Dish
Pizza at Long Last

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

When Bebo Trattoria (2250-B Crystal Dr., Arlington; 703-412-5076) opened in Crystal City nine months ago, its design featured a pizza oven and its menu promised Neapolitan pies. In reality, diners had to bide their time until this month for the restaurant's massive brick oven to get the necessary permits and for chef Roberto Donna and crew to finally start baking (not to mention making) dough.

The wait has been worth it. Bebo's Frisbee-size pizzas are first-rate, with a nice char on their bottoms and a rounded cornicione, or frame, to show off their choice fillings. "It looks like a stew" when the pizzas are inside the oak-fired oven, marvels Donna, who was manning the operation on a recent Monday, his pizza maker's day off. "The cheese and tomato sauce simmer and bubble" to doneness in an oven that hovers between 600 and 700 degrees, but can get much hotter.

As the staff adjusts to the new addition on the menu, the eight seats in front of the oven -- a potential front-row cooking show -- remain vacant. Donna jokes that in the heat of the night, he'd worry that customers would get flour on their faces or witness too much messiness. (Pizza burns at 800 degrees, the chef has learned the hard way.)

An early favorite of ours finds pinches of mozzarella, garlic, tomato and anchovies on a sturdy but yielding crust that's so seductive a customer is tempted to polish it off. Billed as a Napoletana, the pizza is one of almost 20 at Bebo. A knife and fork come with each meal, but Donna advises using your hands to tear the uncut pizza, then folding a slice to pop into your mouth. Primal bliss.

Pizzas $8-$15.

-- Tom Sietsema