La Merna
Category Casual Dining
Address
2153 P Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
Details
The menu centers on Chicago tavern-style pizza, known for its ultra-thin, crispy crust, shareable square slices and not a deep dish in sight. Shorten and Schmitt built the rest of the menu around dishes enjoyed on international adventures, like scratch-made pastas and seasonal, produce-forward dishes. The Stracciatella Toast, piled with sweet melon, thinly sliced prosciutto, honey, Calabrian chili and house-made creamy stracciatella, is the showstopper of the bread course. The signature Gnudi Magazine Day, deep-fried and made of ricotta, provolone, spinach and basil, is topped with house vodka sauce. And the La Merna Fennel Salad, a mix of thinly shaved fennel and roasted fennel stems, leafy greens, bright Castelvetrano olives and walnuts, is tossed with a Champagne vinaigrette and garnished with blue cheese crumbles.
“The pizza is the backbone of the menu, but everything else comes from wherever we've eaten well, whether that's a cheese cave in Italy or a tiny bar in the Basque Country,” owner Schmitt said. “We're not trying to reinvent Italian-American food. We just want to cook it like people who've actually eaten a lot of it."
