I was on a long trip to the east coast recently (mainly New England) and was able to hit five pizzerias around New Haven. In total I went to 19 pizzerias on the trip (three of them twice) plus another 29 on my other trip in September. I guess I was making up for lost time. I'm already planning another trip for next year. I'm not going to comment on most of these unless you ask me to in the comments and yes I still love pizza and I never got tired of it.
The pizzas I had on this trip were:
Barnaby's (Mishawaka, IN) (not planned!)
DeFazio's (Troy, NY)
Nove (Saratoga Springs, NY)
Rosie's (Braintree, MA)
George's (Provincetown, MA)
Spiritus Pizza (Provincetown, MA)
Cape Cod Cafe (multiple locations, MA - had a couple frozen bar pizzas)
Zuppardi's Apizza (West Haven, CT)
Roseland Apizza (Derby, CT)
Frank Pepe Pizzeria (New Haven, CT)
Sally's Apizza (New Haven, CT)
O'Briens (Newport, RI)
DePetrillo's Pizza and Bakery (East Providence, RI)
Frank Pepe Pizzeria (Warwick, RI)
West Falmouth Market (West Falmouth, MA)
Jack's Restaurant (Falmouth, MA)
Modern Apizza (New Haven, CT)
il Canale (Washington D.C.)
Antonino's Original Pizza (Windsor, ON)
Joe's NYC Pizza (Ann Arbor, MI)
All of the New Haven area pizzerias lived up to the hype. I did not do the clam pizza as I don't care much for seafood. The best two were Sally's and Zuppardi's with Frank Pepe and Modern close behind. Roseland was great too but a little too salty on the cheese after a while. Zuppardi's has bulk fennel sausage that I would put up against the best I ever had anywhere. Sally's was amazing with it's crisp all the way through along with their sauce. Their pizza is for sauce lovers. If you prefer cheese then you'll like Frank Pepe more. But at the end of the day you can't go wrong. The crust on all of them was amazing. Three of them have coal ovens, one is brick and Zuppardi's is gas but the dough on all of them is so good with a combo of crisp and chew. Zuppardi's was unique in that they do sausage like we do - the others do it sliced from a link and I did have the sausage at Pepe once and it tasted really good, I don't care for the texture so I didn't order it elsewhere. I had Zuppardi's and Sally's twice. I also had Pepe in Rhode Island and it was as good as the original on Wooster St. I do regret not getting a tomato pie at any of them (shame on me). I've had New Haven style apizza in Michigan many times at the three Tomatoes Apizza locations near Detroit owned by people from New Haven. Two of the three have coal ovens. They are very good but not as good as the real deal.
I had Joe's in New York at their original location on Carmine St in September so for the last stop I got a full fresh mozzarella pie at the newer location on the Michigan campus. I had tried their classic slice and a fresh mozz slice at the original and actually preferred the fresh mozz with it's low-moisture low mozzarella that a lot of New York places have. It was excellent in Ann Arbor but not quite as good by comparison to the New Haven pizzas which was surprising looking back. The only pizza I wanted to try but I couldn't make it this time was Colony Grill (original in Stamford).
The bottom line: It doesn't matter if you've had Piece a hundred times. Until you have the pizzerias in New Haven, you really haven't had that style at it's best. Same goes for New York, New Jersey, Detroit and Chicago. You have to go to the source. New Haven pizza is awesome.