In this week's review I took a respite from the norm. It's not always about fine dining or Michelin stars or farm to table. Sometimes it's about something very near and dear to our hearts, something that young and old can appreciate, that something is pizza. For over a month now my friend Al had been telling me about Da Legna in New Haven, the bonafide pizza Mecca of the world. Competing with Pepe's, Sally's, Modern, Abate, Zuppardi's and BAR, Da Legna is posed with a HUGE task. Now to set up the story, I have been misconnecting on a pizza date with Al for over a month. My curiosity got the best of me yesterday and I ventured to New Haven without him, and I don't have the heart to break it to him so he will probably find out by reading this review, hahaha, I'm sorry Al! I met my good friends Jake and Zhuru to get some unbiased outsider opinions. Da Legna offers more than just pizza, they have an extensive menu offering multiple salads and small plates as well as wine and cocktails. Something that threw me off was that at every table, instead of a printed menu, was an iPad with all the menu offerings. These iPads were not even connected to the POS so you looked at them and then told the server want you wanted. I thought this was unnecessary and a huge waste of money, taking away from the job of the server, but whatever, let's get started, the following is an excerpt taken from the Da Legna website.
“Da Legna is a manifestation of fine-tuned craftsmanship and culinary wizardry, born out of decades of experience and innovation. Dan Parillo has been honing his craft for over 25 years and serving the Shoreline community at Pizzeria Portofino for over 16 years. Dan has created a wide array of thin-crust artisanal pizzas pairing the finest ingredients with precision, and cooked to perfection. Our wood-fired oven was imported from Italy, and rivals no other in terms of finished product. Mirroring our pies, we have had the great fortune of Dave Foster’s creativity and applied technique in bringing together a refined and eclectic menu of small plates and over a dozen salads. Together, they have prepared a grand list of both New Haven’s freshest pizza options, complimented by an enticing assortment of eats, and tempting desserts, all made in-house from scratch. Don’t forget our house infused liquors, domestic/import and craft beers, and fully stocked scotch selection found at our rustic industrial bar, nestled on the corner of Clark and State Street.”
We started off with the meatballs. They were smaller than I anticipated but still good, there were about 5 or 6 in the bowl served with a nice piece of toasted sourdough. I don't normally get any sort of fried mac & cheese from any restaurant but I had a feeling that this would be good, and priced at only $4 how could I not. It came to the table sliced like a piece of cheesecake and was excellent, but I guess it would be hard to mess up a fried piece of mac & cheese.
There were a lot of salads to choose from at Da Legna, but the corn fritter salad jumped out at me because I love anything fritter. These fritters were also smaller than I expected, however the salad stood up. Now to my favorite cheese, burrata. All year I have seen burrata paired with different seasonal ingredients, watermelon in the summer, heirloom tomatoes in the fall, but this was paired with golden beets. I didn't care much for the tomatoes in this dish but the beets were awesome. I like my burrata like I like my women after the shower, wet and drippy. I'm sorry. What I'm trying to say is, this was good burrata… Moving on…
I ordered the margherita pizza to see what one of their basic pies would be like and it was as good as any other margherita pizza in the area. Now for the star of the day, the shining star, the north star, the brightest star in the sky… The honey pot pizza! Normally I don't like getting wacky with a pizza but I was very curious to see what this flavor combination would deliver. I will be returning to Da Legna with Al and we will be ordering a large each… except he might actually be vegan but if that's the case I will be eating both pizzas myself, fuck it, I'll keep you posted. Even with the onions this was an excellent pizza. Jake and Zhuru both agreed. The soppressata combined with the truffle honey on a wood fired pizza makes this one of the best tasting pizzas I have ever had, and I can't wait to go back and do it all again.
Overall this was a great dining experience. Lose the ipads and gain a loaf. I hereby give Da Legna....
7 LOAVES!!!
This has been yet another installment of BENN BREAKS BREAD. Thanks for reading and join me after the new year where I have many great surprises in store.