The pie-maker at Seventh Hill Pizza is named “Anthony,” an employee tells me at the pizzeria on Capitol Hill. Try as I might to secure his surname, I can’t get the job done because no one, the following day, will pick up the damn phone at the place. No matter. Anthony is a show all by himself. He has style to burn. Every move he makes with the raw dough — flipping, spinning, stretching, securing the round on his peel — has more flair than your average NFL end-zone celebration.

Read More “Dish of the Week: The Navy Yard at Seventh Hill Pizza” »

How can you go to 2Amys and resist this pie? Meliakristin explains.

Go to 2Amys for something other than pizza? That seems an act bordering on sacrilege, at least to this critic who still thinks Peter Pastan is turning out the best pies in town.

But Restaurant Rater meliakristin’s mind turns to other delicacies when visiting the pizzeria. Here’s what she writes:

Read More “Vox Populi: Restaurant Rater meliakristin on 2Amys” »

Given the amount of pizza that this area now produces, both high and low end, Y&H sort of feels like these two schlubs in this rather surreal Bite and Chew Montage vid.

The seriously creamy buffalo mozz at Pizze

Restaurants constantly evolve, which is why I try to revisit as many as possible in between checking out the new ones that come along. I particularly try to revisit the places that I have previously panned, like the trio of pizzerias below.

To be fair here, I didn’t really pan any of them —  save, perhaps, RedRocks in Columbia Heights. I think it would be more accurate to say that I expressed reservations about Pizze in Woodley Park and Pizzeria Paradiso near Dupont Circle.

So let me start with the best of the re-evals:

Read More “Y&H Takes a Second Slice at a Few Local Pizzerias” »

Bibiana Osteria and Enoteca, the latest entrant in the area’s escalating Italian Restaurant Wars, will indeed serve pizza, just like a number of other combatants in this wide-scale skirmish, including Potenza, Ristorante Posto, and Kora. But owner Ashok Bajaj doesn’t want pies to define his new place at 1100 New York Ave. NW, which will have its soft opening on Monday, Sept. 7.

Y&H spoke with Bajaj yesterday, and he told me that chef Nicholas Stefanelli’s offerings will be purely regional Italian, none of this Italian-American silliness that creeps into some menus around town. The pastas, the owner added, would be made in-house, with prices ranging from around $14 to $20. Pizza will also be available, he said, but only at lunch and only at the lounge during dinner service.

So why downplay the pie?

Read More “Owner: Bibiana Osteria Will NOT be a Pizza Joint” »

French Non-Resistance: Petits Plats goes Italian with Pizze.

It’s a sign of the times that local restaurateurs continue to place their trust in the good ol’ Italian pie. Cheaper to produce than many other dishes — and one with an expansive, built-in fan base — pizza has become the low-risk option for a number of new and/or established restaurateurs as they ride out the recession.

Two of the District’s newer Italian operations, Ristorante Posto and Potenza, made sure to include pizza ovens in their build-outs.  Restaurateur Ashok Bajaj has installed one, too, in his forthcoming Bibiana Osteria-Enoteca on New York Avenue NW. Vapiano continues its colonization of the D.C. market with its fast-casual pies, and the Fairfax-based Paisano’s plans to roll out 10 more ‘za outlets by the end of next year. Hell, even a Frenchman decided to bite the bullet and open a pizza take-out.

Now, two more pizzerias look to join the ever-expanding ranks.

Read More “Restaurateurs Keep Rolling Out the Pizza Joints” »

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

From the moment I first walked into Pete’s, I thought I had good grasp of its operating ethos—a sort of sloppy, garlic-breathed hug of New Haven, Italian-American traditions, with just enough refinement to appease the magazine-toting foodies. But with each subsequent visit to the Columbia Heights pizzeria, I realize just how wrong my initial impression was. I’ve come to see that Pete’s is actually a cool urban outpost dedicated to classic Italian/Mediterranean ways. Perhaps it has always been thus, and I was just bamboozled by the “Apizza” in Pete’s name. Whatever the concept, though, this operation turns out raised, crispy crusts with a slightly airy, slightly chewy crumb, which strike me as New Haven in style, even without the coal ovens. Pete’s may be more refined than its Connecticut cousins, but the pie parlor still aims for an honest homemade simplicity, which in our processed age has become a strange signifier of quality and class. I have no doubt that Pete’s has 2Amys in its sights.

 Pete’s Apizza, 1400 Irving St. NW, (202) 332-7383

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Peter Pastan not only runs 2Amys, the District’s best pizzeria, but he also oversees what is, to my mind, the most underrated dining room in town. Perhaps that’s a hard argument to make, given the generally high marks that Obelisk earns from the city’s professional eaters, but I believe Pastan’s name should rank right up there with D.C.’s signature chefs, whether Michel Richard or Frank Ruta. The thing that prevents Pastan from entering the upper echelon is the critical world’s bias for sheer creativity over simple purity of expression. Course after course after course, Pastan and Esther Lee, his long-time head chef at Obelisk, turn out exquisite bites of rustic Italian cooking. Eggplant caponata on crostini with anchovy. Smoked duck breast with caramelized-onion sauce. Arugula ravioli with walnut butter sauce. Ravioli in brodo. Grilled mullet with asparagus. Nothing too fancy, but everything executed for maximum flavor. The most impressive thing about Obelisk, though, may be that Pastan and Lee design a new tasting menu each and every day.

Obelisk, 2029 P St. NW, (202) 872-1180

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

With their selection of serious wood-fired pizzas, the crusts both charred and slightly sweet with honey, owner Jose Velasquez and wife, Reyna Isabella Acosta, have done more than introduce Neapolitan-style pizza to an underserved Petworth neighborhood. They’ve also helped to break the stranglehold that Mexican cuisine has on Salvadoran restaurateurs. Well, sort of. The menu at Moroni & Brothers does feature a number of Mexican and Tex-Mex staples, but its focus is squarely on the wood-oven pizzas, which Velasquez learned to make under Ruth Gresser’s tutelage at Pizzeria Paradiso, and the Salvadoran dishes from the owners’ home country. This kitchen fusion can lead to some rare cultural fusion in the dining room, too, where Anglo foodies and Hispanic regulars mix together at this Georgia Avenue storefront, the Spanish-language music blaring from the jukebox at ear-splitting volumes. But it can also lead to a heady dining experience, whether you opt for the fiery Diavola pie with sausage and jalapeños or the fattier pleasures of Moroni’s pork-and-cheese pupusa.

Addendum: Y&H looks into the question of why Salvadoran and Mexican cuisines are forever entwined at area restaurants.

Moroni & Brothers, 4811 Georgia Ave. NW, (202) 829-2090

Photo courtesy of Moroni & Brothers

On Thursday, July 30, Birreria Paradiso and Georgetown tattoo house Jinx Proof will host a beer, pizza, and tattoo party to celebrate Jinx Proof, a new pilsner brewed by Three Floyds in honor of the ink shop. (If you’ve ever met their brewers, their passion for tattoos is readily apparent.)

The beer taps at 5 p.m., and there will be a limited amount of it. As promised on the flyer, there will be $5 beers, $12 “colorful 8″ squid ink pies,” and a charity raffle for a $300 Jinx Proof gift certificate so I can finally fill in my back tat of Guernica.

Three Floyds is one of America’s best microbreweries, and its products are unavailable in D.C., save for the few weeks when Paradiso’s Greg Jasgur flies to Chicago and brings back a U-Haul full of brew. They’re burning through a truckload at Paradiso now (the Georgetown location), and the taps are changing regularly. If you swing by, tell us what’s on tap via Twitter @beerspotter!