New England Road-Trip 2026: Part Three

As detailed in Part Two of this report, we were eager to leave Montpelier, Vermont, and head for the New Haven, Connecticut area Wednesday morning.

Our route took us past more beautiful scenery, including some trees with leaves that had changed color early. We were also going by Norwich, Vermont, which is where one can find the King Arthur Baking Company’s cafe, bakery and store. My wife loves to bake and often does so with King Arthur products. So there was no doubt we were stopping mainly for the purpose of shopping at their store.

It was a very large space with seemingly endless shelves of boxed mixes for everything from bread, rolls and bagels to cakes, chocolate babka and soft pretzel nuggets. 

My wife had a fairly full shopping basket by the time we finished. And as long as we were there, it felt like it would be a wasted opportunity for me to not get something, so I grabbed a box of cornbread mix. 

Norwich is also just across the state line from the town of Hanover, New Hampshire, which is the home of Dartmouth College and, more importantly from our perspective, Lou’s Restaurant and Bakery – the site of the day’s first meal stop. 

It seems like a lot of college towns have a popular breakfast and lunch spot that has been around for generations. Lou’s first opened in 1947 and fits that bill in Hanover.

Upon entering the restaurant, customers are faced with a display case full of muffins, cookies and other baked goods. The muffins were of particular interest to me. I’m not sure why, but I associate quality muffins with New England.

Beyond the display case, Lou’s had a classic looking counter that in retrospect, I wish we had sat at. Not that we had any complaints about the dining area with tables. It was extremely pleasant. There is just something great about sitting at the counter in such an old-school place.

The menu featured both breakfast and lunch options. My wife felt the need to have something healthy at this point in the trip and ordered a Harissa-Butternut Salad. 

I had breakfast in mind and had been planning on getting one that included a muffin ever since settling on Lou’s as a meal destination. 

As you can see, Lou’s has a large menu. But there was one option on it that jumped out at me immediately and rendered the rest of what was on there superfluous. I refer to the homemade corned beef hash with eggs that came with a choice of toast or muffin. I chose blueberry and agreed to our server’s suggestion that the eggs be poached. 

We were both extremely pleased with what we saw when our food arrived. My wife’s salad included mesclun, warm quinoa, harissa-roasted squash, marinated chickpeas, fresh mozzarella and avocado with olive oil and lemon. In other words, it was right up her alley.

My breakfast plate of hash with poached eggs and hash browns along with a very large and extremely fresh blueberry muffin on the side was a thing of beauty. 

The corned beef and potatoes were well proportioned in addition to having the appropriate degree of crispiness. After being broken apart, the two poached eggs were divine to both look at and eat. And the muffin was delightfully soft after getting past the outer surface. It also featured an abundance of blueberries.

Our shopping excursion at King Arthur followed by a great breakfast in a classic setting did wonders for our mood after the disappointment of Montpelier.

The ride to the New Haven area was a long one, but it went by without any issues and we were pleased to head out to dinner after checking into our hotel. Eating in and around New Haven usually means pizza for us.

We had already eaten at the original Pepe’s, Modern and Zuppardi’s a couple times each in addition to our visits to the Manchester Pepe’s outlet over the years. But we had still yet to try two of the area’s most revered purveyors of apizza, as it’s called in New Haven, and we intended to get to both of them before leaving for home Friday morning.

First up was Sally’s Apizza in New Haven, just down Wooster Street from the original Pepe’s. I used to shy away from going to Sally’s because the photos of their pizza on the old roadfood website that was my guide for such things looked less appealing to me than those of the other famous Connecticut pizzerias. But more recently, I’ve seen a bunch of people cite it as their favorite online and began to feel an increasing need to try it for myself.

Although there was no line to speak of when we arrived and we were seated within five minutes, the place was full. It also had a classic look to go along with its history and reputation. Sally’s opened in 1938.

The menu fits on one page with pizza and a few salads being the only options aside from beverages. 

We skipped the salads and opted to share a large – 16” – plain pie with sauce and mozzarella. We were told by our friendly server upon ordering it that the wait for our pizza to arrive would be about 25 minutes. That turned out to be almost right on the nose. 

I also requested a liter of Foxon Park soda, figuring I’d have some there and take the rest back to our room. 

The pizza, which came out in typical New Haven style – meaning on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper – was a beauty. In the photos that I previously referenced, Sally’s pizza appeared overdone even by New Haven standards. But that wasn’t the case with our pie. It featured just the right amount of char around nearly the entire outer ring and appeared to have a sauce-to-cheese ratio that was well-tailored to my liking.

The undercarriage and portion of the crust close to the outside of the pie were both fantastic. The one issue with this pizza was that it was softer toward the center, meaning there was a lot of floppage.

Yet that was a relatively minor complaint that was somewhat aesthetic in nature. It was extremely good pizza in terms of flavor and partially so with regard to the crust. I walked away from Sally’s that evening full of appreciation for their vaunted reputation. It’s well deserved.

The following day – Thursday – was the final full day of the trip. My wife wasn’t feeling well in the morning, so we lounged around and ate breakfast at the hotel. When we headed out that afternoon, our first destination was the New Haven Museum, which is situated next to Yale’s campus. 

While there were other permanent and temporary exhibits at the museum, including a very informative one on the Amistad slave revolt that we enjoyed, I kept my photo-taking to our main reason for the visit – their current exhibit on the history of New Haven Apizza.

