When food folks think of Connecticut, it’s probably pizza that first comes to mind. That’s New Haven-style pizza, cooked in a wood fired oven to the point that the edge of the crust is on the verge of char, It’s like Neapolitan pizza, but brawnier. Beyond pizza, excellent Italian food — Old World and cutting-edge — is ubiquitous. Connecticut also has a long shoreline, home to shacks and modest eateries serving hot lobster rolls, fried clams, and steel-gray clam chowder. Thanks to a long-standing tradition of dairy farming, Connecticut has a bevvy of great artisan ice cream makers. Throughout the state are memorable independent donut shops. In a small area around the city of Meriden, you’ll find diners serving what may be the nation’s most peculiar hamburger variation, known as a steamed cheeseburger.
WITH THE EXCEPTION of the hot dog bun, there has never been an edible invention as useful as the ice cream cone. Eat it all and leave nothing behind...
One essential characteristic of any worthy hamburger is democracy of spirit—it should be accessible to all and not cost an arm and a leg. That's why our list of...
We’ve never met a cooked potato we didn’t like. Baked with butter, salt-boiled, fire-roasted, puréed with cream, au gratin, dauphinois, frittered, and french fried—all are surefire transformations of the homely...
The new Haven Trinity of Pepe’s, Sally’s, and Modern is rightly exalted for crisp-crust brick-oven pies, but those long-standing shrines are not alone in the pizza-rich state of Connecticut....
Thirty years ago, when we started writing about the colorful, cheap, and unpretentious restaurants that anchored communities across the country, we suspected we were documenting the end of an...
For two-lane travelers, pulling into a parking lot perfumed by hamburgers and hot onion rings is as satisfying as any four-star dining experience. At a true classic drive-in, you...
ONE COLD DAY in the mid-1940s, Harold "Whitey" Miller, a Connecticut clam digger who sold littlenecks off the back of a truck, laid some clams on a metal grate...
MAGDI ACZEL punched Michael the second time we ate at her restaurant. Our first meals of beef goulash and chicken paprikash were so delicious that we were eager to...
No introduction is necessary. These are America's ten best hot dog joints By JANE and MICHAEL STERNÂ 1 Walter's is a pagoda-shaped roadside stand that has been serving incomparable hot...
In New England, doughnuts are an art. We needn't argue their humble virtues in contrast to such upwardly mobile pastries as scones and croissants or the meretricious muffins that...
Hot dogs, the most American food of all, defy the regimentation that has made hamburgers, prime steaks, pancakes, and pizza such conspicuously successful franchise opportunities. (There are more than...
Pancakes make people happy. Arriving at the table in the form of short stacks or lofty towers, or fanned out like a haul of soft gold medallions, they are...
It is a bright, blue-sky day in July. A scoop of cool vanilla ice cream is perched atop a cone. Lick it, and your tongue tells you that the...
By Jane and Michael stern Like pork barbecue and Creole gumbo, clam chowder is a charismatic dish that incites not just appetite, but loyalty: Devotees hold forth with near-religious zeal...
Before Ralph Nader, cars were fun. For generations of joyriders, a purring V-8 was a vehicle for play and pleasure. "Companion of carefree days" is how Chevy advertised itself...
As a matter of principle, we are committed to finding food with ample fat, from marbled steaks to chocolate cakes, but even we sometimes yearn for light fare. On...
What Kentucky is to bourbon and Havana is to cigars, Connecticut is to pizza—the capital, where the benchmark is set and excellence assumed. Nowhere else on earth are there...
Originally Published in 1994 Gourmet Magazine Clad in shining steel and accoutered in neon and Naugahyde, diners are cheap thrills, American style. Although most are in the urban east, where...
Seafood is a delicacy that has been enjoyed since the beginning of time. Its flavors are unique and diverse, and it can be cooked in many ways. That is...
Restaurants along Merritt Parkway America's Byways® are a collection of 150 National Scenic Byways and All-American Roads designated by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. The Merritt Parkway of Connecticut is...
The color of New England's autumn foliage attracts seasonal visitors to the southern foothills of the Berkshires, but year around, it is an excruciatingly beautiful land: rolling hills, stone...
For a mouthwatering summer road trip to sleeves-up joints surrounded by magnificent scenery, you can’t beat a seafood-eating expedition along New England's coast. At waterside picnic tables and roadside drive-ins, in...
Texas Hots in New York Texas hots do not exist in Texas. Unique to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the curiously addictive franks were first created a century ago...
Unique Regional Dishes After 40 years and 5 million miles spent on the road looking for America's best regional food, we've assembled a list of the quintessential, must-eat food in...
Looking for some stops along your Road trip? Check out our picks for the 6 best restaurants in New England. This is New England, so there is a plethora...
Bad lobster rolls are easy to come by. We've done the research and have found the best lobster rolls in New England for you! In Connecticut they have the...
