The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘A chill and comfortable environment’
Gioia rooftop is a welcome ‘something new’ to New Haven’s historic Wooster Street
Wooster Square, thankfully, will never be Times Square. Despite a documentary featuring Henry Winkler and Lyle Lovett (”Pizza, A Love Story”), Sally’s and Pepe’s becoming national pizza chains, and plates reading Illinois and Quebec in the parking spaces along Wooster Street, there’s simply not enough room for that to happen.
And Disney, so far, has not bought any real estate in the Italian neighborhood.
The neighbors are famous, and rightfully so. The tourists and locals have come for good reason, and the streets are busy with them. The old neighborhood has attracted new attention, and somewhere in the middle of this is the new rooftop at Gioia: the space between.
Gioia opened at 150 Wooster St. in late 2023 in the space which was formally Tony & Lucille’s. Partners Tim Cabral (Ordinary) and Avi Szapiro (Roìa) envisioned a rooftop from the start, which became it’s own concept upon opening this June. A smaller kitchen behind Gioia’s fire-powered main kitchen creates what Cabral calls “the magic for the rooftop menu,” and beverage director Michela Zurstadt has had a lot of fun playing with classic categories like Spritz and Tiki. I’m there the night before opening at a corner of a bar and she’s looking to get creative.
“Stirred,” I say. “Maybe tequila.” She returns with a white, mezcal Negroni like she’s read my mind.
I want to try everything on the new menu, and the first to arrive on house plateware from Deruta Ceramico Tradizionale is a dish of prosciutto-draped cantaloupe, each topped with a dot of Calabrian chili which sends endorphin-coated lightning bolts from my tongue to my scalp where they end as beads of sweat.
The drink is strong: smokey/bitter/citrus-sweet. The bites are all fresh fruit, salt, and heat. I’m at a marble bar topped with rows of grass and vines between the sidewalk and the sky. Everything is in balance.
What else can I try? How about a crudo with little chunks of tartarestyle steak, pickled radish, and garlic scapes on a risotto cracker? Done.
Neighboring tables get Pachink Pachoonk — a nod to the grandmothers of Gioia’s sous chef — with whipped robiola cheese, mortadella and castelvetrano olives, and smoked eggplant with those Calabrian
“Our goal was to help our guests feel, even if just for a little bit, like they are on vacation.”
Tim Cabral
chilis, served with sourdough bread.
The second full plate arrives: a salad made from chicories like red Treviso radicchio, topped with curls of creamy, pungent ricotta salata and anchovy filets, tossed with wedges of citrus. The bitter, spicy vegetables and the salt-laden umami bomb of the filets make a clover leaf of flavor with the juicy-sweet citrus. I sample some bucatini with lemon, garlic, and mint, get a few more greens in the form of grilled asparagus with pean shoots and black garlic aoili, but I keep thinking back to the salad, wondering if that’s how a Roman senator would’ve eaten.
Gioia — the main Gioia downstairs — with its market of Italian
ingredients, full restaurant, and Sicilian-style “Wooster Square” pies also has a gelateria, with walk-up access around the corner on Brown Street. At the night’s end, I can’t leave without some of it, in the form of almond gelato with cherries on powdered-sugar dusted brioche. I imagine you won’t either after reading that sentence.
“We are going to keep the rooftop a chill and comfortable environment,” Cabral tells me later. The total seating will be right around 80, using the tables, bar, and rails. The “waiting room” will be covered picnic tables just downstairs, with their own dedicated Aperol bar.
“Our goal was to help our guests feel, even if just for a little bit, like they are on vacation.”
Somewhere between the harbor and downtown, between the Wooster Street known nationwide and something new, I think they’ve found it.
Food writer James Gribbon shares his food experiences and opinions. He is a Connecticut native, CRAzies Awards panelist and Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists award-winning writer with over a dozen years’ experience covering the state for Connecticut Magazine, CTBites and Fodor’s Travel.