About Menomale
 Date-Night-Worthy |
 Good for Vegetarians |
 Good Drinks |
This Brookland pizzeria, dedicated to the pure and sometimes almost austere Neapolitan ideal, has had its ups and downs since the founding partners split, but a recent visit showed it to be more up than we’ve seen it in a while. The pies are constructed on excellent foundations: a bright and sweet tomato sauce, tangy slices of fresh mozzarella, and a crust (cooked quickly in the custom-built wood-fired oven from Italy) that hovers between chewy and crispy. The pizza dough is wisely repurposed for excellent calzones and sandwiches, which deliver the crunch of a grill-pressed Cubano. A heads-up for hop-heads: The craft-beer list is unexpectedly deep and interesting for such a tiny operation.
Also good: Salsiccia pizza; prosciutto cotto pizza; quattro formaggi pizza; Di Ettore pizza, with arugula, cherry tomatoes, and prosciutto; prosciutto-crudo-and-mozzarella sandwich; sausage-mozzarella-and prosciutto sandwich; calzone with ricotta, prosciutto, and mozzarella.
See what other restaurants made our 2016 Cheap Eats list. This article appears in our May 2016 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.
