Petits Plats Opens Brick Oven Pizzeria in Former To-Go Space

Frederic Darricarrere, a man so French that his accent should wear a beret, has just opened a new pizzeria in the old Petits Plats to Go space below his respected Woodley Park restaurant. The spot is called Pizze, and it has promises to be a contender in the area's ongoing pizza war. Darricarrere consulted with Edan MacQuaid, former piemaker at 2Amys and RedRocks Fire Brick Pizzeria, to ensure that he wasn't turning out some overly Frenchified product.

"It was a dream of mine to do pizza," Darricarrere tells me in a phone chat.

A dream?

The Frenchman laughs, an acknowledgment of the years of deep-seated tensions between the French and Italian cooking communities. "Well, I had it in my mind for years," the owner says about his pie ambitions.

Darricarrere has installed a Wood Stone wood-and-gas oven in the basement space, and he's already turning out thin, Neapolitan-style pies that no doubt carry the MacQuaid stamp of approval. "I would never have done this without him," the owner says.

The owner fully admits that the poor economy was part of the reason he adopted an Italian accent. He expects that his fellow countrymen might not like the idea. "The only ones who are going to criticize me are the French," Darricarrere says. "But I don't care."