Bacio Pizzeria

Bacio has been around a while, and used to be a mainstay in my house, but it’s been a while for me. Nothing I had planned for tonight sounded good. It could only be time for pizza.

Now. My review comes from the perspective of a person who knows this place. Perhaps, like a parent who has suddenly found herself to be “not mad, just disappointed,” I set my initial expectations too high.

It was a beautiful night, so we sat on the patio out front. They do have some inside seating, but the patio is where it’s at. It’s beautiful and the service was also great.

The canned beer list is great, let’s just say that much. I almost–almost– ordered a hard root beer. I have waited my whole life to try a decent hard root beer. Who even stocks this? But then the Boulevard lemon ginger shandy caught my eye. It was basically alcoholic ginger beer, and it was super refreshing, so I guess it checked all the boxes. They were out of the first thing my husband ordered, but this place is so small that I’m impressed they have the storage space for what they have.

Bacio has tons of great-looking toppings and some seriously delicious-sounding signature pizzas. I was unsuccessful in convincing my better half to get anchovies (and, in his defense, I’ve never actually had anchovies on pizza, I’m really just curious!), so we got a large pizza with pesto sauce, pepperoni, roasted red peppers, and caramelized onions. The fact that they even offer pesto is amazing. Obviously, we are not dealing with Pizza Boli-caliber pizza here.

The bad: As you can see, they uncharacteristically skimped on the toppings here. Notably mostly-absent: pepperoni. Also sad was the light touch they used with the pesto. In my recollection it has been not only fantastic but also heavy-handed.

The good: Onions. Yes. The sweetness was perfect on this. It’s nice that they give you something other than the conventional nasty white onions chopped into tiny pieces that you can’t even pick off. Onions are meant to be cooked. It would have been better if I had had more pepperoni to pair with it. Their cheese is always high-quality too, and they actually offer other options for cheese, including gorgonzola and vegan mozzarella. You can’t order the vegan cheese and still be my friend, but it does exist. The crust is actually flavorful; a solid, medium-thick crust (they also offer thin crust for losers who like that sort of thing).

The more good: we were seated next to a gaggle of awkward 14 year-old girls and got to overhear their entire conversation. It’s always weird to see kids in the wild here in DC, so I feel like witnessing a bunch of weirdo kids without any parents around was like finding a four-leaf clover. They even treated us to a serenade from their collectively favorite musical. As you may have gathered, it was delightfully painful.

Price: $15 per person.

Bottom line: Bacio is still great. My qualms with it were minor. It’s great sit-down or take-out pizza that’s actually fresh and high-quality instead of franchised and bad. It’ll run you more than Papa John’s but at least then you don’t have to eat Papa John’s.