Look at the menu at the newly opened Lupo Pizzeria on 14th Street, and you may do a double take. Alongside classic options, there are a few rounds defying normal Neapolitan standards. The Lupo Marino features a crust blackened with squid ink, its center a tumble of calamari, mussels, and prawns. Four egg yolks star in the Carbonara, one on each decadent slice bedazzled with guanciale, pecorino cheese, and freshly ground black pepper. And the Lupo Osteria gets gussied up with smoked ham, goat cheese, mozzarella, figs, arugula, and a glistening of balsamic glaze.
“I’m having fun with the toppings and combinations, so it doesn’t get boring,” says Juan Olivera, corporate chef of the Lahlou Restaurant Group and part owner of this latest venture. “There’s a lot of competition, a lot of great chefs. Normal doesn’t cut it anymore.”
A veteran of Barcelona Wine Bar and the now-shuttered TakEatEasy downtown, the Uruguayan-born chef first rose to prominence in the D.C. restaurant scene a decade ago when he helped popularize the chivito, an epic sandwich popular in his home country stuffed with beef tenderloin, black forest ham, bacon, and hard-boiled egg. He first served it at Fast Gourmet, an unconventional sandwich shop he ran with his brother, Manuel Olivera, located inside a gas station just north of Lupo Pizzeria on 14th Street. Fans of the sandwich will be happy to see it here. As a nod to restaurant’s Italian heritage, the beast now includes pancetta and fontiago cheese.
It’s one of several sandwiches on the menu: Most are panuozzo, classic sandwiches from Italy’s Campania region that use bread made with pizza dough. Others include a gyro-inspired one packed with yogurt-marinated spiced lamb; one with pork belly and a slather of orange jam; and a vegetarian option bursting with crudité, avocados, sprouts, and creamy stracchino cheese.
The menu opens with a selection of salads and small bites. In the latter category, there’s another head turner: seaweed doughnuts, a hat tip to the Italian tradition of savory frittelle (fried yeasted dough balls) and buñuelos (fried fritters) filled with seaweed popular in Uruguay. They’re served with dashi-spiked tomato sauce for dunking. “You know how it is with chefs,” says Olivera. “When we get obsessed with something, we can’t stop playing with it. I went a little wild with seaweed for a while.”
Other standout starters include volcanic black risotto balls hiding calamari, each sitting on a dollop of brilliant yellow saffron aioli. A favorite of Olivera are “fancy mozzarella sticks.” The hefty deep-friend planks made with taleggio arrive with tomato passata, an uncooked sauce similar to marinara. The chef plans to change the menu seasonally and run specials with whatever is freshest. Currently, he’s working on cacio e pepe-styled corn on the cob and pizza featuring Old Bay-dusted crab.
The dessert menu is short and — well, sweet. There’s tiramisu, dulce de leche crepes, and pizza decked out with Nutella, baby marshmallows, and strawberries.
To complement the meal, there’s a small beer list and a short selection of Italian wines. Beverage director Brian Kominsky devised a something-for-everyone cocktail list with each drink including an Italian element. There’s an espresso martini with a touch of amaro and a play on pre-Prohibition favorite the Last Word using limoncello instead of the customary lime juice. “Fourteenth Street is very diverse, and the menu is very diverse,” he says, “so the bar menu had to be along the same lines.”
The 60-seat, 2,500-square-foot restaurant takes over an address once occupied by an outpost of Taylor Gourmet. Designed to evoke an Italian alleyway, paintings of open windows line one wall and clothing lines bedecked with an Italian flag and t-shirts (look closely, there’s also a pair of underwear) crisscross the space. The eatery is the latest venture from restaurateur Med Lahlou of the Lahlou Restaurant Group, which owns Lupo Verde around the corner, The Wharf’s Lupo Marino, and Lupo Verde Osteria in the Palisades.
Lupo Pizzeria is located at 1908 14th St. NW. Open Sunday-Thursday 11 a.m.-1 a.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m.-2 a.m.