Just fifteen minutes down the Pike lies a hidden culinary treat: the Bethesda Slice Tour. During lunchtime, three pizza shops will sell slices of their pies.
AP Pizza Shop opened recently, along with its sister restaurant Aventino.
They make deck-oven New Jersey-style pizza, featuring a chewy base and dense crust. The interior is modeled after a bar wherein the kitchen is open and acts as entertainment for patrons. In addition to pizza, they serve an Italian sub, a house salad, and Italian desserts such as Blood Orange Panna Cotta and Bombolini. AP Pizza serves 18” pies and larger slices until 3 p.m., when they shift to a 12” personal pie for dinner.
If you walked through an alley, you’d reach Vace Italian Delicatessen, or Vace’s.
This authentic Italian supply shop sells everything from olive oil to pre-prepared and frozen pasta dishes—and of course pizza, by the slice or pie. They make their pizzas in a similar fashion to AP, but their cheese is placed under the sauce. Neighborhood favorites include the classic cheese and white onion pizzas. Home cooks, listen up: Vace’s is the best place in DC to buy premade pizza dough.
Our last stop is Andy’s, a franchised New York-style pizza shop. They sling thin, crispy, light 18” pizzas late into the night, and always have slices available to enjoy in their loft, by the TVs displaying live sports, or on the go, with white paper plates and extra napkins. A word of caution: take out from Andy’s is not the best way to eat the pizza. When left in the box, the pizza loses it’s signature crisp. We recommend eating in.
