Baronessa’s Pizza Oven
There was a time, not really that long ago, when pizza wasn’t a known thing to many Americans. When my dad went away to college in the mid 1940s, he had never had pizza before. But New Haven had a Neapolitan community and he was introduced to what was called apizza (/əˈbiːts(ə)/, with the final vowel basically silent). Now, of course, there are many different pizza chains and generally Italian restaurants have pizza on their menu, even if pizza is not their main thing. There is an Italian place called Baronessa not too far from where we live and we’ve gone there off and on for years. It changed ownership a while back and the new owner installed a wood-fired pizza oven. The owner is rightly proud of the oven and enjoys taking diners back to the kitchen to see it. I’ve seen it before but having taken a good picture of it so I asked if I could do that this evening. He was happy to let me get a few pictures. It’s a bit hard, because the light levels are pretty extreme, dark except for the fire, which is very bright, but this one shows the pizza cooking on the left pretty well. If you’re looking for a good pizza, you could do a lot worse than visiting Baronessa on E. Gude Drive. And ask to see the pizza oven before you leave.