Pupatella, the pizza cart turned brick-and-mortar restaurant, will be welcoming its first sit-down customers around 6:00 tonight. Tomorrow is the official opening, but management says they'll start serving anyone who comes in today. Owner/couple Enzo Algarme, 30, and Anastasiya Laufenberg, 29, started selling made-to-order pizzas from a cart near the Ballston Metro in September 2007.
“The only thing more authentically Neapolitan than the pillow-like pizzas practically flying from the oven at Pupatella in Arlington is [owner] Enzo Algarme himself,” reads part of the story’s blurb.
Reached by phone while visiting their parents in Naples, Italy, owners Enzo Algarme and Anastasiya Laufenberg tell ARLnow that they are “incredibly grateful” and “honored” for the distinction. In fact, they were not aware of the story until ARLnow reached out.
The married couple opened their first restaurant in 2010 on Wilson Blvd in the Bluemont neighborhood from which they nearly moved last year after getting their start selling pizza from a food cart.
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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.
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What makes a great neighborhood restaurant? In some ways, it’s easier to pin down what it’s not: a place with a fussy menu, a two-hour line, or really any pretense at all. We gravitate to the spots on this list for the comforting food, sure. But also for things that are easy to overlook in a fast-moving dining scene. A generous welcome. Time-tested reliability. An instant sense of belonging. Here’s to more than 60 restaurants that for some or all of those reasons make the city a better place not just to eat but to live. And we need them now more than ever.