On Old Georgetown Road in downtown Bethesda, next to Chipotle, lies a quaint restaurant that exists in order to unify the surrounding neighborhood–through love & pizza.
The motto, “love & pizza,” is written on the hundreds of white pizza boxes that surround the small space. The motto is truly demonstrated by the staff, which is kind, humorous, and, perhaps most crucial in a place like &pizza–patient. A customer can easily become overwhelmed by what and how to order. &pizza has trendy individual pizzas on the menu (around $9), which include a Greek-style “Grecian Market,” with red chickpea purée, falafel crumbles, and tzatziki yogurt, farm-style “Farmer’s Daughter,” with farm eggs on top, and the fiery “Redvine,” with tomato olive pesto, roasted peppers, fresh jalapeños, and red pepper chili oil. If customers would prefer, they can also arrange their own individual pizzas (around $9), by choosing between various types of doughs, eight various sauces or spreads, different cheeses, toppings (before the pizza is baked), finishes (after the pizza is baked), and oils.
If you have seen &pizza sometime during your Bethesda adventures, you may have thought of its potential inconvenience, as it appears to be a sit-down pizzeria. Oftentimes, students with busy schedules do not have the time to sit down on a normal weekday and be served by a waiter, spending an hour or so at a pizzeria. If Chipotle is right next door, wouldn’t most students instead opt for the ten minute meal?
But &pizza is a quick, ten minute meal. Chipotle-style restaurants, which allow customers to create their own meals via an assembly line, are popping up throughout the area: Cava, serving Mediterranean food, Shophouse, serving Southeast Asian cuisine, and &pizza.
Once customers make their way down the assembly line, which includes a high-powered oven that cooks pizzas in under two minutes, they can choose from drinks that include housemade sodas of original flavors (around $2), such as burdock and anise rootbeer, pear and fig elixir, and ginger berry lemonade. The lemonade is simultaneously tart due to the lemons, tangy due to the ginger, and sweet due to the berries. The pear and fig elixir prompts you to drink more and more because of its ideal balance between the fruity pear and ambrosial fig undertones. &pizza’s housemade sodas are not too sweet, likely due to their omission of sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup.
The thin crust traditional dough, despite its mere two minutes in an oven, is perfectly soft in the middle of the pizza and crispier on its edges. The spicy tomato sauce adds just a bit of zest and kick. The housemade mozzarella, though still thin, comprises more of the pizza than does the crust. The mozzarella does have a certain, very particular, almost indescribable flavor: it tastes authentic, straight out of Naples.
For dessert, &pizza sells its signature dessert pizza (around $7). The Lori Lane is topped with white chocolate sauce, four berry blend, sweet ricotta, powdered sugar, and agave syrup.
The care and detail that the staff embody when making your pizza really epitomize the “love” that hallmarks &pizza. With one small shared table that seats 8, the restaurant really does cater to neighbors. &pizza encourages independence by ordering individual pizzas, but also promotes sharing at a communal table. &pizza serves “love&pizza” to its neighborhood customers.
Leave a Reply