New Haven White Clam Pizza
New Haven's famous "apizza": a thin, charred crust with olive oil, garlic, oregano, grated Pecorino Romano and fresh littleneck clams, and no mozzarella.
Frank Pepe, born in Maiori on the Amalfi coast, opened his pizzeria on Wooster Street in New Haven in June 1925, at first selling "apizza" from a cart, according to the pizzeria. Food & Wine counts New Haven's Big Three as Pepe's (1925), Modern (1934) and Sally's (1938), which Pepe's nephew Salvatore Consiglio opened; apizza is pronounced "ah-beets", baked about 10 minutes in a coal oven and charred, not burnt. Pepe's says Frank Pepe introduced the White Clam Pizza in 1964, after already serving clams on the half shell. Its menu lists fresh clam, garlic, oregano, grated Pecorino Romano and olive oil, with no mozzarella. In New Haven, mozzarella ("mootz") is an extra you ask for.
🇺🇸 This one is American
New Haven's famous "apizza": a thin, charred crust with olive oil, garlic, oregano, grated Pecorino Romano and fresh littleneck clams, and no mozzarella.
🇮🇹 The original
In Naples, pizza is a soft, thin-centered disc with a puffy, blistered rim, topped with tomato, mozzarella and basil and baked in about 90 seconds in a wood-fired oven. See the Pizza Napoletana Margherita recipe.
Why it works the kitchen science
Clams open on the pie
Steaming open on the hot crust, the clams cook just enough and spill their briny juice straight into the garlic and oil, so nothing is chewy or dry.
No mozzarella
Without a layer of melted cheese the crust stays crisp and the clam flavor comes through. The Pecorino adds the salt.
Step by step
- Step 1
Pulse the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a food processor 3 times, add the water and 2 tbsp oil and run until a ball forms, about 15 seconds, then 15 seconds more. Divide in half, bag each piece and refrigerate at least 1 day and up to 5.
- Step 2
At least 2 hours before baking, shape each piece into a tight ball, cover and let rise at warm room temperature until roughly doubled. Put a steel or stone about 6 inches below the broiler and heat the oven to its highest setting (500°F to 550°F) for at least 45 minutes.
- Step 3
Scrub the clams under cold running water. Tap any open ones: throw out clams that don't close, and any with cracked or broken shells. Keep the rest on ice in the fridge until you bake.
- Step 4
Stretch one ball to about 13 inches and lay it on a peel dusted with semolina. Brush with 1 tbsp oil and scatter over half the garlic, half the oregano and half the Pecorino.
- Step 5
Press 12 clams into the dough, hinge side down. Slide the pizza onto the steel, switch to the broiler and cook 4 to 6 minutes, until the crust is charred in spots and the clams have opened.
- Step 6
Pull the pizza out. With tongs, pry the clams fully open, scrape the meat and juices onto the pie and discard the shells, plus any clam that stayed shut. If any meat looks translucent, return the pie under the broiler 1 minute.
- Step 7
Drizzle with 1/2 tbsp oil, add pepper flakes if you like, cut into 4 or more pieces and serve right away. Switch the oven back to bake for 10 minutes to reheat the steel, then make the second pizza.
New Haven White Clam Pizza
Serves 4 (half a pizza each) · 2 pizzas, about 13 inches each · 27 hr total
Dough
- 3 1/2 cups (425 g) bread flour
- 2 1/2 tsp (10 g) sugar
- 1 1/4 tsp (7 g) table salt
- 2 1/4 tsp (7 g) instant yeast
- 1 cup plus 3 tbsp (277 g) lukewarm water
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- Semolina or cornmeal, for the peel
Topping
- 24 live littleneck clams (about 2 1/4 lb), from a tagged container
- 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 oz (about 1/2 cup) Pecorino Romano, finely grated
- Pinch red pepper flakes, optional
Method
- Pulse the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a food processor 3 times, add the water and 2 tbsp oil and run until a ball forms, about 15 seconds, then 15 seconds more. Divide in half, bag each piece and refrigerate at least 1 day and up to 5.
- At least 2 hours before baking, shape each piece into a tight ball, cover and let rise at warm room temperature until roughly doubled. Put a steel or stone about 6 inches below the broiler and heat the oven to its highest setting (500°F to 550°F) for at least 45 minutes.
- Scrub the clams under cold running water. Tap any open ones: throw out clams that don't close, and any with cracked or broken shells. Keep the rest on ice in the fridge until you bake.
- Stretch one ball to about 13 inches and lay it on a peel dusted with semolina. Brush with 1 tbsp oil and scatter over half the garlic, half the oregano and half the Pecorino.
- Press 12 clams into the dough, hinge side down. Slide the pizza onto the steel, switch to the broiler and cook 4 to 6 minutes, until the crust is charred in spots and the clams have opened.
