Eat Great Cheap 2015There’s a lot to love at Frank Linn’s Kensington pizzeria: the twinkly patio stacked with chopped wood, wine on tap, simple but lovely salads—and most of all, the pizza.
Linn got plenty of practice toting his mobile pizza oven around to Maryland farmers markets over the last few years, and his pies are delicious. They’re Neapolitan-ish—cooked in a 700-degree wood-fired oven—but not as delicate (or sopping-wet) as their Italian-style counterparts can be.
The crust has great char and chew. We could eat it without any accoutrements at all. Still, it holds up well to a thick smear of zesty tomato sauce with coins of pepperoni and a generous handful of mozzarella.
The standout pie is the Hot Mess, a sauceless round layered with intensely smoky bacon (you’ll see it curing behind the bar), pickled jalapeños that offer plenty of heat, super-sweet caramelized onions, and a gooey mix of Gruyère, mozz, and Romano that mellows the other ingredients.e
This article appears in our November 2014 issue of Washingtonian.
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.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
