All right, Connecticut. Enough is enough.
We laughed and played along a few years ago when your governor said Connecticut’s pizza was better than New Jersey’s pies. I even took a trip up to New Haven to try your vaunted “apizza.” Not bad! Not as good as our best offerings, but not bad.
But now your pizz-oblivious state has taken it too far.
On Wednesday, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) took to the floor of the House of Representatives and declared New Haven the “pizza capital of the United States.”
I’m no political expert. I’m a pizza expert. And there is no type of pizza impeachment severe enough to punish this saucy atrocity. Because there is no way on Earth that New Jersey isn’t the pizza capital of not just the United States, but the world.
Peace out, Frank Pepe. Sayonara, Sally’s. Your overhyped pizza parlors, making what looks more like flatbread than pizza, can’t touch what we’re serving up in New Jersey.
I have traveled far and wide across the Garden State sampling New Jersey’s best pizzas — and documented it! The NJ.com Pizza Trail, ever heard of it, Connecticut? Take notes. Because just about anywhere you go in New Jersey, you will find pizza miles better than New Haven’s offerings.
From paper-thin bar pies at Kinchley’s in Ramsey and Star Tavern in Orange to delightfully saucy tomato pies from Papa’s and DeLorenzo’s in Trenton, and everything in between. It isn’t just one type of pizza in New Jersey is better than New Haven’s. It’s the multitude of styles that makes us more worthy of the title of the pizza state. Neapolitan pizza palace Razza in Jersey City is routinely named among the best in the world. Brooklyn Square might have a New York name, but it has multiple New Jersey locations making upside down pies that Connecticut doesn’t get close to touching.

Connecticut, you're honestly proud of this? (Jeremy Schneider | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
You try telling Al Santillo, the godfather of New Jersey pizza, that anything in New Haven is even the same type of food as what he crafts in his iconic Elizabeth oven? He’d laugh you all the way back up I-95.
Look, if New York City was trying to make a claim as the country’s pizza capital, we’d get it. We wouldn’t like it, but we’d understand the misplaced bravado. But Connecticut making the claim? We won’t stand for it.
Because I’ve had your pizza, New Haven. Multiple times. I event went back earlier this year to see if it was better than I remembered. Sally’s is good. Frank Pepe is overrated. Colony Grill is a decent bar pie and nothing more. Modern Apizza should be called Mediocre Apizza.
I understand why you’re trying to make pizza your identity, Connecticut. What else do you have? The Merritt Parkway? John Mayer? A bunch of rich finance bros in Greenwich? But that doesn’t make your pizza any better.
New Jersey is too busy beefing with New York for pizza supremacy to deal with you, Connecticut. So pipe down, and let the adults talk. Err, eat.
We’ll send you some leftovers.
Related coverage:
• I drove 4 hours to prove N.J. has better pizza than Connecticut
• The NJ.com Pizza Trail is complete. Here’s what you need to know.
• New Jersey’s 101 greatest pizzas, ranked
• The Jersey Shore’s best new pizzeria makes the state’s top white pie
• New Jersey has a new pizza capital. It’s not where you’d expect.

Stories by Jeremy Schneider
Looking for more New Jersey food coverage? Subscribe to the free Jersey Eats newsletter here!
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Jeremy Schneider may be reached at jschneider@njadvancemedia.com and followed on Twitter at @J_Schneider and on Instagram at @JeremyIsHungryAgain.

