My Favorite Dish: Good Old Days Pizzeria & Cocktail Den’s French Onion Square

From Norwalk, depending on the time of day, getting to Newtown can be an excruciating trip.

The time it takes to go a few exits north on the Merritt, then onto the backroads from Westport to Fairfield and through Easton, inevitably getting stuck behind someone who’s doing 10 miles under the already low speed limits, is only worth suffering for if Good Old Days Pizza is my destination.

In fact, GODs, is the ONLY place in Newtown I’ll do that for, and I have, since they opened.

I’m not even ashamed to admit that when I’m anywhere in the vicinity of GODs for something else, I have, at least three separate times, waited over an hour (one time two hours) in the parking lot for them to open.

(In Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg voice)

Just so I could have YOU.

If your first slice grab isn’t a corner, are you even a professional?

If you know anything about Good Old Days, they do two types of pizza; thin and crispy round pies and thick, Detroit style pan pizza.

Now, look, there’s no wrong pizza choice here. There’s not even a wrong choice on their whole menu. I’ve gluttoned it up at their bar plenty of times and crushed one of each style, appropriately washing slices down with their always stellar cocktails, of course.

But there’s one I have to get every time. I either have it there or I get it to-go. I just can’t get YOU out of my mind, French Onion Square.

A day one pizza at GODs, created by then co-owner and founder Matt Stanczak, the French Onion, is still, to this day, a popular order amongst the droves that frequent the Pizzeria & Cocktail Den, according to owner, Clark Neugold, and pizza chef, Brendan Murray.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Good Old Days Pizza (@goodolddayspizza)

“It rivals the Bikini Bod (mozzarella, basil, rosemary, sesame seed crust, ricotta, hot honey) for most popular square,” Murray says. “If we tried to take off the French Onion, there’d be riots for sure.”

Frenchy (that’s what I’ll call her), is a seemingly simply topped pizza; mozzarella and gruyere, caramelized onions, and parsley. But what always gets me, and keeps me thinking about it, even though it’s a sauceless pie, are those soupy, deeply flavorful dollops of onions.

I had to ask them, are they actually making full-on pots of French onion soup to get the onions the way they do?

“They’re just really nice caramelized onions,” Neugold says. “We have giant rondeaus that take up four entire burners. We cook them for like 2-3, sometimes four hours.”

“We season them when they’re done,” Murray says. “They’re deglazed in red wine and Worcestershire for that deep flavor. The pan is literally clean when they’re done. We don’t even strain them. If there’s a little jus leftover, we throw it on top of the pizza along with the onions.”

What else gets me about Frenchy and all the squares every single time if the consistency of GOD’s Detroit dough. Thick, but light, and yeasty, though, not overwhelmingly so, thanks to fermentation.

“It’s essentially the same dough that Matt did,” Neugold says. “The only things we change is the weight on the yeast depending on the weather and humidity. It gets adjusted up or down accordingly.”

Once it’s made, the dough sits out at room temperature for an hour, then it goes into the walk in for a cold fermentation for at least 48 hours, sometimes 72 or more.

If the thiccc squares aren’t your preferred style, you can get a thin version of the French Onion. Just ask! And when GODs it on the road with their mobile wood fired Fiero Forni, they frequently get requests for either a classic French Onion or the French Onion with bacon. Now you know.

Long before service, it’s divvyed up, weighed, and proofed in the square Detroit Style Pizza Pans, by GOD’s resident dough maker, Erin, who Murray says is the “backbone of this place.”

“She cuts the squares about 5-6 hours before service,” Murray continues. “That secondary ferment gives us that super, super light, airy dough.”

Order up and each square gets fired in a PizzaMaster at 550 degrees for exactly 14 minutes, coming out with those crispy cheese edges.

As for the French Onion, the shaved gruyere goes on after the bake, giving it more moisture and that funky-nutty bite.

Now, you can go with the regular version of a French Onion or you can turn it up the way regulars do.

My actual order: French Onion square, add bacon for that salty, fatty contrast to those sweet and sour onions, and a side of homemade ranch for dipping.

“That’s a pro-order here,” Neugold says. “That and when people add sausage to the Bikini Bod. That’s how we know you’ve been around a while.”

19 Main Street, Newtown
203.491.2920, goodolddayspizza.com