By Charlie Pogacar
In 1985, when Salvatore Scotto opened Aniello Pizza & Italian Restaurant in East Haven, Connecticut, he had a simple but clear vision. He wanted to bring together “the excellence of the cuisine he’d mastered in Italy and Connecticut” and offer it in a warm neighborhood atmosphere. Nearly four decades later, his son, Tony Scotto, is still carrying that torch alongside other family members and business partners, including co-owners Lorenzo Scotto and Mike Lesoto.
“I grew up in the business,” Tony Scotto told PMQ Pizza. “We moved to America in ’85, and as a kid I’d go over there and make boxes. I learned how to make pizza, I learned how to cook. All through school, I helped.”
But his path wasn’t a straight line back to the family restaurant. After high school, Tony enlisted in the Air Force and spent four years working in avionics at Pope Air Force Base inside Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. As his time in the service was winding down, Tony learned that his uncles—his father’s partners—were thinking about retiring.
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“I said, ‘Before I re-enlist, are you thinking you want to sell?’” he said. “They said yes.” Tony got out of the Air Force in November 2001—fortitious timing, as his regiment was about to be deployed—and he officially closed on the restaurant the following June. Before the elder Scotto generation handed him the keys, though, he was put through what amounted to a six-month apprenticeship.
“We did two months with my uncle in the kitchen,” Scotto said. “Then two months with my father and my other uncle, who taught us everything about the pizza. And then two months with the bookkeeper learning the background of the business. All the stuff you never think about—payroll, forms for the state. It’s probably the most important part of running a successful business.”
New York in New Haven County
Aniello’s has always been a New York–style shop—round pies and thick, airy Sicilians baked lighter than the coal-fired New Haven pizzas just across the bridge. “We’re definitely not New Haven style,” Scotto said. “We don’t over-char the pizza. We were taught not to make them too dark.”
But customer tastes shift, and Scotto has learned to adapt gradually over the years. “Everybody’s looking for a darker bake now. I don’t know if it’s a fad or if it’s here to stay,” he said. “So we just made little tweaks.”
Some of these changes affect every pizza, like using a part-skim mozzarella blend to be able to cook pizzas a bit longer without burning the cheese. They added a bit more oil to the dough to make pies crispier—and, if a customer wants it darker, they’ll move the pizza off the hot spot of the oven to give it an instant crisp.
What hasn’t changed is baked-to-order customization—Aniello’s guests know exactly how they want their pies. “On a Friday night, we’ll have like 20 pizzas baked light and forty well-done,” Scotto said. “We’ve had people coming every week for years, so I can tell what you’re gonna order before you even open your mouth.”
His own go-to is simple: “A Margherita pizza—crushed plum tomatoes, fresh mozzarella,” Scotto said. “A true Margherita, not the white pie with fresh sliced tomatoes that some places call a Margherita.”
A Full Menu
Aniello’s isn’t just a pizza shop—it’s a full Italian restaurant. “We actually have more employees in the kitchen than we do in the pizza area,” Scotto noted. Chicken and veal Parmigiana remain top sellers, along with seafood dishes like linguine and clams.
On the pizza side, the Sicilian is having a moment. “Our Sicilian pie has really taken off,” he said. “It takes so much time—you have to let the dough proof multiple times, par-bake it, store it right and make sure you sell it so you’re not throwing it away. But anybody with ability can make a Sicilian if you respect the process. I’m shocked more places don’t do it. I’m glad they don’t—it gives us some separation.”
Another seasonal favorite is Aniello’s Native Tomato Pie, made only when local tomatoes are perfect. “It usually comes out at the end of August,” Scotto said. “People start asking for it early. When you cut into a ripe local tomato, you know it right away—[the aroma] hits you in the face.”
Adapt or Die
The last few years have forced nearly every operator to rethink their business, and Aniello’s was no exception. “COVID wasn’t the end of the world for us,” Scotto said. “We just transformed our business from dine-in to takeout.” Unlike many older restaurants in the area, Aniello’s offered its full menu to-go.
Lately, the restaurant has leaned into technology and modernization: joining Grubhub, rolling out online ordering, refreshing the website and—after resisting it for years—launching an Instagram account. “I went on Instagram two weeks ago,” he said. “I’m shocked how many views we’ve had. Sixteen thousand in a week—just showing how we make gnocchi, how we make the Grandma pie and our homemade desserts, things like that.”
A Legacy That Lives On
After 41 years, Aniello’s is more than a restaurant: It’s a community anchor, still guided by the same principles Scotto’s father brought from Italy. “I’m really proud of the restaurant,” he said. “Proud to run it and be part of it. It’s amazing how long it’s been here. People know it. I’m proud of that.”
And his father, now 82, still follows along—even if the modern updates make him laugh. “I’ll show him an Instagram post, and he says, ‘I don’t know—do what you gotta do,’” Scotto said. “But I always run things by him.”
The seasoned second-generation operator hopes, one day, the next generation of Scottos wants to carry Aniello’s forward. For now, he and his partners aren’t interested in selling. That’s partially because it would be too difficult to train a newcomer how to run Aniello’s and all of the personalization the shop offers its loyal customers.
And that is the crux of what Aniello’s does so effectively: It does right by the customers who’ve supported it for more than four decades. “We listen to what people want,” he said. “If it’s not on the menu and we have the ingredients, we’ll make it. That’s just who we are.”
Charlie Pogacar is PMQ’s senior editor.
