Forget New York and Chicago: An unlikely American city is becoming a pizza lover's paradise
New York City and Chicago may be the American cities best known for their pizza, but another city — in Connecticut of all places — has carved out its own slice of the pie.
In New Haven, pizza fans can now bike between famous pizzerias, sleep in a pizza-themed hotel suite and even visit a museum exhibit devoted to the city's signature food .
Just in time for National Pizza Month, historian and self-described "pizza guru" Colin Caplan has launched a new pizza crawl aboard the Elm City Party Bike, a 15-passenger pedal-powered trolley.
AMERICA' S BEST PIZZERIAS CROWNED IN NEW RANKINGS AS PIZZA EXPERT SHARES SKEPTICISM The bike has operated in the city for the past nine years but, for the first time, is being used specifically for pizza tours.
Guests can choose their own pizzerias or take a guided tour with Caplan — who is also a professional tour guide, author, architect and founder of Taste New Haven — sampling similar pies from several restaurants and comparing them.
"We're going to try cheese pizza from three or four different places, and then we'll rate it at the end, and you can decide what's better," Caplan told Fox News Digital.
"It's a great way to team build, to have the pizza together, to be outside, to frolic and have some fun." AMERICA'S MOST AND LEAST EXPENSIVE PLACES TO ORDER PIZZA REVEALED IN NEW STUDY But the rolling pizza party is just one example of how deeply the dish has become woven into New Haven's identity.
The Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale even offers a Pizza Suite decorated with the city's signature food, along with gift cards to famed New Haven pizzerias Sally's Apizza and Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana — two of the spots that make up the so-called "Holy Trinity" of New Haven-style apizza; the third is Modern Apizza.
Visitors build entire trips around the city's pie, Caplan said.
"We actually have people who are doing staycations from all over the country," he added.
PHILADELPHIA PIZZA SHOP SELLS $55 SLICES TOPPED WITH CAVIAR, SERVED ON GOLD PLATE WITH KEEPSAKE SPOON New Haven has increasingly earned a place alongside America's better-known pizza destinations , Caplan said, set apart by its signature style, which is locally known as "apizza" and features a thin, crispy, chewy and slightly charred crust.
"Let's face it, New York City has always been the center of pizza in everyone's mind," Caplan said, noting Chicago and Detroit as runners-up.
"Everyone knows about these big cities and the pizza scene.
What New Haven has had to do was prove itself." A traditional pie in New Haven can be remarkably simple, he said, topped only with tomato sauce and some grated Pecorino Romano.
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