Pete’s Apizza
Aug 04, 10
Cuisine: Pizza.
Specialty: New Haven Style Pizza.
Location: 1400 Irving Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20010-2885.
Price: About $20-$25 for full pizzas.
Lately, the idea of “slow fast food” has really been taking hold of America. Never before, though, have I seen a place that really attempted it with pizza…that is, until now.
Pete’s Apizza (pronounced more like “Pete’s ah-Beets”) makes that leap, trying to fill a new niche in the DC area with its made-to-order New Haven Style pizzas, served quickly in a simple, almost unadorned eatery more reminiscent of a cafeteria than of a restaurant. In the process, it discards almost all the trimmings of a typical sit-down pizzeria.
Table service? Forget about it. While servers bring your pizza out for you, that’s about all they do.
And what about the atmosphere? Well, let’s just say Pete’s isn’t the place you really go to enjoy your company. The seating is composed of large rectangular tables that go about eight seats deep, making them perfect for large groups, but a bit of a pain if you want to sit away from the crowd. The only thing to see is really the food, set up like a high-end Sbarro, cooling in a display for people to order. I steered well clear of those display-case pizzas, though, fearing they’d be somewhat stale or lukewarm, as some reviews on Yelp had forewarned me.
Even with the bare-bones approach, though, Pete’s Apizza has somehow managed to capture the hearts and minds of the DC population, becoming one of the most popular pizzerias in the city. So there must be a fantastic reason for people to come here so often, right?
WRONG. Pete’s is another perfect example of an overhyped food joint that receives inordinate and gratuitous attention for mediocre quality. I ordered two dishes, a pizza and a calzone, neither of which struck me as above average.
The first item was the Down-the-Hill pizza, a pie overloaded with a seemingly endless assortment of ingredients: sliced meatball, house-made sausage, caramelized onion, roasted pepper, wild mushroom, and Kalamata olive. I was really impressed with the quantity of the toppings, but the taste ultimately seemed confused. Out of the whole assortment, most of the toppings neither had much flavor nor synced well. The Kalamata olives were especially problematic, as they were so salty that they nearly overpowered everything else on the pie. The roasted pepper and mushrooms were nice but were almost non-entities, lost in the jumble of ingredients. The meats came out strongly, but neither was all that nicely cooked. The house-made sausage felt just as artificial as a typical fast-food sausage, as it was overcooked to the point of the being slightly burnt, nor did it have much seasoning or herbs. In turn, it tasted like fatty mush. The meatballs fared much better, coming off as slightly herby and leaving the palate refreshed, on top of having a much more savory, more meaty, and more interesting taste than the sausage. There was, however, only one really big winner from the toppings, and that was the caramelized onions, which literally covered the whole pie, sweetening every single bite.
Making matters worse, the basics—the crust, cheese, and sauce—really didn’t help all that much. In fact, the crust was perhaps the most disappointing part of the whole pie, as it was extremely thin and crispy on the bottom, but with a big, dull doughy texture right above, especially in the ends. It was extremely chewy and crunchy, to the point that I always heard it cracking in my mouth in every bite, but it was extremely bland and at times tasteless. Moreover, it was structurally very weak, for the pizza was constantly caving in and falling apart under the weight of the mountain of toppings.
As for the cheese and sauce, I felt that the two were disproportional. While the cheese was nice, oozing all over with a very fresh, milky smokiness, it didn’t really play too much of a role, largely because it was overshadowed by the sauce. That sauce was, moreover, somewhat of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I really liked how chunky it was. I could even see the diced tomato, and there was a big, fresh taste to it, emphasizing the tomato and downplaying the sweetness (there was only a slight sweetness in that sauce). The problem, however, was that it still had a bit of an artificial taste because it was simply so bland and so clumpy. It actually reminded me more of a strong tomato paste than a marinara sauce.
Overall, then, the pizza nailed neither the toppings, nor the basics. That doesn’t mean it was bad per se, but it wasn’t really anything near what it was meant to be.