Is there another dish as diverse as pizza? It can be an utterly simple tomato pie – nothing but sauce on crust – or it can be a multi-meat...
Original Northeastern Tomato Pies The original tomato pies in cities of the Northeast were simply flatbreads topped with crushed tomatoes, spice and maybe a few anchovies or a sprinkle of...
East Coast Classic Neapolitan Pizza Showdown Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey all lay claim to the best pizza in America, maybe in the world. We want you to be...
Connecticut Hot Dogs Along with New Jersey, New York, and Chicago, Connecticut is one of the nation's most fruitful hot dog hunting grounds. In this land of great hot dogs...
Great Soft Serve There is so much inferior soft-serve ice cream (aerated, chemically-flavored), that soft-serve in general has a bad reputation among ice cream lovers. But there are exceptions, soft-serve...
Burgers in the Open Air Hamburgers are good year-round, but there’s special pleasure in having one en plein air on a summer day. Check out these baker’s-dozen Roadfood favorite restaurants serving the...
Fill Your Gas Tank and Your Stomach "Eat Here. Get Gas": It's a roadside jest as old as gas stations themselves. (Before gas stations, pioneering motorists bought gas in pharmacies.)...
Taco Take Over When we started hunting Roadfood many years ago, good tacos were hard to find anywhere other than the southwest borderlands and southern California. Today, great tacos are...
Dishes That Are Uniquely Connecticut When I moved from Connecticut to South Carolina, I was instantly smitten with my new home's shrimp and grits, fried chicken, local peaches, and, of...
The Origin For the best White Clam pizza in Connecticut, you should first head to New Haven. Some consider it the pizza capital of the universe. Clam pizza first appeared...
Originally marketed in 1897 to compete with granula, which was the predecessor to granola, Grape-Nuts is an unlikely fun dessert. But in the world of Yankee cookery, the little...
Connecticut did not invent pizza, but a good argument can be made that Connecticut perfected it. The evidence is in New Haven, on Wooster Street, home of Frank Pepe...
Twelve champion chocolatiers, from the Oregon coast to downeast Maine.
Why is brunch so wonderful? One, it almost always includes adult beverages. Two, it's far more bountiful than either breakfast or lunch. Three, there's no hurry to eat it:...
The term diner has come to mean almost any inexpensive cafe that serves breakfast. But true diners are an elite class of eatery. They are mid 20th century design...
For some passionate eaters, a great cafeteria can be a source of tremendous anxiety. How on earth can a person choose from among dozens and dozens of good-looking desserts,...
The only possible happy exclamation incited by corned beef hash spooned from a can is "Arf!" But freshly chopped and sizzled to a crisp, crowned with poached eggs eager...
Every deli serves a roast beef sandwich, but a handful of U.S. restaurants make roast beef sandwiches that go beyond mere lunch meat on bread. The most memorable are...
One morning at the turn of the last century, Lemuel Benedict shuffled into New York's Waldorf Hotel looking for a dish to cure his hangover. He asked for poached...
The northeast has four main kinds of clam chowder. Manhattan is tomato-red and full of vegetables, rarely served northeast of New York City. South Coast, a specialty of Connecticut...
Donut devotion as fervid as the commitment devotees have for barbecue. Everybody has a favorite kind. From robust cake sinkers to featherweight glazed, styles vary dramatically. In our experience,...
"Drive-in" has come to mean just about any cheap-eats restaurant with car-friendly parking. A genuine drive-in is a place where customers park and are waited on and eat in...
Chili is like DNA: everybody's is different. Texans claim (rightfully) that history proves theirs to be the first. Or at least they were the first to make a big...
Every diner, town cafe, and truck stop sells a hot turkey sandwich. A precious few are memorable and as delicious as the best Thanksgiving leftovers. They include plenty of...
Granola first was invented in the 1860s (not the 1960s) and eaten by health nuts of the day. It was a severe dish made from nothing but double-baked sheets...
Crumb-topped, lattice-topped, or layered with caramel and welcoming a scoop of ice cream on top, apple pie is everywhere from coast to coast. For your pleasure, a baker's dozen...
There's no point getting into a flame war over which American hot dog is best. It's impossible, because the nation's hot dogs are so diverse. However, we will go...
A donut’s very shape is satisfying. It is complete, a whole circle, nice to lift and easy to dunk. Almost any recently-made donut from a national chain offers the...
Along the Northeast's Atlantic coast, the term "shore dinner" doesn't just mean some seafood on a plate. Descendant of Algonquin clambakes in which clams and corn were layered in...
Few eats stir Yankee passions more intensely than fried clams. Most devoted clamophiles insist on whole belly clams (the big gooey ones), and while clam strips do tend to...
How It's Made To make a steamed cheeseburger, restaurants use a special steam cabinet. Into it they put little trays, some with fistfuls of ground beef, others with hunks of...
