East Haven sits next door to the most famous pizza city in America. Aniello Pizza & Italian Restaurant on Hemingway Avenue has spent four decades doing it a different way, and its regulars like it like that.
The family-run restaurant at 346 Hemingway Ave. bakes New York-style round pies and thick, airy Sicilians, with a full Italian kitchen behind them. “We’re definitely not New Haven style,” co-owner Tony Scotto told PMQ Pizza Magazine in a November 2025 profile. “We don’t over-char the pizza.”
A father’s vision from Italy
Salvatore Scotto opened the restaurant in 1985, according to PMQ. His goal, the magazine reported, was to bring together “the excellence of the cuisine he’d mastered in Italy and Connecticut” in a warm neighborhood setting. Today the restaurant’s Instagram handle still carries the year: @aniellos1985.
His son, Tony, grew up in the business. “We moved to America in ’85, and as a kid I’d go over there and make boxes,” Scotto told PMQ. “I learned how to make pizza, I learned how to cook. All through school, I helped.”
From the Air Force back to the oven
Scotto’s road back to Hemingway Avenue was not a straight line. After high school, he enlisted in the Air Force and spent four years working in avionics at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina, PMQ reported.
As his service was winding down, he learned that his uncles, who were his father’s partners, were thinking about retiring. “I said, ‘Before I re-enlist, are you thinking you want to sell?'” he told the magazine. “They said yes.”
Scotto left the Air Force in November 2001 and closed on the restaurant the following June, according to PMQ. First came a six-month apprenticeship: two months in the kitchen with an uncle, two months on pizza with his father and another uncle, and two months with the bookkeeper. “All the stuff you never think about, payroll, forms for the state,” he said. “It’s probably the most important part of running a successful business.”
Today he runs Aniello’s with family members and partners, including co-owner Lorenzo Scotto, PMQ reported. His father still follows along. “I’ll show him an Instagram post, and he says, ‘I don’t know, do what you gotta do,'” Scotto told the magazine. “But I always run things by him.”
Pizza the way you like it
What sets Aniello’s apart, by Scotto’s account, is that customers get their pie exactly how they want it. “On a Friday night, we’ll have like 20 pizzas baked light and forty well-done,” he told PMQ. “We’ve had people coming every week for years, so I can tell what you’re gonna order before you even open your mouth.”
Tastes have shifted toward a darker bake, he said, so the kitchen made small changes. It switched to a part-skim mozzarella blend so pies can bake longer without burning the cheese, and added a little more oil to the dough for crispness, according to PMQ.
And if something isn’t on the menu? “If it’s not on the menu and we have the ingredients, we’ll make it,” Scotto said. “That’s just who we are.”
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More than a pizza shop
Aniello’s is a full Italian restaurant. “We actually have more employees in the kitchen than we do in the pizza area,” Scotto told PMQ. He said chicken and veal Parmigiana remain top sellers, along with seafood dishes like linguine and clams.
When COVID hit, the restaurant shifted to takeout and kept its full menu available to go, Scotto told the magazine. More recently it added online ordering and Grubhub, refreshed its website, and, after years of resisting, joined Instagram. In the first week, he said, its videos drew about 16,000 views, showing how the kitchen makes gnocchi, the Grandma pie and its homemade desserts.
The restaurant also caters, offering its menu items in trays for pickup, according to its website.
What locals say
The clearest sign of what regulars think is how often they come back. Scotto told PMQ that many customers have come every week for years. “People know it,” he said of the restaurant. “I’m proud of that.”
What to order
Here’s where to start, based on what the owner and the restaurant’s own photos point to.
The Sicilian
“Our Sicilian pie has really taken off,” Scotto told PMQ. He said the dough has to proof multiple times and be par-baked, which takes time. It’s now sold by the slice, too, according to the restaurant’s Instagram.
A round pie
Scotto’s own go-to is a true Margherita, with crushed plum tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, he told PMQ. Order yours light or well-done. This one, from the restaurant’s Instagram, is topped with prosciutto and shaved cheese.
Linguine and clams
Seafood pastas are among the restaurant’s top sellers, Scotto said. This plate comes with clams in the shell over linguine in red sauce.
A seafood platter
For a bigger appetite, the kitchen’s photos show mussels, clams and shrimp in a light broth.
Seared tuna salad
Lighter but still filling, this salad tops greens and tomatoes with slices of seared tuna.
Grilled shrimp salad
From the restaurant’s specials, grilled shrimp over greens with feta and olives.
Watch for the Native Tomato Pie in late summer. Scotto told PMQ it’s made only when local tomatoes are at their best, usually starting at the end of August.
If you go
- Where: 346 Hemingway Ave., East Haven
- Phone: 203-467-5694
- Hours, per the restaurant’s website: Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 8 p.m. The site lists no Monday hours. Call ahead to confirm.
- Also offered: Takeout, catering trays and online ordering
- Online: aniellos.com
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