Della Barba Pizza, Piazziolo Joey Barber's New York, Chicago, and Detroit Pizza (Pickup or Delivery); 14th and East Capitol Street, NE

[eatruneat]

Not completely sure what Detroit style pizza should taste like, but the one from Della Barba sure is tasty. We ordered one last night with sausage and mushrooms and it was great. Crust was thick but fluffy and not too dense.  We also loved the cheddar cheese melted into the crust on the bottom. Not an inexpensive pie (a cheese pizza is $25 and toppings are $2-3 each), but we could only eat half of it and will polish off the rest tonight. 

[Dr. Delicious]

17 hours ago, KeithA said:

Great article from Tim Carman of the Post on his 10 favorite DC metro pizza: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/food/best-pizza-dc/

16 hours ago, DonRocks said:

"When's the last time we had a truly great pizza?" <silence> "I mean one where the first bite makes you go, 'Wow!'?"

That Chicago meatball pizza from Della Barba looks like it might do the trick...

[eatruneat]

We finally ordered something other than a Detroit style pizza (though we also ordered a Detroit style pizza). The NY Style with onions and mushrooms was very tasty. I would say the crust is not as good as Wise Guys, but still very very good. Toppings are first rate (much better than Wise Guys) and I'm a toppings gal, so Della Barba gets the nod overall. But the Detroit style is a truly great pizza and that will probably be our standing order every time we get a pizza from Della Barba. 

[eatruneat]

After a series of pepperoni Detroit pizza, we branched out and ordered the Detroit Hottie, a special with Habaneros, Jalapenos, & Calabrian Chili Oil. We added pepperoni as well. Unfortunately, it was way too spicy for me, but we still managed to enjoy it enough to finish off the pie in multiple rounds. 

Additionally, Washingtonian reports that Della Barba will go from a takeout/delivery kitchen in Ivy City to a cafe on Capitol Hill around Lincoln Park. The address is 1382 E. Capitol St. NE, currently an Al's Pizza. There is promise of housemade bacon, baguettes, and pastries. Looking forward to it. 

[Pat]

59 minutes ago, eatruneat said:

 

Additionally, Washingtonian reports that Della Barba will go from a takeout/delivery kitchen in Ivy City to a cafe on Capitol Hill around Lincoln Park. The address is 1382 E. Capitol St. NE, currently an Al's Pizza. There is promise of housemade bacon, baguettes, and pastries. Looking forward to it. 

OMG. This is good news.   I'm having some trouble imagining this space as a cafe, but if they can get permitting, they could put tables on the sidewalk because it's a wide corner. The fire that finally closed that down was quite a while ago, and the work has been going on sporadically for a long time. That means two pizza places within a block. Wow. Pacci's will be opening a pizzeria a block away in the old Park Cafe space...but ditto (except for the fire).

[Pat]

The location in the old Al's Pizza looks like it's getting close to opening. It looks like a restaurant when they don't have the windows covered. They've got replicas of reviews from Washingtonian and the Post pasted outside. The lights were installed inside a while ago, the walls are partitioned and painted. There are still DCRA permits taped up as well, so that's probably the biggest obstacle to opening. Can't wait. I am craving pizza so much.

[Pat]

The location at 14th and East Capitol opens tomorrow, Oct. 14, for takeout only. There are tables but they are not ready for dine-in at this point. The build-out put the counter on a perpendicular side to where it was as Al's. It's still a very small space.

There was an "open house" for neighbors last evening. Just a taste, but I'm looking forward to more.

They seem to be rolling this out very slowly, so FYI.

[Pat]

Apparently they're doing another open house tonight.

[Pat]

Current sign says they will be open on Wed., October 19.

[Pat]

This weekend a sign went up saying they'll be opening Wednesday the 19th, so the slow roll continues.

[Mark Dedrick]

On 10/17/2022 at 2:01 PM, Pat said:

This weekend a sign went up saying they'll be opening Wednesday the 19th, so the slow roll continues.

Thanks for the update! We live just north of Lincoln Park, so this is great news for us. We've only tried their pizza once, via delivery, but really enjoyed it. Excited to give it another shot. 

[Pat]

We finally got pizza from the Hill East location. Their hours have continued to be erratic but currently seem to be 4 - 9 Tuesday through Saturday. The few times I've seen people walking by on the street with pizzas from here, the boxes seemed really small. Given that and the price, it's taken a while to pull the trigger.

I decided to order a Detroit style with sausage and mushroom and a thin crust with mushroom and pepperoni. Even the thin crust has quite bit of bread to it, so I way under-calculated on stomach capacity. Having read the descriptions of long fermented dough, it occurred to me that the feeling I had after a couple pieces of pizza was not unlike eating a bit too much injera.

We probably only needed one pizza. We ate about 1/3 of the total of what we ordered. I think the Detroit is not our thing, but that is one puffy bread dough.

