As it enters its second decade, perhaps it’s time to stop thinking of this clattering cafe as a pizzeria and start seeing it for what it is: the best Italian restaurant for the price in DC.
The Neapolitan-style pies can be wonderful–lightly blistered crusts adorned with a perfect tomato sauce and half moons of fresh mozzarella–but you could also make a glorious meal of nothing but a salad (it’s taken seriously here) and a few of what the menu calls “little things.” Seldom will you find two- and three-bite dishes of such shimmering simplicity, from a crock of tender meatballs to delicate salt-cod croquettes to crunchy bruschetta with sweet tomatoes.
The dessert menu is small but includes the best ice cream in DC (a sumptuous vanilla) and excellent filled-to-order cannoli.
Also good: Calabrese pizza, with anchovies and olives; Norcia pizza, with salami and grilled peppers; tomato-and-ricotta-stuffed pizza; spring radishes with butter; orange-and-olive salad; doughnuts (weekend mornings).
Open Monday for dinner, Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
