![]() ![]() ›› Inferno Pizza 12207 Darnestown Rd., Gaithersburg, 30. I’ve been to pizza heaven, and its name is Inferno. provolone, pepperoni, and hot peppers platter with olives. ![]() jumbo wings served with bleu cheese and celery tossed in your choice of sauce. “I’ve been known to eat two of them myself,” Conte told me. roasted peppers, sweet Italian sausage, with mozzarella and provolone cheese. breaded sliced mozzarella, fried to golden brown served with marinara. With its beautifully crunchy dough and satisfyingly fresh toppings, it begged for another bite, and maybe another order. The kid in me couldn’t help but poke at it as I eyed a piece of the pie that offered a healthy mix of San Marzano tomatoes, Fior Di Latte mozzarella, olive oil, and basil. In between was the main event: My margherita pizza bore a huge, trademark Neapolitan air-bubble blister. (We’re still talking about the house-made ricotta cheesecake and affogato.) We started with a healthy sampling of flavorful and seasonal, locally sourced appetizers-roasted cauliflower, a beet salad, and burrata-while drinking Brookville IPAs and white wine, and we ended with an equally fantastic dessert. On Saturdays, this area is used for special tasting parties, and it overlooks the small open-concept kitchen, where Conte takes 45 seconds to build each 11-inch artisanal pizza, and where his assistant fires the pies in a wood-burning tiled oven at about 900 degrees for as long as the nearby large plastic containers still have risen dough in them. On a recent Friday night, our party of two sat at the six-person counter. Marinara, smoked prosciutto and black truffle are among six choices on the menu, and locals know to add organic egg topping to any pizza they order. The thin, light, crispy-bottomed pie is a true elevation of the pizza form. This year, Conte earned a distinction that all chefs covet-he was nominated for his profession’s highest individual honor-for making mostly $10 to $13 pizzas, no less. We don’t normally review restaurants in Gaithersburg, but all we can say is, make the hour drive southwest and you’ll get it. (He got his start in the restaurant business in high school, making New York-style pizzas in Hamden, Connecticut.) It’s part homage to his heritage (his father and grandparents hail from Pontelatone, north of Naples, in Italy), part practicality (he lives with his wife and two children two miles away), and primarily a passion project. In 2015, seeking a departure from the fine-dining world, Conte decided to take on this new challenge. There’s a reason Inferno’s hours are Wednesday to Sunday, 5 p.m.-“until the dough runs out.” “Neither of those make any sense to me,” says Conte, a self-described perfectionist, even if that means turning customers away if capacity is reached. He then spends an hour after close making the dough, the restaurant’s one-of-a-kind flour included, for the next evening. This is Tony Conte’s place, where the 46-year-old former head chef of the multi-starred Oval Room, located near the White House, hand-makes no fewer than 140 certifiably authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas five nights a week, serving them to a steady stream of customers in a laid-back 40-seat space. But what’s happening inside Inferno Pizzeria’s suburban storefront is far from ordinary. If ever go again, we will ask for marinara for the sauce instead.If you’ve never had the pleasure of eating food cooked by a James Beard Award-nominated chef, chances are you wouldn’t expect your first experience to come from a neighborhood pizza joint in a Gaithersburg strip mall. Hoagies Jumbo Wings Boneless Wings Cheesy Breadsticks Breadsticks Calzones & Rolls Inferno Box Traditional Pizza Sicilian Square White Pizza Pickle Pizza Specialty Pizzas Dessert. Which I rarely salt any of my food after cooking. I personally was about to add salt to it. By that time though, we were all on our last piece. When my husband added some of our leftover marinara sauce from breadsticks to it, that changed the flavor. When you take a bite you realize something is missing. I would say to people making pizza, make sure you spread out those green peppers and not clump them together. Like Parmesan cheese was sprinkled on top. We started of ordering the cheese pizza breadstick. Apologize that I can’t remember her name. To start off, I would like to say our server was very friendly.
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