 

[Pat]

I should add that they now have chairs for the tables inside. I saw no indication other than that if they are doing dine-in and I forgot to ask. There are only a few tables.

(I updated the title and tags - ha - for the topic but didn't add dine-in since I don't know.)

[Bart]

How did you place the order?

I attempted to order something last friday night and their website/app simultaneously said they were "taking online orders" and "NOT taking online orders"!  Then I pivoted to trying to order something from Wise Guys and found out that you had to use THEIR app to order.  I didn't feel like downloading an app that only works at one place so I had a frozen pizza instead.  😉

[noamb]

Odd - I’m pretty sure I’ve ordered from wise guy (pentagon city location) without an app, just from the browser.

 

Yup. Just rechecked. You do have to click on the “desktop” option, but it works fine on my iPhone.

[Pat]

10 hours ago, Bart said:

How did you place the order?

I attempted to order something last friday night and their website/app simultaneously said they were "taking online orders" and "NOT taking online orders"!  Then I pivoted to trying to order something from Wise Guys and found out that you had to use THEIR app to order.  I didn't feel like downloading an app that only works at one place so I had a frozen pizza instead.  😉

I placed the DB order online through Toast. You might have tried to do it right around the time they go online for accepting them. I've had that happen with other restaurants that use the Toast app. Close it out and come back 15 minutes after they say they begin taking orders and it should work. Sorry about the frozen pizza😞

[eatruneat]

14 hours ago, Bart said:

How did you place the order?

I attempted to order something last friday night and their website/app simultaneously said they were "taking online orders" and "NOT taking online orders"!  Then I pivoted to trying to order something from Wise Guys and found out that you had to use THEIR app to order.  I didn't feel like downloading an app that only works at one place so I had a frozen pizza instead.  😉

Can't speak to your experience with Della Barba, but I know some restaurants shut down online orders if they get too busy and find themselves in the weeds. Had this happen a few times with Baan Siam. 

I cannot wait to order from Della Barba again. We took a hiatus because they made their delivery zone smaller and we fell out of it. Then they took a hiatus. Initially, we are outside of the delivery zone for this location too, but fortunately they moved to DoorDash for delivery. We hardly ever use DoorDash but with the $5 a month credit we get with our Chase card (and the credit rolls over to a max of $15), we will do it once we get back from spending the holidays in California. 

[Bart]

@eatruneat - I took your advice up thread and ordered a Detroit style pizza last Friday.  I think you may be right about my earlier ordering problems, because when I placed my order around 5:30 pm, there was a 80-90 minute wait, so I suspect when I tried to order the previous week, they were swamped and paused all incoming orders.

Anyhow, the Detroit style was good, but damn! was it thick!!  The dough was pretty fluffy and light, but it was tough to get it in my mouth without knocking off some of the toppings!  😂  Next time I'll try the the next thinnest one.

[Bart]

I had the pleasure of getting the rudest service I've ever experienced in my entire life last night at this place.

I ordered a pizza and salad and got a message saying they would be ready at 8:04 pm.  Then, at 7:58, I got a text saying my order was ready so I sprinted over there (on my bike) and got there at about 8:02 and asked for my order.  The woman behind the counter brought out the pizza and told me the salad wasn't ready yet.  So I said, "But you guys texted me 4 minutes ago saying my order was ready".  She didn't say anything but stared at me with a look of contempt that I don't think I've ever seen before.  She was telegraphing a very strong "you are a complete asshole and I hate you with every fiber of my being"  vibe.  After about a minute of her just standing there in silence, I said, "well, didn't you text me saying my order was ready?".  She replied, "It's not going to kill you to wait"!!!!!!!!!   

WTF!?!?!?  At no point did she ever apologize for the text coming too early or the order coming too late.  Never!  Not anything approaching an apology or explanation!   The only thing I got from her was dead silence and a rude and condescending look, and the "it's not going to kill you to wait" comment.  I would have been totally fine with. "Sorry about that, we got a little behind"   I would have left happy with a simple "sorry" comment, but now I hate her, I hate this place and I want it to fail miserably!  If I hadn't already paid and tipped, I would have walked out without my food, but since they already had my money, that wasn't an option.

As for the food, the pizza was great.  I got the Nonna which is the middle thickness dough/crust.  The Caesar salad was an overpriced joke.  The photo below shows what you get for 13 bucks!  Lettuce, a bit of cheese and some very run of the mill croutons. 

So to recap:

Pizza: good / Salad: over priced and crappy / Service: rude and obnoxious shitshow

 

[Pat]

Judging from the help wanted signs throughout the months, they have had a hard time getting employees, so maybe people who are hired can get away with quite a bit. It sounds like they still don't have the text system working too well. First time I ordered from them, I went down at the time they said it would be ready, got my pizza, and then an hour later got a text saying my pizza was now ready for pick up. 

I'm happy they're there but they're not my first choice, unless the only criterion is proximity. I'm just as likely to walk a much longer distance home balancing an enormous pizza box from Slice Joint at The Roost