Before making it upstairs to the exhibit we came across one of the museum’s permanent possessions – a circa 1939 dough mixing machine that was used by Frank Pepe. 

The apizza exhibit was fantastic and really put us in the mood for our upcoming dinner. Three of the four corners in its first room were devoted to the city’s pizza holy trinity – Pepe’s, Sally’s and Modern.

There was also a model of a coal-burning pizza oven and a collection of pizza boxes. The second room included space devoted to Foxon Park soda and a few of the area’s other pizzerias of note, some of which are long gone. 

It was difficult to pare down the photos I took of the pizza exhibit, so I’m including all of them.

When we had our fill of looking at photos of our intended dinner, and with our pizza cravings now in full gear, we left the museum and made our way to another of the region’s great pizzerias.

Like a few of the other restaurants featured in this trip report, I’ve known about Roseland Apizza of Derby, Connecticut, since around the turn of the century, when I first started to regularly spend time on the roadfood website, where it was the subject of one of their reviews. 

The main reason it took so long to get there is its location. Derby is a bit southwest of New Haven and is in an inconvenient spot for those just passing through the area and stopping for a meal or two. But we had the extra day in hand after leaving Montpelier early and took advantage of that to finally make it to Roseland Apizza. 

The first things that stood out about the restaurant, which also dates back to the 1930s, were its exterior and setting. It appears to be in what may have been a large house at some point and is in or at least bordering a residential neighborhood.

While they have a selection of pasta and meat entrées on their menu, I’ve long associated Roseland with pizza and seafood and ordered a medium – 14” – plain pie to share along with one of my favorite appetizers – clams casino. My wife requested a house salad and the eggplant rollatini appetizer.

The server asked if we were okay with garlic on the pizza and we, of course, answered in the affirmative. That must be a default pizza option there.

A loaf of crusty and soft Italian bread was dropped off by our server along with my Foxon Park root beer to start our meal. 

The house salad included Italian salami and provolone cheese. My wife passed the salami along to me. It went well on a piece of bread.

Next to come out were the clams casino and eggplant rollatini. The latter was shockingly large for an appetizer. It had the appearance of a healthy main course portion of lasagna. She managed to eat about half and took the rest back to our room.

I’ve written about my love for clams casino and the best version of it that I’ve tried in an earlier post. But the order that I was served at Roseland at least gave those from Anthony’s a run for their money.

Each one included a large and thick piece of bacon, the breading was kept to a reasonable amount and there was a delicious butter sauce at the bottom of the serving dish that sent what was already a very good rendition of clams casino into the stratosphere when spooned on top of each clam. 

The arrival of the pizza was one of those memorable “Wow” roadfood moments. It looked and smelled spectacular, and again, as at Sally’s, it also had the requisite char all the way around the pie’s outer rim.

The smell – and wonderful taste that followed – was likely the result of a combination of the Pecorino Romano cheese that is included on Roseland’s pizzas along with mozzarella and the ample garlic that was on the pie. 

As much as I enjoyed the pizza at Sally’s the previous night, this was unquestionably the best pie I had during the trip.

There was a bit more cheese than what I’m used to when eating pizza around New Haven, but it was so good both in terms of flavor and texture that I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

While it wasn’t quite as pronounced as at Sally’s, the slices were softer toward the center and there was some floppage. But it was such a great pizza in every other respect, including a spectacular undercarriage, that it feels wrong to complain about something that isn’t taste related. 

Between the classic look of the place and the great pizza and clams casino, I would go so far as to say our meal at Roseland was one of the more memorable roadfood experiences I’ve had over the years.

We’re going to have to go back there. I can’t imagine never eating that pizza again. 

The next morning was Friday and it was time to head back to our home in the Philly area. But we had one more breakfast stop to make along the way, and once again, it was a place I’ve known about and have wanted to visit for many years.

The Laurel Diner of Southbury, Connecticut, opened in 1949 and is no more than a couple blocks down the road from where we started the dining portion of this trip – Denmo’s. 

We had never been able to make it there because they are only open through the lunch hour, and we never seem to be able to get up to southern Connecticut that early in the day. But on this occasion, it was much more manageable as we only had about an hour-long ride from our hotel to Southbury.

As was the case with the Miss Worcester Diner in part two, the Laurel is tiny and very classic looking. 

They’ve got a large breakfast and lunch menu and also have specials written in various colors all over their walls. But their claim to fame is their house-made corned beef hash. 

My wife and I clearly each march to our own tune when it comes to ordering food. She opted for avocado toast with scrambled eggs and potatoes, while I went for a short stack of French toast and a healthy-sized side portion of corned beef hash.

As I was hoping, the French toast was served with real maple syrup, which I also drizzled onto my hash. The mixture of salt and sweet was fantastic.

The hash itself had the preferred corned beef to potatoes ratio – that being mostly corned beef.

It’s been our custom to make a final ice cream stop before leaving Connecticut for home, but the nor’easter that hit the east coast that weekend was on its way and we wanted to make sure we were off the road before it arrived. There will be more New England trips and plenty of ice cream eaten during them.

That’s it for this year’s major roadfood trip. I’ll likely have another multi-part trip report around this time next year. We’ve yet to decide where we’ll be going, but there are a couple leading contenders. I look forward to discussing that further with my wife and getting started on the food research.

In the meantime, I’ll be back next week with a post on an eatery in the Philly region.

Part One

Part Two