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” »

I love my neighborhood of Columbia Heights, and I love lists. So when Spud Lite at The Heights Life posted his top 5 beer menus in Columbia Heights yesterday, I got to reading faster than a tween on Harry Potter release night.

I was semi-outraged — not angry, but not mock outraged, so maybe just surprised actually — at not only his her ranking order but also two glaring omissions: Pete’s Apizza and new kid Room 11. I’m going to give Spud a break and assume it was an oversight and not a lapse in judgment, as she went so far as to bend his own rules and allow Tonic to sneak over from Mount Pleasant. Listless drinkers, I present to you my Columbia Heights top 5:

1. Pete’s Apizza – Pete’s four drafts rotate often, and as of yesterday included beers from Bell’s, Lagunitas, and Stone. (The fourth is Moretti, a crappy Italian lager owned by Heineken.) Add 8 to 10 American micros in bottles, and you’ve got a sizable menu for a place the size of the Five Guys next door. (beer list)
   Read More “Top 5 Beer Menus in Columbia Heights” »

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?

Read More “Petits Plats Opens Brick Oven Pizzeria in Former To-Go Space” »

Washington Business Journal is reporting that Pizzeria Paradiso owner/chef Ruth Gresser is having “conversations with the developers of DC USA about potentially opening up an outpost of her restaurant at the big-box center across from the Metro station” in Columbia Heights.

The gentrified-within-an-inch of its life neighborhood is already home to two fine pie joints, RedRocks and Pete’s Apizza, but Gresser tells the Journal that she’s still bullish on the ‘hood. “I feel like it’s a different neighborhood from Dupont Circle, and with all the commercial and residential growth happening there, it seems like there could be an uptick of people who would be interested in us,” she tells the paper.

Read More “Pizzeria Paradiso to Open Third Location in Columbia Heights?” »