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“Where should we get a pie?” In the last year, the number of ways to answer that question has skyrocketed. Whether you’re craving Detroit, Neapolitan, New York, or even a DC-style slice, there’s a brand-new pizzeria for you.
Chicken mole pizza at Anafre, a new Mexican pizza pop-up. Photograph by Rey Lopez
3704 14th St., NW
Mexico-born chef Alfredo Solis (also behind Mezcalero and El Sol) has added Mexican pizzas to the seafood-centric menu at this Columbia Heights dining room. Crispy crusts bolster delicious toppings including a blistered-poblano chile relleno with Chihuahua and Oaxacan cheeses; sweet shrimp with chorizo, avocado, and salsa; and a riff on the kitchen’s excellent chicken mole.
Scott Suchman/For the Washington Post
Menomale, the Brookland-based pizzeria that produces some of D.C.’s finest Neapolitan-style pies, opened its second location this week at the base of an apartment building in NoMa. The pizzeria and sister deli Salumeria 2703 now have a much larger space to share and a full kitchen that allows them to bring on a new item: Roman-style pan pizza.
Married couple Maria Rusciano and Ettore Rusciano, a Naples native, opened the new Menomale on the ground floor of the Belgard (33 N Street NE) for lunch and dinner Wednesday, February 3. Hours for takeout and limited dine-in service are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. six days a week (closed Tuesdays). The deli closes at 7 p.m.
The deets: You won’t find any skinny pizza at a bar that celebrates two thick-pie Midwestern cities. The Detroit pizza Ivy and Coney cranks out is cooked in a pan and benefits from the inclusion of Wisconsin brick cheese. Co-owner
Chris Powers says it has a squishy chew akin to cheese curds. “It has a higher fat content than cheddar, so when it goes up against the edge of the pan it crisps instead of burns,” he explains. That creates what’s known as a frico layer on the focaccia crust. “Corner slices are what people fight over,” he says.
We Need To Talk About the Sausage + Peppers Pie at Martha Dear Two words: sourdough crust.
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After a few transcendent bites of the Sausage + Peppers pie from Martha Dear, I wonder if this is truly the best pizza I’ve had in D.C., or if there are other forces at play. The pandemic, largely, has robbed Washingtonians of the pleasure of trying a new restaurant soon after it opens. The build up! The anticipation! The feeling that you’re being let in on a juicy secret! Many of the restaurants that were poised to break onto the scene in 2020 pressed pause. Who wants to make a grand entrance in a take-out box?