2011 Spring Dining Guide

By Tom Sietsema
Sunday, May 15, 2011

Remember that beautifully charred and slightly sour Neapolitan pizza I considered Washington's best, never mind that the eatery claimed a suburban address? Well, that pizza's gone, along with its maestro, Edan MacQuaid, whose replacement from the nearby 2941 is sending out pies that taste like carbon copies of carbon copies of the good old days at Pizzeria Orso.

Chef Christopher Nye, who took over in March, has introduced some new ideas - a coil of timid sausage on soft polenta; a clutch of seafood, beans and peppers in a mild-mannered tomato broth - but the only dish to quicken my pulse is a salad: batons of pickled beets tossed with yogurt, pistachios and a hint of honey.

Pancetta, fava beans and delicate ricotta impastata sound like a winning score, but the toppings are lost on a crust that clearly hadn't spent enough time in Orso's wood-stoked oven; the base was doughy in the center. A fluke? A second pizza, with prosciutto, basil and mozzarella, was flimsy and white. Like the first pie, it also was served sliced rather than left whole, one of many details I miss from the MacQuaid era.

You get smiles along with your food at Orso, sunny in yellow and dressed with futuristic lights and broad beams overhead. Frankly, though, I just want a pie to remember. The ones here are just the opposite.