor comes in. In average pizza, you get a mixed up glob of flavor, and you can practically taste the processing that went into making each ingredient. At Pepe’s, you can taste the quality in every ingredient, and everything keeps its own identity in the pie. The cheese has a striking amount of true cheese flavor, compared to the simple, heavy greasiness of fast food pizza cheese. It’s obvious that the tomatoes are fresh; the chunks in the sauce explode in your mouth with bright flavor. Most people that I’ve talked to consider the pepperoni to be their best topping, and I agree with them. Instead of the greasy rings you’d get at any other pizza place, this pepperoni has character. It’s thick, meaty, and spicy. It really brings extra depth to the food, instead of just taking up space. And there is a faint smoky taste from the charcoal oven that sits over the whole ensemble like a blanket. You can taste the years of pizza making experience that goes into every slice. After everything we had experienced before the food came out, this perfect balance of texture and flavor was a welcome surprise.
Everyone at our table was entranced by the pizza. Before we knew it, we had finished one and a half pizzas. As I sat at our table, looking at the mess of plastic plates, cheap silverware, used napkins, and grease on the pizza tray, I realized what Pepe’s was all about. Instead of choosing to have a fancy restaurant to complement the great pizza, the owner seems to believe that fanciness would only distract you from what should be the focus of the meal: the pizza. When you have a slice of Pepe’s pizza in front of you, the rest of the world seems to phase out- it’s just you and the pizza. Pepe’s doesn’t sell a high-end dining experience; it sells pizza. And the pizza you get is some of the best you’ll ever taste, completely deserving of its status as one of the top pizza restaurants in the country.
Once the pizza was gone, the world came back into focus, and we were back to the lacking service that we had come to expect. We waited ten minutes for our check, only to find that we were charged for a third liter of soda, which we ordered but was never delivered to our table. But at this point we just laughed it off, unable to feel angry after what we had just experienced.
Here’s the bottom line at Pepe’s pizza: if you’re out with a few friends and are in the mood to have the best pizza you’ve ever tasted, it’s the perfect place. It’s not pretty, and the wait staff won’t cater to your every need, but that’s just part of the Pepe’s experience. Once you fight through all of the annoyances and the excruciating waiting times, you really feel like you’ve earned the pizza, and it tastes even better than it would if you were sitting in a fancy Italian restaurant.
Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana: ★★★
I love how your picture is half way through the meal. I'm tired of pictures of food when they look all perfect and untouched. This is the way pictures should be taken!
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