Red Plates + Charred Pies
Brakes release, jostling riders in a car beginning its steady roll. The terrain shifts from gleaming clustered highrises to pockets of vinyl-sided homes to marshland studded with lush forests. Circulating tides alter the Connecticut coast from rippling blue channels to a silty quilt patchworked with undulating seagrass. An exchange with a conductor and the second stop on the Shoreline East gets you to Guilford.
Steps away from the station, a walled estate borders the road into town and a fortress-like stone home anchors its center. The Henry Whitfield House (or at least part of it) predates the state’s charter, constructed in 1639, a year after the New Haven Colony was formed. This building has served multiple purposes over centuries: a private home to Minister Whitfield’s family, a farm, a museum since 1899.
Local colonial history is reconstructed inside through dioramas and rooms interspersed with reproductions as well as period objects purchased for or donated to this collection. A white oak chair—once owned by English emigrant William Leete—is as rigid as Puritan doctrine, while a collection of earthenware illuminates the space between hearths. Fiery orange chargers glow in the dim interior, embellished with creamy calligraphic slip designs recalling the output of a seismograph. Pock marks assert their age.
Across the town green, an intense heat roils in a slate stove, blistering dough and cheese into similar patterns. Neapolitan-inspired pizzas at Bufalina are formed like clay ceramics; one seasonal special is decorated with transparent ribbons of summer squash and caramelized red onions, stippled with milky stracchino. Wood-fired, the aroma and flavor of each ingredient intensifies: a crusty edge, silken vegetables, and pools of melted cheese balance all the sweetness and salinity of a summer’s end.
Like Whitfield before them, married owners Melissa Pellegrino and Matt Scialabba have brought their life abroad to Guilford—in their case, four years working in agriturismi throughout Italy. They share a similar entrepreneurial spirit and have transformed a small part of town from New England to Mezzogiorno.
9/26/2019