Pizzeria Vetri collaborated with Shake Shake to create this bacon and cheese sauce laden SmokeShack rotolo, a limited time version of their signature dish. (Photo by Pizzeria Vetri)
Dish of the week: Pizza pinwheels
Where to find it: Pizzeria Vetri, Manhattan Pizza, Dominic’s Italian Grille
Pizza pinwheels are often found on countertop display cases of New York pizzerias, next to the likes of garlic knots, spinach rolls, and rice balls. But it can be tough to find the rolled up take on pizza flavors in Washington.
The pizza pinwheel at Pizzeria Vetri (2221 14th St. NW) is a one of a kind. When the Philadelphia import opened last summer on the 14th Street corridor, it became the latest of a small army of artisanal pizza shops in the neighborhood. But it’s the only place around also serving pizza pinwheels. Here, it’s called a rotolo—a pinwheel’s taller, fatter cousin. Think of it like a plump, warm, gooey cinnamon roll in savory form. The rotolo ($5) takes a strand of pizza dough and stuffs it with mortadella and ricotta cheese as the dough is rolled in around itself. The concoction is finished off with a topping of pistachio pesto.
It’s a must-order item at the restaurant. The only choice to be made is how to go about eating the morsel. Do you unwind the dough, pulling it apart bit by bit, or just sink your teeth into the whole thing, revealing the ham and cheesy layers?
Now through September 10, Pizzeria Vetri is collaborating with Shake Shack, folding one of the burger joint’s signature creations into its pizza dough roll. The result is the “SmokeShack Rotolo,” ($7) which uses ground beef and Niman Ranch bacon. It’s topped with the burger joint’s thick, cheesy ShackSauce and chopped up cherry peppers. A bite into the fist-sized bomb of an appetizer is salty, smoky, and intense.
Miniature rotolos are also available during Pizzeria Vetri’s regular weekday happy hour. The little guys eat more like a pizza than their nutty big brother. Pepperoni is substituted in for the meat and tomato sauce for the pistachio pesto.
Outside of D.C., you will have to head west to Tysons Corner and beyond to find the rolls. The small Northern Virginia-based chain Manhattan Pizza is a go-to spot for pinwheels. The version at the Tysons Corner location (8365 Leesburg Pike, Vienna VA), the closest to the District, is a bit like Pizzeria Vetri’s SmokeShack special. Asiago cheese and bacon pinwheels come six to an order and the cheese is baked in, leaving the wheels more gooey than gloppy. Other outposts in Herndon and in Fairfax on the George Mason University campus, serve pepperoni rolls instead of bacon ones, taking pizza dough and rolling it with pepperoni, garlic, herbs, and cheese.
An Italian-American style pinwheel can doesn’t just have to be about pizza dough. Back in Maryland, Dominic’s Italian Grille (12854 New Hampshire Av., Silver Spring) spins pinwheels not out of pizza dough but lasagna noodles. Instead of using the noodles to layer the dish, sheets are rolled around the cheese, meat, and sauce. It all gets baked to order as an entree.
Previously On Dish Of The Week:
Dip Into Muhammara
Ice Pops
Creamy Burrata
Watermelon Salad, Everywhere
Lomo Saltado
