Washington DC: Pizzeria Paradiso

Last week, I went to Washington DC for a 2-night trip for work.  It was a short trip, and I didn't have as much free time as I thought, so I barely explored the city.  There were a few places I wanted to stop by, but since time was limited, I decided to stick to areas I could reach via Metro.  Thanks to the really handy Metro system, I was able to check out a few popular places in DC.

Left for DC at 6am that morning from LAX, and as usual, flight was delayed -___-  8 hours later, got to DC, hauled all the luggages to the convention center.  By the time my co-worker and I finished setting up, it was already 7pm EST.  Took the Metro to Dupont Circle since we stayed on a hotel on Embassy Row.  Yelped around the area and I found a pizza place that is literally around the corner from where we stayed!

Oh the pictures will be... quite horrible :[  I totally forgot to change the color temperature setting and it was so dark in there, so I did a little post editing.  May not look that good, but trust, very delicious :P


Pizzeria Paradiso
2003 P St NW
Between N 20th St & N Hopkins St
Dupont Circle
Washington, DC 20036
eatyourpizza.com

Turns out Pizzeria Paradiso is a pizzeria that specializes in using traditional ingredients, but with their own spin on things, with a heavy focus on their crust.  They use a wood-burning, domed, stone oven to cook at a temperature of 650 degrees, so a few hundred degrees less than the Neapolitan style, even though they do bake their pizzas in the same fashion.

A portion of the menu.

They start you off with a variety of olives!  I don't know much about olives and there were some I definitely prefer over the others haha.

Besides being a pizzeria, it is also a birrieria, which meant they have a bunch of beers on tap.  Since it is fall now, they have a variety of autumn & seasonal beers.  Decided to start with a Hofstettner Hochzeitsbier von 1810, a lager from Austria.  A little hoppy, but good beer with the olives!

Pizzas arrive!  We went for the 12" instead of the 8" since we didn't eat on the flight at all.

Macellaio with Paradiso tomato, pepperoni, mozzarella, sausage, and red onion.

Love the huge chunks of tomato.

It's just a simple sausage pizza done really well.

Bosco with Paradiso tomato, spinach, mozzarella, mushroom, and red onion.  No protein, but this was my favorite out of the two!

The crust is definitely the star of the pizza though.  They let their dough slowly rise before they handle it, and you can tell they took the time to develop the recipe for it!    A bit thicker than the thin crust, and the crust really held up to the ingredients.  Sometimes the crust gets too soggy, but not here.

I was feeling a märzen for the second beer so I went for the Ayinger Oktober Fest-Märzen.  Ayinger, one of the oldest brewery in Germany, knows their beer.  Malty, a little spicy.

Somehow on these trips, I always end up at a pizza place, but they never disappoint!  Originally I wanted to walk and explore the area for a bit but with the long flight, we were pretty beat by the end, so I went back to the room and just passed out.