The Dons' Wood-Fired Pizza in Sterling/Photo Courtesy of The Dons' Wood-Fired Pizza
As if almost by magic, a hot brick oven can transform a doughy disc slathered in sauce and cheese into a sizzling, golden brown delicacy. Waleed Zarou—owner of The Dons’ Wood-Fired Pizza in Sterling—says the key to a perfectly crispy wood-fired pie lies in high heat and fresh ingredients. In celebration of this ancient art, here are some NoVA restaurants that use real fire to blaze the dough.
In no particular order, 10 brick oven pizzas joints:
1. Italian: do you speak it?
The chefs at Emilio’s Brick Oven Pizza in Sterling sling Sicilian-inspired pizzas—like the Oh! Bosco and the Patate e Prosciutto—washed down with espresso and limonata.
2. Bricks in the sticks
The Ashburn area’s source for flame-kissed pizza is Broadlands Brick Oven Pizza.
3. Don’t play with Fire Works
…because this Leesburg pizzeria is serious about locally-sourced ingredients, gluten-free crusts and green business practices.
4. A menu you can’t refuse
Sterling’s The Dons’ Wood-Fired Pizza wields fresh and imported ingredients to forge crunchy-crust pizzas available by the whole pie or just the slice.
5. Not downtown, Uptown
Uptown Brick Oven Pizza supplies Herndon with thick, crusty pizzas and calzones, all fired within their namesake oven.
6. Fahrenheit 600
Pie-Tanza in Arlington scorches their Neapolitan-style pizzas in a 7,000-pound, stainless steel oven at around 600 degrees—hot enough to melt galvanized cheese.
7. Pizza ‘n’ pours
Deep in Alexandria lies Delia’s Brick Oven Pizza, a Mediterranean-meets-Sicilian eatery that pairs its dough discs with local and craft beers from an extensive bar.
8. Sans-sauce
Some purists argue a truly traditional wood-fired pizza shouldn’t have sauce. Edgardo’s Trattoria in Alexandria would agree with that statement. Pies arrive covered in eclectic ingredients that include clams, goat cheese and grilled eggplant.
9. The Sicilian secret
In Burke lies the life’s work of two Sicilian immigrants, Tony and Julia Amato: Villa Bella Restaurant, where a wood-fired brick oven churns out saucer after saucer made in accordance to secret recipes.
10. Little Jack Horner…
…went to Piero’s Corner in Chantilly? Puns aside, the staffers here craft rustic pizzas and several types of bruschetta.
Did we miss anything? Got the scoop on somewhere new? Tell us below in the comments section.