Colony Grill is unique, which is quite a feat when you have nine locations along the Eastern Seaboard. I can’t think of another restaurant, chain or otherwise, that’s culturally one thing (Irish) yet culinarily another (Italian); while serving just one kind of food (pizza, all personal-sized); while formatting that food into “our own genre,” as a server at Colony’s northernmost location, in Milford, put it, remarking on a style defined in part by a thin, uniquely dense crust some have described as “cracker-like.”
That description was actually resisted by the first pizza I tried, a variation of Colony’s signature “hot oil bar pie.” Topped with the hot (serrano pepper-infused) oil, of course, as well as onions, mushrooms and non-dairy cheese ($11.95 base plus $1.95 apiece for the toppings plus $2.95 to sub in the specialty cheese), the crust was pleasingly chewy, not cracker-crunchy, like the bottom of a brownie that spent just the right amount of extra time in the oven. The heat from the oil never overwhelmed, though a few bites where an actual pepper (or “stinger”) had landed like unexploded ordinance came close. Instead, the measured heat lingered pleasantly, growing slowly in the background when I ate quickly enough to let it accumulate. The mushrooms leant earthiness, while the onions brought sweetness and the lightest touch of bitterness.
My next order, the Colony Salad Pizza ($14.95), was undeniably defined by its crust, given that that was the only pizza-like thing about it. And this pie’s crust was pretty cracker-like, perhaps because there was no tomato sauce to be absorbed during cooking. The salad, a simple garden blend of spring mix, tomato, cucumber and carrot tossed in balsamic vinaigrette, was simply plunked right on top of the crispy dough, which I’ll admit had me skeptical. But it worked surprisingly well. The overall impression was light and refreshing, with just enough balsamic (though I would’ve enjoyed more) to keep things interesting. Pieces of lettuce went flying with almost every bite, even as others hung on to the edges of my mouth like Tom Cruise clinging to a jet.
Along the way I tried a couple of drinks off of Colony Grill’s brand-new (and, I was told, first-ever) formal cocktail menu, reportedly launched just this month. First up was the Stinger-ita ($12), a marg finished with the same hot oil that dresses the signature pizza. As you’d expect, drinking from the salty half of the rim cut the margarita’s sweetness, while, from either side of the glass, the pepper oil sizzled during and after each sip. Salt and heat aside, the drink was smooth sailing—maybe a little too smooth. The traditional lime and tequila notes were there, but I sometimes had to dig beneath the sugar to find them.
Next up was a mocktail: the Creamsicle Spark ($8). I’m a sucker for the classic creamsicle profile, in this case attempted with orange juice, cream of coconut and carbonated, caffeinated Celsius Sparkling Orange finished with a splash of club soda. In the end I tasted less cream and more spark, thanks to a recipe that doubles up on bubbles, downplays sugar and goes easy on the coconut. It was an adult balance, aged up even without alcohol from the rich and sweet Orange Juliuses (basically just OJ blended with a vanilla milkshake) I used to beg my parents to buy me whenever we went to the mall. But maybe it was that memory that had me wanting something creamier and sweeter.
Both drinks were served in Irish pub-style beer mugs, surely nodding to Colony Grill’s origins as an Irish tavern opened in 1935 in Stamford. A four-leaf clover in the logo, stuck right between the words “Colony” and “Grill,” is more forthright about the chain’s roots—and yet, as the restaurant on its website playfully acknowledges, more confusing in light of the pizza-only menu. That menu reportedly has its own roots in a series of Italian and Eastern European chefs Colony Grill had once hired, who introduced an item, albeit in a custom format, so popular it would gradually displace all other dishes the restaurant had once offered.
Pizza: At Colony Grill, it’s what’s for dinner. And lunch. And—since there’s a Breakfast Pizza option—breakfast for dinner or lunch.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
