Trouble in Paradiso

After nursing my all too familiar Sunday hangover for most of the morning, I decided to get out of bed and go searching for some decent pizza. I met a friend at Pizzeria Paradiso (2029 P St. NW) in Dupont, a small place with a wood-burning oven and an interesting choice of décor.

The border of the restaurant is filled with cartoon pizzas sporting colorful toppings, which in the right atmosphere could look kitschy chic, but just left me feeling confused when coupled with the painted sky ceiling (meant to give diners a sense of dining alfresco … or a reminder of how cheesy you were when you put up those glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling in fifth grade) and giant sun that screams “I shouldn’t have gotten that drunken tattoo over Spring Break because now I look like a walking ad for Raisin Bran” painted around the opening of the pizza oven. We started with one of the specials, crostini with mozzarella and proscuitto. It was pretty tasty, although the bread was a little soft to be bearing the name “crostini”– which is Italian for “crunchy goodness” (orrr “little toasts”).

For my main course I decided to go with the place’s namesake and get pizza. I’m not the type of adventurous (read: retarded) diner who orders the cheeseburger platter at Ling Ling’s China Garden.

I got the Genovese pizza, which replaced the traditional tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese with pesto, potatoes and parmesan cheese.

Overall the flavors were good, even with the absence of one of my favorite pizza components: melty cheese. When I think of pizza, I think of gooey, creamy cheese bubbling atop a crisp yet chewy crust. (Disclaimer: I am one of those New Yorkers who is a self-proclaimed pizza snob and believer in the “magic” water or whatever else people insist is the secret to that perfect New York slice.) Which leads me to the crust. The downfall that brings most pizza-making mortals to their knees faster than Lindsey Lohan in rehab and raises successful dough slingers to legendary status. Paradiso’s crust had the crispness that can only come from a pizza oven, but was more doughy than chewy and had a mushy, yeasty taste that was reminiscent of Domino’s. Although better than most of the other pizza I’ve had since I got to DC, Paradiso definitely is not one I’ll be writing home about any time soon. It wasn’t the best, in fact it would probably rank somewhere in the middle of my pizza-eating experiences (filed under “Forgettable”), but I would probably give it one more shot to see if it could go up any higher. (That’s what she said.)