Bantam Pizza

People do love the pizza at Bantam Pizza. It sports a medium-thick crust and is topped with cheese that melts beautifully into a mottled surface. All sorts of ingredients are available, from the usual, including superb fennel-spiked sausage, to ham and pineapple, feta cheese, and clams.

Thanks to Roadfood.com forum contributor Ketteract, I was reminded that Bantam Pizza is not just a pizza house, and Connecticut’s Italian triumphs include not only pizza, but grinders. (Grinder is the local term for a hero sandwich.) Since Ketteract’s recommendation of Wethersfield Pizza House panned out so well (again, for its grinders, not its pizzas), I soon was on my way for another taste of this vintage eatery by the side of scenic Route 202 in Litchfield County.

Yes, indeed, the grinders are grand. They are loaded with good ingredients and toasted just-right so any one that contains cheese delivers warm, melty satisfaction. Sausage and meatballs are both excellent, separately or together. Bantam’s Italian special is a beauty: ham, salami, cotto salami, peppers, tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and enough mozzarella that when it softens in the heat, it permeates every level of the sandwich. Next up. Chicken parm, then roast beef…