- Pull the pizza out. With tongs, pry the clams fully open, scrape the meat and juices onto the pie and discard the shells, plus any clam that stayed shut. If any meat looks translucent, return the pie under the broiler 1 minute.
- Drizzle with 1/2 tbsp oil, add pepper flakes if you like, cut into 4 or more pieces and serve right away. Switch the oven back to bake for 10 minutes to reheat the steel, then make the second pizza.
The topping follows Pepe's own menu. The method, opening whole clams on the pizza under the broiler, is adapted from Serious Eats, "Pizza With Fresh Clams, Garlic, Mozzarella, Romano, and Basil" by J. Kenji López-Alt (2013). Our changes: we drop his mozzarella, basil and lemon to match Pepe's build, and use 2 pies instead of 3. The dough is Kenji's New York-style dough, as his clam recipe calls for, scaled as in our New York-Style Pizza recipe. Clam handling follows the FDA. pepespizzeria.com. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
Tips
- Smaller clams (littlenecks) cook through faster than cherrystones.
- Buy clams the day you bake, from a fish counter that can show you the shellfish tag.
- Pepe's coal oven runs around 600°F by the pizzeria's own figure. At home, the steel and broiler do the charring.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- No mozzarella. Documented (Pepe's menu; Food & Wine). You can order "mootz" as an extra.
- Fresh-shucked clams. Disputed: Pepe's says its clams are shucked fresh every day; Kenji wrote in 2013 that at Pepe's, Sally's and Modern fresh clams "have taken a back seat to pre-shucked clams". Zuppardi's in West Haven is known for shucking to order (Food & Wine).
- Why the clam pie started. Disputed: Pepe's says Frank Pepe added the half-shell clams he already served to a pizza in 1964. The Takeout says the 1960s, after a health-rule change stopped half-shell sales.
- Coal oven. Documented: Food & Wine says only Pepe's and Sally's still use coal; Modern moved off it in the late 1960s.
- "It's not burnt, it's charred." Documented as Sally's chef's line (Food & Wine).
- Pepe's moved next door in 1936. Disputed: Pepe's says 1936; Food & Wine says 1937.
Every other pizza
Pizza Napoletana Margherita
The Naples original: a soft, hand-stretched dough with a puffy, charred rim, topped with hand-crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil and olive oil, and nothing else.
Pizza Marinara
Naples' other classic, and the older idea: tomato, sliced garlic, oregano and olive oil on a soft, charred crust. No cheese, and no seafood either.
Sfincione (Palermo-Style Sicilian Pizza)
Palermo's tall, spongy pan pizza: cheese and anchovies pressed into the dough, a sweet onion and tomato sauce on top, and a crunchy blanket of oregano and toasted breadcrumbs.
Roman Pizza al Taglio with Potato and Rosemary
Rome's sheet-pan pizza by the slice: a very wet dough, cold-risen for a day, baked airy and crisp, topped with paper-thin potatoes, rosemary and olive oil, and cut into rectangles with scissors.
New York-Style Pizza
The big, thin, foldable slice: a cold-fermented bread-flour dough with a little sugar and oil, a smooth cooked tomato sauce and grated low-moisture mozzarella, baked hot and long until the cheese spots brown.
Grandma Pizza
Long Island's thin square pan pie: an oiled sheet-pan crust, mozzarella first, then raw tomatoes tossed with garlic, olive oil and oregano spooned on top.
Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza
A tall, flaky, buttery crust baked in a round pan, filled with a thick layer of mozzarella and topped with a chunky tomato sauce and Parmesan. Eat it with a knife and fork.
Chicago Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza
Chicago's everyday pizza: a cracker-thin crust, a sweet herby sauce to the very edge, fennel-flecked sausage and mozzarella to the rim, cut into little squares.
Detroit-Style Pizza
A thick, airy rectangle baked in a well-oiled steel pan, with pepperoni under Wisconsin brick cheese spread to the very edge so it fries into a dark, crispy crown, and sauce spooned on top in stripes.
St. Louis-Style Pizza
A cracker-thin crust rolled out with a pin, a sweet oregano sauce, toppings to the edge and gooey, smoky Provel cheese, cut into squares.
California-Style BBQ Chicken Pizza
The pizza that told America anything goes: barbecue sauce instead of tomato, smoky gouda and mozzarella, roasted chicken, red onion and fresh cilantro.
Weeknight Skillet Pizza
Store-bought dough crisped in a skillet on the stove, then finished under the broiler: a crackly-bottomed cheese pizza in about 35 minutes, no stone and no preheating.
Pan Pizza, Inspired by Pizza Hut
Inspired by Pizza Hut's Pan Pizza, not an official recipe: a thick, no-knead dough that rises in an oiled cast-iron skillet and bakes with a golden, almost fried bottom and cheese right to the edge.
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