Modern Apizza, the American pizza restaurant founded in 1934 as State Street Apizza, has never left this spot on State Street in the East Rock neighborhood. Locals place Modern in the informal "Holy Trinity" of New Haven-style pizza alongside Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana and Sally's Apizza; food critics consistently rank these three among the best pizza places in the world. Unlike the Wooster Street pizzerias, Modern is on State Street here in the East Rock neighborhood.
Originally called State Street Apizza, that name points back to its State Street roots. Like the Wooster Street pizzerias, Modern serves New Haven-style thin-crust apizza, closely related to Neapolitan-style Italian pizza, but it bakes in an oil-fueled brick oven rather than the coal-fired brick ovens used on Wooster Street. The restaurant also sells Foxon Park soft drinks, made in East Haven, Connecticut.
You may recall a television moment here: Adam Richman visited Modern in 2011 on the first episode of Man v. Food Nation. An oil-fueled brick oven, not the coal-fired ovens of Wooster Street, bakes the thin-crust apizza here, in the same State Street spot Adam Richman visited in 2011.