I’ll tell you a story about Bru Room @ BAR…
A few years ago, there was a Brazilian panini shop on Whitney Avenue opposite Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden called Copacafe. I loved the little place, but it didn’t last long. Sometimes one’s favorite food spots just aren’t properly tooled to survive.
I used to have great conversations with the owner while I waited for my food, never hiding the fact that I was a restaurant critic and food writer. One day there was a customer ahead of me—a pretty woman with a young child in tow. The panini shop owner mentioned my unusual vocation to her, and as often so happens, the woman began questioning me about my restaurant preferences.
The lady clearly had some familiarity with the restaurant scene. She started her inquiry broadly, and I gave willingly and freely of my opinions. Eventually, she worked her way around to pizza. What’s your favorite pizzeria? I named the Wooster Street pizzeria I preferred. How do you like Modern? I like it, I said. I used to take their pizza to go years ago when I lived on Nicoll Street.
How about BAR, she asked? Almost, I answered. She invited me to elaborate. When I went there, I answered, the crust was unsalted. You have to have a little salt in the dough.
I’ll mention it to my husband, she said. At this point, I realized that I had been had and that I was talking to the wife of one of the owners. While the situation was a little awkward, I really admired the effort to which she went to elicit from me an unbiased response.
A few years had since passed, and a number of people whose opinions I greatly respect had praised BAR’s pizza through the roof. While it did not make me question my observations one iota, it did make me wonder whether the problem had been corrected, or more likely, whether the sample I had tasted was unrepresentative. I resolved to return and try the pizza again.
I recently unearthed a very old gift certificate to BAR
(along with some other ancient gift certificates) in a cubby of my work desk. My wife was nervous about using old gift certificates, but I told her that if places are still in business under the same ownership, they have to honor them.
As this old photograph shows, BAR is located on Crown Street just across from famous Louis’ Lunch, which opened in 1895 and is known as the birthplace of the hamburger sandwich.
Louis’ Lunch had just lost its beloved patriarch, Ken “Popsie” Lassen, at age 93. Grandson of the original Louis Lassen, Popsie was a fixture at the restaurant for more than six decades.
My wife works just a couple of blocks from BAR. I picked her up after work, figuring that it would be a simple matter to get into the popular pizzeria because Yale University was on Christmas break. BAR’s sidewalks were lined with snow from the major storm a few days before.
Inside, there was a line, as if everyone in New Haven had made the same erroneous calculation. I thought of the famous Yogi Berra quote: No one goes there anymore because it’s too crowded. We approached the beleaguered hostess,
who told us it would be a half hour wait for either the dining room or bar area. People continued to pour in after us, and in no time at all, the estimate rose to an hour and a half. A few people gave up, but many more put their names in and hung around the entrance waiting (as we did),
or waited in the bar area,
or left to kill time poking in shops like Atticus Bookstore/Café for a while. New Haveners will stand in line for pizza, but only for great pizza. The high esteem in which BAR is held was obvious.
A half hour later, right on schedule, we were led to seats in the dining area, passing the pizza-making area on the way.
There was bar-style seating here as well,
but we had a table of normal height by the window.
Our cheerful waitress (shown here attending to the next table)
let us try small tastes of a couple of beers, so we could decide which we wanted. Soon we were working on a pitcher
of AmBAR ale.
The first thing that BAR does really well is beer. Since 1996, BAR has been brewing its own beers—hence its full name Bru Room @ BAR (which most people abbreviate). The beer-making equipment is open to view.
The second thing that BAR does really well is salad. For those of us who have grown somewhat lactose intolerant as we have gotten older, having a good salad with our pizza is a godsend. Most of Connecticut’s top pizzerias don’t do a great job with salad. BAR’s is wonderful, a combination of seasonal greens, sliced pear, caramelized pecan and crumbled blue cheese in a nice vinaigrette.
Not only is the salad well-balanced but it balances the richness of the pizza.
The third thing that BAR does really well is, of course, pizza. Look at the anticipation on the face of my sweet wife (who had visited BAR far more than I had and was already a fan).
We ordered a large red pizza with sausage, mushroom and onion—and we demolished it!
So let me talk about BAR’s pizza. First of all, the salt level of the crust was perfect. Our pie had the nice, slightly charred taste that New Haven pizza aficionados love. The crust at the edges was exactly the thickness I like, the crust in the middle a few microns thinner than I prefer. However, the crust isn’t at all cracker-like (which I despise). The slices are shaped more like strips than wedges. Our pie appeared to have a nice splash of olive oil. The combined taste of the crust and toppings was fantastic. The sausage was the fennel-flavored bulk sausage that should be required by law. It was a great pizza, good even when it got cold.
Our pie was bigger and more oval than it appears in the photograph, the wide-angle lens which I used distorting its true shape. (People say pictures don’t lie, but it’s a foolish saying.) Our neighbors ordered two of BAR’s more popular pizzas (especially with vegetarians): a tomato pie with fresh spinach
and a white pie with mashed potato.
The name Bru Room @ BAR (which I’ve seen written a number of ways) may seem like an attempt to create a secure password. But without question, BAR serves one of Connecticut’s (and that means one of the world’s) best pizzas.
Bru Room @ BAR, 254 Crown Street, New Haven, 203-495-1111
www.barnightclub.com