The last time Mayor Muriel Bowser took the time to share her opinions on food—to inexplicably disparage D.C.’s iconic condiment, mumbo sauce—she earned outrage and a national news cycle. But that didn’t stop her from using National Pizza Day as a chance to share her favorite local spots to score a slice.

It is a toss up:

We the Pizza by @chefspike @LedoPizza @andpizza @matchbox369

What’s your favorite 🍕? https://t.co/2X5J602IRw

— Muriel Bowser (@MurielBowser) February 9, 2019

Curious choices, indeed! Of course, any ranking of food is immediately subject to an intense round of skepticism. We should know: our Ten Best Pizzas in D.C. and the Best Pizzas in D.C., Part 2, published in 2013 and 2014, respectively, sparked spirited debate about all of the pies we left out, all of the allegedly disgusting ones we included, and whether D.C. should even bother slinging slices at all because have you ever even tried pizza in New York City? (And, in full disclosure, those lists included pizza pies from We, The Pizza, Matchbox, and &Pizza.)

But in recent years, a slew of pizza joints have opened in D.C. that earned widespread acclaim, including Timber Pizza and All Purpose. Plus, there are long-time heavy hitters still in the game: 2Amy’s, Vace Italian Delicatessen, Menomale, Ghibellina, Wiseguy NY Pizza, and many more.

So how did Bowser come to love the four pizzas she mentioned so much? We decided to delve into her relationships with these establishments and their owners to figure out just how much cheese is on these slices.

We, the Pizza

Spike Mendelsohn opened We, the Pizza on Capitol Hill in 2010, two years after he rose to national fame on Top Chef. The pop art-saturated restaurant that specializes in enormous slices of ‘za was meant to be a companion to his burger joint Good Stuff Eatery, and it has since expanded with an Arlington location.

Mendelsohn has kept plenty of irons in the fire of the D.C. food scene, opening the Dupont speakeasy The Sheppard and Mount Vernon’s Morris American Bar in the last four years. In 2015, he also joined the city’s new Food Policy Council as its first chairperson—an appointment made by Bowser—with a mission to promote the District’s food economy.

It appears he wasn’t initially a backer of the mayor: According to the Office of Campaign Finance, he donated $1,500 to Tommy Wells’ unsuccessful 2014 mayoral campaign. He’s apparently changed his tune, donating $2,000 to her re-election campaign in 2017.

Plus, he and Bowser have sporadically supported each other on Twitter; he giving her kudos on her budget in 2015, she giving him props for sending pizza to the Democratic National Committee headquarters on election day in 2016. And more recently, Mendelsohn scored an invite to watch Washington Capitals games from Bowser’s private box at Capital One Arena on four occasions, including games three and four of the Stanley Cup.

Ledo Pizza

The only pizza purveyor on this list to specialize in square pies, Ledo Pizza has a long D.C. history. The chain was born in 1955 in College Park, and it has since ballooned to more than 100 locations in the D.C. area and …. Florida. The company is particularly proud of its pepperoni, which is thicker and larger than most rounds.

Bowser is a longtime Ledo enthusiast: In her pre-mayoral days, she congratulated the company on Twitter for being recognized by the food sections of the Washington City Paper and the Washington Post. In 2015, she wished her constituents a happy new year from the pizza joint. The most recent time she tweeted about the restaurant chain appears to be October 2018, when she recognized Ledo’s 63rd anniversary and paraphrased their slogan, “never cut corners” (because it’s a square pizza–get it?).

It’s fair to assume that the love is mutual. Ledo donated $2,000 to her mayoral campaign in 2014. The company’s pizza was given to volunteers at campaign headquarters on at least one instance, per Washingtonian, though it’s not clear if those pies were purchased or donated. For her re-election campaign last year, the company donated $670.77, according to the Office of Campaign Finance.

Do we know for sure whether Ledo is Mayor Bowser’s choice for pizza night? Of course not. But there is a Ledo location about a five-minute drive from the mayor’s neighborhood in upper Northwest.

&pizza

The inclusion of this local do-it-yourself pizza chain feels like a no-brainer, particularly given its recent support of federal workers during the government shutdown. &pizza gave away 20,000 free pies before partnering with D.C. restaurateur and philanthropist José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen non-profit. Bowser touted the deal as an example of how “in D.C., we step up when others step down.”

But Bowser’s relationship with &pizza goes back well before that, and delves into policy, too. &pizza co-founder and CEO Michael Lastoria advocated on behalf of Bowser’s law to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. The mayor signed the increase into law in 2016 outside of an &pizza outpost in Columbia Heights, with Lastoria speaking at the press conference. That same day, she went into the &pizza to make her very own “Mayor’s Special.”

The next year, the mayor put on her apron once again, whipping up cocktails at a launch party for Hotel Hive, which hired &pizza to run the food and drinks at its bar. The Washington Post’s Reliable Source column characterizes Bowser’s turn as mixologist as “a thank you to &pizza …. [which] helped push Bowser’s fair-wage bill.”

Since 2012, &pizza has grown from one location on H St. NE to a total of 33, including one inside the Rayburn House Office Building that opened last week. According to the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance, Lastoria contributed $2,000 to Bowser’s 2018 re-election campaign. Additionally, IMA Pizza LLC, the parent company of &pizza, wrote a $1,500 check to her re-election campaign.

Matchbox

There’s less documentation of Bowser spending time at Matchbox or otherwise interacting with the owners than the other spots she touted.

The 11 location-strong chain has been slinging thin-crust pizza since opening its first location in Chinatown in 2002. Thompson Hospitality, which took over management of Matchbox Food Group in 2018, donated $2,000 to Bowser’s first mayoral run in 2014, two months before donating $1,300 to her opponent, Dave Catania. Matchbox LLC did not donate to Bowser’s first or second mayoral campaigns, but it did give $250 to D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson’s 2018 re-election bid.

Bowser and Matchbox do have something else in common; they were both protested by activists at a May Day rally in 2017.

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