Lobster, Shrimp, and Scallop Ponsinella at Roseland Apizza

High Roller Derby
Lobster, Shrimp, and Scallop Ponsinella at Roseland Apizza, Derby
November 2024

While this isn’t the Shrimp Oreganato Pizza that Roadfood included on the list I’ve been eating my way through, it’s close enough. If you happened on this page from that list, deal with it.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. And some of those times, it’s gonna cost ya.

This was one of those times.

Roseland Apizza is one of those periphery “New Haven” pizza spots that are just as good as the Big Three, but aren’t one of the Big Three. (The Big Three being, of course, Sally’s, Pepe’s, and Modern.) Those generally accepted now as Big Three Adjacent are Little Rendezvous in Meriden, Zuppardi’s in West Haven, and Roseland in Derby. I sometimes see BAR in New Haven sneak in, but they’re more adjacent to the Adjacent Three.

Roseland certainly has the vibe. Old building and a business that has been doing their thing just as long as Pepe’s and Sally’s. Hand written notes about “cash only tips” as you enter. Bathrooms that are way too small. The Foxon Park soda cooler jammed into a storage area just because. Perfect thin crust simple pies that include a fresh tomato variety, a plain variety, and of course a fresh-shucked white clam pie.

Things that are different at Roseland: the servers are pleasant and you get a basket of fresh baked bread before your meal. It makes zero sense for people just having pizza, but you get it anyway and it’s really, really good bread. So you eat it… right before eating more pure carbs. And you don’t care.

Another thing they do differently here is serve a full Italian menu. But we’re not here for that. Damian and I were here for the over-the-top, totally ridiculous, stupidly expensive Ponsinella Pie. I have no idea what “ponsinella” is supposed to translate to in English, but it doesn’t matter.

This is the most expensive pizza in the state (and surely beyond), but it’s easy to understand why. It comes loaded with lobster, shrimp, and scallops. The shrimp are large, the scallops are huge, and the lobster is tail meat. A bunch of garlic and oregano and butter is baked into this whole thing. It is glorious.

A quick note on the Roseland website (in 2025): As great as the pizza here is, the website is that terrible. Page after page of AI vomit. Just words for the sake of having words. There’s no menu either, and there are feature pictures like this:

If you don’t want to go all-in on the Ponsinella, Roseland offers a bunch of different seafood pizzas. The classic New Haven clam pie of course, but also several different shrimp versions, like Shrimp Oreganato, Shrimp Casino, Shrimp Prosciutto and others. These are all “market price.”

The market price in November 2024 for the Daddy of them all?

One-hundred dollars. A c-note. Ol’ Ben Franklin.

Yeah, that’s nuts but there really is a massive amount of seafood that sits atop its crust: a pound of lobster meat, another pound of large shrimp and six to eight sea scallops.

And it’s absolutely delicious. Lemon, parsley, garlic, buttery breadrumbs (from that same wonderful bread basket bread), and a thicket crust to support the weight. There’s no way a normal person can eat this whole thing in one sitting – even though it, and all the specialty seafood pizzas only come in medium.

I should note that the regular cheese pizza was awesome and worthy of putting Roseland in the “Adjacent Three.”

Look, this pizza isn’t for everyone, and not everyone will feel okay spending a hundred bucks on a pizza. We all choose what to splurge on, and I chose this – and I didn’t regret it.

Roseland Apizza
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