The 1st Ever Two Foodie Brothers Pizza Prize

By both Aaron and Sam…

Sam: Looking back, we didn’t really know what we were getting into? On what turned out to be a crisp, autumn-come-early evening, Aaron, myself, and family friend and honorary Stollar, Katie Buoni, embarked on what should have been a fantastic, but otherwise normal evening out in DC. That’s before the first pizza was served.

Aaron: The original idea was just to go get some of DC’s best pizza. For the past 4-5 years, that has mean choosing between Pizzeria Paradiso in Dupont or Georgetown or 2 Amys up by the National Cathedral. The plan was to give 2 Amys a shot first. I was the only one who had ever been there, so I led the way. They’d just opened a small second floor dining area, so I thought the era of two-hour waits might be behind us. I was wrong.

Sam: Arriving at 2 Amys around 9pm, we were  presented with a wait of 90 minutes to two hours. With little thought, we moved on, hopping back in the car to scoot up to Paradiso in Dupont Circle. After a 30 minute wait, we were seated in the tiny 10-table second-story restaurant. We settled in, to eat what had been up until that point, the best pizza meal I’d ever had.

We ordered two pizzas, quattro formagi, an incredible cheesy combination of mozzarella, fontina, parmesan and gorgonzola. The crust was delicious and bubbly, the cheeses just incredibly gooey, and the pie, the best piece of pizza I’d seemingly ever had. The second pie, a spinach, garlic, tomato and mushroom pie, was fresh and tasty, another success, but not quite as incredible. Washed down with a brilliant Belgian Delirium, a high alcohol ale.

Aaron: The beer of course was my recommendation. Sam can’t be trusted to choose a decent libation – not after admitting in this blog that he used to enjoy Aristocrat vodka mixed with Mountain Dew. (Do you hear banjos off in the distance? I do.)

Sam: It was already quite a night. ….Until all three of us looked at each other. Were we full? Eh not really. Were we completely satisfied? I guess, we could have been… Were we curious what a 10 minute drive back to Georgetown and a famous 2 Amy’s Margherita pizza would do, in putting this meal in context? You betcha. Giddily walking back to the car, and throwing the keys to Katie, (as Aaron and I were able to drive, but why risk it) we scooted back to Northwest and got a table right away in the cozy 2 Amy’s restaurant.

The first thing you notice as you walk in is the wood-fired oven, blazing at over 700 degrees. (a digital display makes sure everyone knows how hot it is…) Quickly an attentive waiter brought water and took our simple, perhaps disappointing, order of one margherita pizza. In no time, perhaps 4 minutes, it arrived. It looked different. It smelled of the four or five crisped basil pieces spotted on the top of the pie. In separate places, little morsels of buffalo milk mozzarella. And the crust? A bubbly, slightly crisped on the edges, yeasty, almost pretzel like deliciousness. Put together? It was absolutely insane. What must have been in total, 7 or 8 ingredients, what? flour, water, yeast, salt, cheese, basil, tomato and olive oil… was a perfected product. With each bite, gasps, wows, full-out swooning at the table. From left field Katie states “I just wanna own a water-buffalo” And who could blame her, the cheese, imported from Italy specifically for these pies, was like no other, salty, mild, and just incredible.

Aaron: I knew the result of this from the outset. I’d been to both places on multiple occasions. Paradiso makes a great pizza – not just a good one, a great one. 2 Amys makes revelatory pizza; the kind of pizza that makes you never want to have a crap delivery pizza ever again. Why bother when this is available?   To me, the difference is the crust. 2 Amy’s is far more flavorful. I don’t know if it’s a matter of recipe, technique, or the apparent fact that 2 Amy’s oven is wood fired and Paradiso’s didn’t appear to be. (I didn’t get as good of look at Paradiso’s oven, so let me know if I am wrong about this.)

Sam: It was a no contest, full blown knockout. To Paradiso’s credit, they were delicious pies. But 2 Amy’s pie, the product of a former Paradiso chef, fed up with divergence from the Neopolitan government-mandated pizza recipe, was a revelation. It shakes the very foundation of my pizza-consuming world. Could I ever order Pizza Hut or Domino’s again? I could, but I don’t think I will. Because in my head, I’ll always know, I’m 15 miles, 30 minutes, hell possibly a 2-hour wait, from a pizza that would make the delay, every minute of it, worth it. What we have is a screaming endorsement of a return to basics, and how-to in simplicity. 2 Amy’s has created a product like none available outside perhaps Naples itself. When and if I ever get there… I’ll let you know.

Aaron: Let me just say, this isn’t going to be the last of our one-day multiple-stop review’apaloozas. What other things do you think we can review like this? I suggested Cantonese roasted duck, but even Sam, a serious fan of duck, said that might kill him. Upon further thought, I agreed. So let me know, either through comments or email, what else we could review like this.