The name, Boogy & Peel,1 doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Named after the owner’s beloved dog and a pizza peel, Boogy and Peel, opened in 2022. It occupies space in the prestigious 1 Dupont Circle address at the New Hampshire Avenue spoke of Dupont Circle. Oddly, the only visual identification outside is a skimpy, vinyl banner that hangs perpendicular to the storefront. Lacking signage affixed to the storefront wall, DishingPizza walked right past Boogy & Peel while looking for it.
Inside, a neon sign reading, “Every pizza is a personal pizza if you try hard and believe in yourself,” dominates one of this bright restaurant’s walls. Like the restaurant’s name, this sign was a puzzler until it clicked that it’s something of a fat joke2. Some web-digging reveals the quote is often attributed to Bill Murray, and it’s easy to imagine his insouciant delivery of the line. Perhaps DishingPizza is tragically un-hip, but it seems uncreative to use someone else’s quote, even if it’s Billy Murray’s, as a restaurant’s centerpiece. Furthermore, Boogy & Peel would probably get more walk-in business3 by hanging an expensive neon sign outside, not inside the restaurant.
DishingPizza has a bad habit of establishing rules and blithely breaking them. Previously, DishingPizza vowed to sample a pizzeria’s speciality if it has one, but went to Boogy & Peel at lunchtime wanting to carry out a couple of slices. Although Boogy & Peel is known for zany round, deck-oven pizzas, the only slices they have for carryout are their unzany, pricey Detroit-style with either marinara or vodka sauce — DishingPizza ordered one slice of each.
Even while walking outside holding the carryout box, this pizza emanated a rich, garlicky aroma. So, DishingPizza knew, going in, that Boogy & Peel wasn’t playing games with anemic sauce. The orange-pink vodka sauce piece yielded a sensory explosion. The sauce was robust – garlicky, indeed, but also creamy and spicy. At first, it seemed that the sauce would overwhelm the rest of the pizza, but ’twas not the case. The thick airy crust is a marvel on its own – much lighter than focaccia or Sicilian slices, but providing a pillowy bed for the sauce and cheese.
A word about the Boogy & Peel cheese — it’s a 50/50 blend of Wisconsin brick cheese and mozzarella. This combination is delicious and provides a crispy, caramelized edge to the Detroit slices. The richness of this cheese blend is a perfect complement to the bodacious sauce and superb crust.
After gobbling down the Vodka sauce slice, DishingPizza feared the marinara slice would be a lackluster follow-up. Au contraire! What the marinara sauce lacks in creaminess, it makes up for in a deep, garlicky, tomatoey goodness.
Sadly, DishingPizza didn’t sample any of Boogy & Peel’s creative pizzas for which they’re known, like Harambe Loved Big Macs, a cheeseburger pie, or The Bird Reynolds, a buffalo chicken and pickle concoction –two excellent reasons to make another visit.
Boogy & Peel
1 Dupont Circle NW, Suite 115B, Washington, DC 20036
Style: Detroit & New York
Pizza Quality: 🍕🍕🍕🍕
Overall experience: ⭐⭐
Slice (Detroit): $6.00
Slice price per square inch: $0.30
Slice greed factor: 🤑
Pie (Detroit 10″x8″): $23
Price per square inch: $0.29
Pie (Round 13″): $15
Price per square inch: $0.11
- It took DishingPizza a few go-arounds to get the name down, starting with Boogie, as in Get Down and Boogie, Bogey as in Here’s looking at you, kid, and finally, BOO – gy. ↩︎
- DishingPizza is enough of a glutton to make any-sized pizza its own personal pizza. ↩︎
- Hopefully, Boogy & Peel will take heed. DishingPizza visited on Friday lunchtime, and the joint was empty. ↩︎