The Palestinian-Jordanian Dubbaneh brothers, owners of Z&Z Manoushe Bakery in Rockville, tell a sweet story. Their parents and grandparents immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s, opening sub and fried chicken joints in Montgomery County. The elders sweated and toiled, hoping to provide their children a better life. Like homing pigeons, the brothers were educated and made their way in the corporate world, but ultimately the pull of the restaurant biz was too strong. The pigeons flew the coop and found their way home. In 2016, the Dubbaneh brothers opened Z&Z Manoushe Bakery in the very same location where their grandfather, Fayez “Fuzzy” Khawaja, operated a restaurant called “Chicken Tonight” from 1982 to 2006.
Z&Z in Manoushe Bakery means Zayt & Za’atar (Arabic for olive oil and za’atar), representing the core ingredients in their signature Lebanese flatbread, called manoushe. DishingPizza first tasted za’atar on a superb Call Your Mother bagel, which sources its spice from the entrepreneurial Dubbaneh brothers. Before opening Z&Z, the Dubbaneh family sold za’atar at local farmers’ markets and packaged their frozen manoushe for sale at Whole Foods. So, the Z&Z physical location is a logical continuation of the Dubbaneh’s entrepreneurial journey.
The brothers have a friendly, lively social media presence, regularly posting TikTok and YouTube videos. With their marketing savvy, it’s astonishing that they don’t crow about being named one of the “50 Best New Restaurants 2022” by Bon Appétit and “The 25 Best Restaurants in Washington, D.C., Right Now” by the New York Times in 2024. Yet, there’s no mention of these vaunted awards1 on Z&Z’s website. DishingPizza respects this modesty.
The Z&Z guys are quick to point out that they’re not serving pizza. Rather, they’re making manoushe — Levantine flatbread, which, they explain in an entertaining video, is 1,000 years older than pizza. However, Z&Z bakes its flatbread in a steel-deck pizza oven instead of a traditional saj dome oven.
DishingPizza carried out a non-pizza named Bizza2 at lunchtime on a weekday when Z&Z was doing bang-up business. DishingPizza even gets tired of DishingPizza, trying to compare apples to apples. In a place like this, the point is to get their specialty. However, their specialty isn’t pizza. It’s enough to tie DishingPizza in knots.
The manoushe is crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. Looking at the blistered, airy crust in the pic, one could easily believe this flatbread came from a wood-fired oven. Furthermore, while flatbreads are typically of uniform thickness, this Z&Z creation has a prominent puffy rim3. The Z&Z crust is most like wood-fired Neapolitan crusts with one significant exception. Unlike many thin-crust, wood-fired, Neapolitan pizzas, Z&Z’s flatbread is uniformly baked with no hints of wetness or undercooking in the middle. Z&Z makes a delicious manoushe.
The rest of the Bizza is, frankly, pretty ordinary. The Z&Z guys probably figured they’d toss in the Bizza for philistines like DishingPizza who equate pizza with Domino’s, and object to anything that tastes un-American. A flavorful tomato sauce sits under a decent, mildly salty mozzarella. DishingPizza wishes this flatbread had some zayt & za’atar to spice things up.
Z&Z Manoushe Bakery shares a charming patio space with Carmen’s. With the warm weather upon us, sitting outside with a delicious manoushe followed by ice cream is DishingPizza’s idea of heaven.
Z&Z Manoushe Bakery
1111 Nelson St, Rockville, Maryland 20850
Type: Levantine Flatbread (Manoushe)
Pizza quality: 🍕🍕🍕
Overall experience: ⭐⭐⭐
Pie (10″): $14.00
Pie price per square inch: $0.18