The same goes for the other item I ordered, the Sorbillo’s Original, a mini-pizza (envision a calzone with a soft crust) filled with sorpressata, mozzarella, and ricotta and topped with tomato sauce. That list of ingredients, though a lot simpler than that of the Down-the-Hill pizza, seemed very flavorful, and I expected to get a lot of creaminess, smokiness, and salt. What I got, though, was just an overpowering, extra chunky, pasty tomato sauce, and it was really here that I felt just how fake it tasted. It had almost no sweetness, yet didn’t really give off the taste of ripe tomatoes either. Rather, it was more similar to an underflavored tomato mush.
The dough of the Sorbillo’s Original didn’t add anything at all, as that unsatisfying, intense doughiness from the pizza reared its head again, but this time in the form of a gigantic ball of fluff. Even with all the cheese and sauce, the bread was still so doughy that it managed to practically overshadow all the other ingredients—not a good sign if the bread tastes as bland as the one in this calzone.
That’s not to say the Sorbillo’s Original was horrible. I did really enjoy the ham, which was smoky and savory, with just the right amount of salt so that it wasn’t too overwhelming. The cheese, too, was rather nice, as the combination of mozzarella and ricotta gave the sandwich both a gooey and a creamy texture, as well as a combination of a smoky with a more herby/bitter flavor. Still, the tomato sauce and bread were so dominant that it was almost impossible to enjoy these positives very much.
Pete’s Apizza, then, was a failure, at least for the amount of respect and hype it’s gotten over the last couple years. It may be unique, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s done well.
Scores
Ambience: 1.0/5.0 (but not really important for a slow fast food restaurant)
Service: Not Applicable
Taste: 1.7+/5.0
- Down-the-Hill Pizza: 2.0/5.0
- Sorbillo’s Original: 1.3/5.0
Value: 1.8/5.0
Verdict: 1.7/5.0
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As a co-owner of Pete’s, I write this comment to suggest that your review is not entirely fair to the restaurant. Two main reasons.
First, you spent time looking over our menu and decided to order the specialty pizza that features more ingredients than any other item on our menu (the Down the Hill, six toppings). Then, you criticize the pizza for things you should have expected: lots of ingredients, confusion of flavors, toppings falling off. It is fine to critique a 2- or 3-topping pizza for those things, but in fairness you should have expected those traits on a pizza with 6 toppings. It is a special pie, and not to everyone’s liking, and certainly not representative of the larger pizza menu at Pete’s.
Second point, building on the first: while you sample a very wide range of gelato and cupcakes at other places you review, you are satisfied to broadly “fail” Pete’s on two items, including only one pizza. We understand that it is easier to buy 5 scoops of gelato than 5 whole pizzas, but we think your method of reviewing and critiquing is flawed.
We think you would have had a much different experience if you had tried one or two more varieties as a point of contrast with the Down the Hill; in particular, we think it would have been most fair and balanced for you to try a plain cheese pizza and one with 1 or 2 toppings, in addition to the Down the Hill, with its SIX toppings. It seems you give most other businesses this courtesy before writing your review.
We would love it if you came back and tried one or two more items for balance and revised your review to reflect the additional information, but we know you are unwilling to do that because we contacted you privately before submitting this comment.
As you know, we have been reviewed by all kinds of people: regular customers, professional food writers, advanced amateur and paid professional bloggers, and “mainstream media” writers doing feature pieces. We are glad to take our lumps when they are deserved. But we think your review is simply unprofessional and undermines your credibility as a food blogger.
Thank you for allowing us to make a public comment on your review.
Thank you very much for your comment, Michael. I always appreciate feedback, good or bad.
However, I am afraid I cannot change the score. My site specifically states that I test on the basis of a few plates, especially specialties. If the so-called best dishes of the house don’t do well, the rest should be even worse.
