Your trip to Yale and New Haven won’t be a complete one without having pizza at the most famous Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in the Wooster Square neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut. Opened in 1925, it is one of the oldest and best known pizzerias in the United States.

Frank Pepe's pizzas are best known for two types: You pick the red one (tomato pie), or the white one (clam pie). I prefer the clam pizza, which also comes with a lot of cheese and you can only find in Frank Pepe’s. Yes, nowhere will do in America.

The restaurant is also good at desserts including Italy’s iconic Tiramisu, which tastes more like soft chocolate ice-cream here rather than a piece of serious cake. Frank Pepe’s is the go-to pizza place for Yale students and its fans also include many celebrities and politicians, for example, the 40th US President Ronald Reagan.

The legend of Frank Pepe’s is also a true “American Dream” story, thanks to its founder, Frank Pepe, an Italian immigrant, who immigrated to New Haven in 1909 when he was just a teenager. He later began to sell his signature “tomato pies” — only made of specially selected fresh Italian tomatoes — in Wooster Square, the local community known as “Little Italy” in New Haven, and eventually raised enough money to open the first formal Frank Pepe’s pizza restaurant on June 16, 1925.

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana
157 Wooster St, New Haven, CT 06511