100 Very Best Restaurants: #38 – 2 Amys

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Pizza at 2 Amys. Photo by Scott Suchman

Chef/owner Peter Pastan’s very personal ode to Italian food and wine has made an impressive comeback after a flood shuttered the restaurant for two months last year. Naples-style wood-oven pizzas and a roster of plates nodding to Pastan’s enthusiasms (tiny fish, say) make up the bulk of the menu. We took in such wonders as an astonishingly simple—and delicious—escarole salad, Sicilian anchovies with bread and butter, grilled mussels dabbed with romesco sauce, beef hearts with fennel, and even dry-aged steaks. The restaurant buys the whole animal, and the cuts are finished in that wood oven, which results in terrific char and chew. Moderate.


Ann Limpert
Executive Food Editor/Critic

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.

Food Editor

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.

Jessica Sidman
Food Editor

Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.