I’d like to point out, moreover, that were I to try every item on the menu, it wouldn’t be very economical, either. My intent is to come from the point of view of the consumer. I am not a compensated food critic, as the vast majority of your reviewers are. Instead, I’m a normal college/law school student. For you to suggest that I try 2 more pizzas, in the addition to the pizza slices, a panini, a bowl of fresh pasta, and your gelato (all of which you recommended in our private contact that I taste in order to write a “balanced” review but have since omitted in your comment), is inconsiderate on your part.
Your concern for fairness and balance is very admirable, but I feel that I would be unfair if I gave your pizzeria more consideration than I would give to others. I’ve laid out my Principles of Food Busting quite clearly, and to maintain fairness in the reviews, I must judge all restaurants in the same manner.
As a business owner, you are reviewed all the time. It is, however, unprofessional to protest a negative review. As with anything, some people will simply not like your food. I did my best to provide you with an objective review of the menu item I tasted, and that is all you can ask from a young blogger.
Take care,
Edmund
This is our observation: Based on 2 items, Pete’s got a score of 1.7/5.0 in your review.
Despite the statement above that you “test on the basis of a few plates,” you have actually dived pretty deep into the menus of most DC businesses you’ve reviewed:
7 items at Firehook (overall score: 4.0)
10 items at Georgetown Cupcake (4.5)
6 items at Patisserie Poupon (4.1)
4 items at Hello Cupcake (3.8)
12 items at Baked & Wired (3.5)
6 items at Furini’s (2.5)
7 items at Larry’s Ice Cream (4.0)
8 items at Thomas Sweet (2.6)
8 items at Pitango (3.2)
5 items at Blue Duck (4.1)
5 items at Sou’Wester (3.6)
We don’t protest negative reviews – we get them all the time. Rather, we ask for corrections when factual errors are made, and provide our perspective when we believe a review is substantively inaccurate.
You “failed” our pizza based on one menu item. In contrast, you have given bad scores to individual items in a number of the reviews noted above, but because of the wider range of items sampled, you came to a more favorable conclusion about the business overall.
We think you would have really liked the pizza overall if you had tried more than one item from the pizza menu. Put another way, you did not review our restaurant, you reviewed the Down the Hill.
After all is said and done, I think this is a good dialogue. We have, after all, given your opinions a lot of thought. Part of our job is to give all criticism serious consideration. Many of the changes we make come from the process of interacting with people who are annoyed with us for some reason. Restaurants that live in a bubble, listening only to the praise, are most likely to find themselves in unexpected PR trouble. Your blog plays an important part in this process.
Best wishes,
Michael @ Pete’s
Thanks for the input again, Michael.
I would, however, note that of the 11 reviews you’ve cited, 9 are of bakeries or ice cream shops, which are fundamentally different than a pizza store.
At a bakery, for instance, a brownie is a completely different treat than a cookie or from a carrot cake.
At an ice cream store, it’s possible to get a small taste of numerous different flavors all at the same time.
I cannot, however, order numerous different pizzas just to try one slice for my review. Moreover, the main difference among pizzas at any given pizzeria will always just be the ingredient combination. Thus, different pizzas will have numerous similarities, such as the quality of the crust and the taste of the marinara sauce.
For my pizza reviews, in fact, I typically try one or, at most, two different varieties. Most reviews are forthcoming, but I have just finished going through Chicago, New York, and Boston, and I can assure you that the 10 or so pizzerias I am reviewing are being judged in the exact same manner as Pete’s.
That said, I appreciate the input regardless. It’s always great to get a second take, including the restaurant’s own opinion.
Regards,
Edmund
From what I saw- the review was based off of the restaurant’s specialty pizza. One would think that a restaurant’s signature dish would be more than enough to review. Besides, pizza as a whole does not differ very much from item to item. Compare this to say an Italian restaurant where you may want to try completely different dishes (ie: their Fra Diavolo and their Osso Bucco)