When I receive a job for a pretty much entire menu of any place, it tends to raise flags of corpos being lazy and just throwing an arbitrary minimum number of plates that seldom ends up being so when I get to the place. I went ahead and rang Frank’s Pizza & Pasta to confirm, and to my surprise this was indeed to be a whole menu kind of shoot. We adjusted the date and time that worked for us both and then came the plateful morning.
Frank’s is your classic little pizzeria with a very much proper Italian shop vibe –
Even their menus are those old school, backlit and standard slabs on the wall –
With their cozy decor covered, now came the best part – the staff. Owner’s son Gerry and the arriving crew were taking care of me that morning and they’re simply awesome and dedicated guys. How many places have I seen where staff drags their feet and that can be an absolute disaster when it happens in the kitchen since attitude always reflects in the food of a place. As the saying goes – you cook with your heart. The guys wanted the best possible presentation for their creations and were prepared with some nice boards to put sandwiches and appz onto – another sign I love seeing compared to a slew of places that just don’t seem to care about the presentation, especially in the pizza side of this business. Once the food started making its way to my work table, I was getting more and more impressed with every plate. Appetizers looked a little something like this –
Perfect looking wings are always a great sign of what to expect from a place, especially when wings aren’t the creme of the crop of the menu.
I will build you folks up to their best one tier at a time, and believe me that seeing the pies will be worth the mouthwatering wait through the rest of the menu, like some of their subs!
Perfect, fresh, crispy crust while fluffy and soft on the inside kind of bread easily elevates a sub or a sandwich, and these guys know their dough like no other! Molten parm, big balls of meat, and fresh basil – absolutely fantastic details! Food normally doesn’t phase me, but I was starting to get hungry staring at these beauties after an hour. And smelling the bread and basil. It’s about the time we get to the pies, right?
Thin crust, golden cheese, dough bubbles, and basil, basil, and basil! Even a chicken parm pie – oh my!
With fires of the oven blazing and pots of water boiling for pasta, we all shot the shit about the food industry and how love and dedication is key. We also brushed up on some woes of America, but the key point being how our admittedly half-broken legal system still protects anyone wanting to start their own business and bring it to a success unlike in so many other parts of our world. Speaking of pasta, here are some of their offering in this department:
This place has won local food awards in the past, and it shows with every plate. And taste-wise – they have my vote that I don’t give out too often, especially in this length.
My personal favorite pizzas are margaritas. There’s just something else to basil and fresh mozzarella over cheese blends, and these go very well with pepperoni and other toppings too. The key to a good pizza is of course the sauce – these guys make their own and after trying a slice and commenting on the proper, tomato taste without any sweetness, Gerry confirmed my thoughts exactly – their sauce brings out the best of its core ingredient without unnecessary flairs and subtleties, and you can taste exactly that! Another interesting offering at Frank’s is hot honey drizzle, and it works very well. I’ve seen so many pizzerias used those awful, sweeter canned tomato sauces like almost all of the chains do and it does disservice to the carefully crafted dough as well as the cheese. Sauce is as much of a key as the dough.
The next delicacy came completely out of the left field for me, and my god was it made perfectly!
Something I managed not to encounter in my years of shooting food – Detroit deep dish square pizzas. Same amazing sauce, same perfectly cupped pepperoni and even ricotta and hot honey, but the dough is the real treat here! Dough had crispy walls, bottom, and absolutely perfect fluffy middle that melted in my mouth along with the toppings. Simply fantastic stuff!
I’m not huge on dessert, but the zeppeli here impressed me just like the rest of the doughy goodness.
Sugary outside, and salty, airy, doughy inside. This is a great way to do dessert that only compliments the baking happening all day here.
Overall, Frank’s Pizza and Pasta is an absolute must in the DMV area, and especially Maryland. This place is properly above and beyond many other places attempting to be similar and spreading too thin across a mediocre menu instead of perfecting and then expanding sensibly. Local papers appropriately recognized Frank’s and they get my big stamp of approval as well. Here’s their website as well if you’d like to peruse their offerings and such – https://frankspizzaandpasta.com/
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