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Emmy Squared
1924 8th St. NW,
Washington, DC 20001
Cost: $$
Our bill: $67.10 (food, beverage, tax and tip)
Our rating: ★★★★★
Vibe: Casual
Cuisine: Detroit-Style Pizzeria
Reservations: not needed
When I went to Austin five years ago, I had the most amazing Detroit-style pizza at Via 313. Before Austin, I had never even heard of this style of pizza and honestly, I don’t think there was any other place better than Via 313 to try it. It was truly the best pizza I ever had. The crust was incredible and I had been dreaming of Detroit-style pizza ever since.
I seriously searched high and low for Detroit-style pizza in the DC area and could not find anything…until Emmy Squared.
Aaron and I went to Emmy Squared on a Saturday afternoon for a day date. We had tickets to the Heurich House later in the day so fueling up on pizza and other delicious bites was the perfect pre-museum education fuel!
Our thoughts:
It was bright, energetic, clean, full of couples, friends, and families enjoying their Saturday afternoon. This is a pizza place, but the menu has a variety of other eats if you are in the mood for something beside pizza.
We may have gone a little overboard from the looks that the other tables gave us, but we were on a mission to taste as much as possible. We ordered cheesy garlic sticks, roasted cauliflower, chopped cheese burger, and the EC Shaw pizza.
We could have ordered multiples of the cheesy garlic sticks. They definitely didn’t skimp on the cheese or garlic and the texture of the sticks were fantastic. I LOVE edges and crunchy crusts and that’s what it seemed like most of the sticks were.
I personally had low expectations for this chopped cheese burger. Aaron ordered it and I thought it was just going to be a regular burger. Oh no, it was far from that. It was like a Philly cheesesteak in burger form and it was so damn good.
We could’ve done without this roasted cauliflower dish. The description was enticing but it just wasn’t that good and we both like cauliflower. We gave it a chance and took a few bites.
The EC Shaw was epic. The sauce drizzled on top was sweet, tangy, and spicy. The blue cheese and red onions were the perfect toppings to go with the fried chicken pieces on top. The dough was cooked perfectly. We appreciated how generous they were with the fried chicken topping. The pieces were substantial, so with every bite, you were able to get a taste of everything.
In conclusion, we think this is a great place for a date — day or night. When it comes to reservations, we feel you don’t need them if you go earlier in the day, however, we can’t speak about the need for reservations at night.
Overall cost isn’t expensive and you leave satisfied for what you pay for. We didn’t order any adult beverages just a couple sodas.
Parking outside looked to be fairly slim, so like most people in the city, your best bet is to Uber or Lyft there, if you can.