Via Roma Pizzeria is the first in the DMV to serve pinsa1, a Roman-style flatbread that resembles a lighter, healthier alternative to traditional pizza. The dough uses a combination of wheat, rice, soy flours, and dried sourdough. Pinsa’s shape resembles an American football. Only four restaurants in the United States, including Via Roma, are certified pinserias2. Pinsa is a much bigger deal in Italy, but it’s a rarity in the U.S. That said, the Via Roma partners mention pinsa on their website, but are low-key about their certification.
Biagio Cepollaro and Chef Tonino Topolino, both natives of Naples, Italy, partnered to open Via Roma Pizzeria in 2021 in Camp Springs, Maryland. In 2023, they relocated Via Roma to the District to get more foot traffic. Steps from the Woodley Park metro and a short stroll from the National Zoo, they made a smart move. Less than 20 miles between them, Camp Springs and Woodly Park are worlds apart.
Before dishing about the pizza, DishingPizza must eat some crow for unfairly stereotyping Southern Italians as grandiose braggarts. While it’s true that some DMV Italian owners have manufactured origin stories based on flimsy, suspect “awards,”3 the Via Roma guys are as humble as they come. These Via Roma Neapolitans, people with the most legitimate claim to pizza mythology on earth, are quietly running a certified pinseria without making a big hullabaloo. They even call the place a pizzeria, not a pinseria.
The pinsa is magnificent – a primo example of underpromising and overdelivering. The crust is firm but airy, with a light char and a satisfying crunch. The sparingly applied fresh tomato sauce and superb mozzarella, together, make a most delicate and delicious concoction. Every bite of this pinsa brings pleasure. DishingPizza‘s only complaint — it’s not double the size. Via Roma earns its place in DishingPizza’s ‘best of’ category.
Biagio Cepollaro stopped over to chat about the pinsa. He explained that their steel oven has different temperatures below and above. The pinsa bakes on a stone at 600°F, but the domed top of the oven is cooler. This bake method solves the problem wood-fired Neapolitan refuses to acknowledge – the floppy center.
The physics work out like this: a wood-fired Neapolitan oven blasts 850-900°F mostly from above and around, cooking the pie in 60-90 seconds — fast enough to char the edges but too fast to drive moisture out of the center, the source of the floppiness. A stone deck running hotter from below inverts that. The base gets sustained conductive heat that dehydrates and sets the bottom crust, while the cooler dome lets the top cook gently over a longer bake.4
The pinsa is reason enough to hightail it to Via Roma5. The staff and owners are uniformly delightful – warm, friendly, and efficient. Playful decorations, reflecting the owners’ whimsy, are juxtaposed with its minimalist, brick-walled furnishings. Stepping into the restaurant, the host’s station sits atop a vintage Detroit Jewel enamel cast-iron stove. The upper shelf running the long bar’s length is devoted to an impressive collection of ceramic pigs6. The All You Need Is Love license plate collage above the door almost gets it right — All You Need Is Pizza!
Via Roma commissioned Grazia Montalto, a Parisian-born graphic designer and illustrator raised in Naples, to create Lo Struscio, her vision of Via Roma, an iconic Napoli street. Montalto’s artwork graces the Via Roma website (which DishingPizza borrowed for this post’s featured image), restaurant walls, pizza boxes, and placemats, deftly capturing the spirit of this joyous restaurant.
Via Roma Pizzeria
2606 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008
Style: Roman pinsa
Pizza Quality: 🍕🍕🍕🍕
Overall experience: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pie (football-shaped): $16
Price per square inch: $0.19
- A close second is La Casina, which opened in 2023 on Capitol Hill, not yet reviewed by DishingPizza. ↩︎
- This is a doozy of a footnote, but it’s a bit of a tangent from Via Roma. There’s some mythology that pinsa dates back to ancient Roman times, but it’s just that – a fiction concocted by Corrado Di Marco, the inventor of pinsa, in 2001 to give it more cred. Di Marco started an eponymously named company to hawk his flour blend. In 2016, he also founded the Associazione Originale Pinsa Romana to certify pinserias like Via Roma. The certification requires that the recipients use Di Marco flour. So, the Associazione Originale Pinsa Romana is essentially nothing more than a thinly disguised franchise program. ↩︎
- See Il Canale, Slice & Pie, and Stellina. ↩︎
- Perhaps this should have been a footnote since it likely interests no one besides DishingPizza. ↩︎
- Even if you hightail it, parking in the area is tight. Pro tip: Weekday rush hour restrictions are lifted at 6:30 pm on a handful of metered spots in front of the restaurant. ↩︎
- While DishingPizza has little interest in ceramic pigs, DishingPizza loves people who cultivate personal, peculiar collections. ↩︎
I wish I lived near enough to try this. Maybe one day.