Spaces that once housed significant Elm City restaurants lie fallow—some to reopen soon, some not—including the old Roomba space, Bespoke space, Scoozi space and Hot Tomato’s space. On Temple Street, Atlas and vegetarian Red Lentil (which I liked a lot) have also closed.
I’m not saying the bloom is off the New Haven rose, or the leaves off the elm. A number of promising new ventures have launched, but the trend seems to be toward smaller concepts. Of these, I have decided to feature the New Haven Meatball House, which occupies the space that once housed much-missed Indochine Pavilion.
The new joint proved so popular we had a 20-minute wait for a table on a Tuesday evening. Some people were seated immediately if they were willing to share a communal table, like these two couples.
But because my photography can be a bit intrusive we figured we needed our own table, and like these people, we were willing to wait.
I used the humongous men’s bathroom while we waited, humorously noting that it was long enough to play a game of boules with the meatballs.
The creator of NHMH (an abbreviation especially needed when texting) is Bob Potter, the man behind Prime 16 and c.o.jones (cojones, get it?). And now meatballs? I’m afraid to ask what’s coming next. But the sophomoric humor seemed to be largely lost on all of those sophomores.
While I don’t see the meatball house concept working on Dixwell Avenue in Hamden or the Post Road in Orange, it seems perfectly calibrated for the college environs. I could see balls flying in Storrs or Middletown. Meatballs are comfort food to college kids away from home. They’re also fun food presented with enough variety and sophistication to be enticing. I see NHMH as occupying the same niche as burrito joints and noodle houses (neither of which have any humor potential, right?).
Here’s a look around NHMH.
Soon we were seated and had menus for everything in front of us.
As you can see by clicking on the above photo to enlarge it, you can put an inexpensive meal together by choosing the kind of balls you want (this is hard to type with a straight face), the kind of sauce you want, and what to put it all on. Or you can create a brioche slider or brioche sandwich.
It’s not quite fast food, but before too long the helpful manager had brought us our food.
My buddy ordered beef balls with spinach pesto sauce over rigatoni.
I ordered a brioche sandwich, which came with a house salad.
Here’s the sandwich, which was filled with pork balls and mushroom sauce,
and here’s the house salad with a Dijon lime dressing.
I also ordered a side of macaroni and cheese (really good, when most aren’t),
while my buddy ordered the special
spinach-ricotta meatball (NOT vegetarian) in a brioche slider with vodka cream sauce.
We finished with a touch of dessert, an ice cream sandwich featuring cherry ice cream between two ginger snaps,
and drooled over the next table’s bread pudding.
As NHMH’s slogan says: Four types of meatballs, four types of sauces, and three ways to eat them. It’s all about the meatballs! So next time you have a hankering for meatballs and sauce, you know where to go.
New Haven Meatball House, 1180 Chapel Street, New Haven, 203-772-3360, nhmeatballhouse.com