Menomale - Washington, D.C.

I ate menomale with friends in my last weeks in Virginia. We had to go into D.C. to reach this place and it wasn't really located in a business area. In fact, it looked like a converted house. This wasn't the first time that I've eaten calzone out of what was a house-turned-restaurant. However, this calzone was great. The atmosphere was nice. The calzone was called "Panna" and it was $15. Of course, this makes it one of the more expensive calzones I've eaten thusfar. I have to say, it was worth it though. It contained a cream sauce, ricotta, a kind of ham or prosciutto, basil, and mozzarella. I would describe this as a "wet" calzone because it leaked the insides over the plate when you cut into it. It was a nice, decent size... nothing overly huge or small. It was very thin however, but that seems to be a feature of most of their baked Italian fare. The taste was light and airy, the cream sauce wasn't heavy and the crust was fired perfectly. It stayed hot the entire meal, which I enjoyed. I would criticize the thinness of the calzone with it's wetness. I'm not sure what they would have to do to solve this issue, perhaps reduce the sauce a lot more or strain off the excess water. Anyhow, the whole thing seemed limp because of the moisture. It was also not served with any marinara sauce. Obviously, not a deal breaker, but not something that the standard calzone is missing - as we have come to see.

I give this calzone a solid B for it's delightfulness despite the minor flaws and the very expensive price. The dough was great, the ingredients were great, and the company was great. I would patron this establishment again in the future if I got the chance. It might, however, be wise to pay attention to your surroundings getting to the place, because it's not in the greatest (read: most safe) neighborhood. That makes it even more astounding that such a high-class restaurant could exist where it does. If they move down towards the main action of the D.C. city center, I'm sure they'd have a line out of the door.

Giardino's - Burke, VA

This restaurant is the sister joint of Villa Bella, owned and operated by the same family. Because of this, I expected the calzone faire to be quite similar to the one I had eaten over at the other place. In fact, the menus are almost identical.

This calzone was full of crumbled italian sausage, onions, prosciutto, and mozzarella cheese. I would describe it as a large calzone with a top-cut in the bread for convection. It was served with a small cup of a very tomato heavy marinara sauce. Overall, it was quite a satisfying dish, if not very salty due to the heavily cured sausage and the prosciutto which is normally quite salty. The breading was perfect, not thick, and the top layer was crispy from the baking process.

The view from the restaurant was pleasant, and the weather was cool. It was the perfect setting for this calzone, as I watched the girl scouts sell their cookies in front of the supermarket that shares a wall. Overall, I would rate this calzone a B- because it was slightly on the expensive side at $13.00 and the overly salty meats that were used. However, it was still good enough that I would happily purchase again.

Valentinos Pizzeria - Alexandria, VA

This was the second time that I had gone to this establishment. Unfortunately, I didn't save the photos I took the first time around and this gave me a wonderful excuse to have to patron this fine establishment once more. Let me just say this: Valentino's is awesome. It's one of the best pizza shops that I've ever been in. Not only is the food good, but it has an old-school italian pizza shop vibe that left long ago. The pizza's are humongous and they're not your standard fair. They offer a Chicken-alla-Vodka pizza that's just wonderful. But, my job is to review the calzones so that's what we'll do.

I like their calzone's a lot. I did more so the first time I went there, because the true test of a restaurant is if they an consistently duplicate the good results they produced the first time a person ever went there. In this case, they didn't quite reach that mark. The first time I went, I ordered the deluxe calzone which runs at a fair $9.75. This calzone, as it is shown in the windowed area of the prepared stuff, to which you can just point and say "I want one of those", is made as a traditional half-moon pocket. However, during the baking process, they slice the pocket open, place all of the extra ingredients you desired on top, and then cook the thing open-faced. This method gives the calzone a very unique and enticing look once it is served to you, and the ingredients are cooked up like a pizza. None of the flavors have been meshed together because a closed pocket didn't force the flavors to stew together. Neither does the cheese carry much of the flavor of any of the ingredient, and nor is there very much of it in the first place. The calzone is served with some marinara sauce, and it's pretty good, but nothing to write home about.


Their calzones are very traditionally "doughy" being made up mostly of the bread. The open-faced style of cooking this calzone causes the bread to be very dry and brittle when it comes out to the table. Despite these criticisms, the calzone is still very good. The ingredients are top quality, and the artisan nature of the calzone gives it a personality all of its own. However, after having tasted some of my friend's pizza while I was there, I most certainly will be returning for that instead. I readjust my previous score to a C+ because they didn't replicate the results I got on the first visit, the bread was very dry, and to cook a calzone open-faced sort of destroys the whole point of a calzone for me.

Buon Appetito - Chantilly, VA

A colleague recommended that I try this place. They told me that the pasta sauce was great. Well Stella, maybe next time! I, of course, ordered their calzone. This establishment offers three or four varieties and, as a meat lover, I couldn't resist ordering the pepperoni and sausage.

What I learned about the calzone's here are:

1) They are cheap, running only $6.79.

2) They are made like a pizza and folded over with the toppings added to order.

3) They are very standard.

First, I would  classify the size of the calzone as medium-small. Definitely not the smallest I've had so far, but pretty small in comparison to most. This is almost what you would order if you wanted a snack lunch instead of a full lunch with pizza and breadsticks. The dish was served with a small plastic cup of marinara that was pretty good. I would describe it as a high quality spaghetti-o's sauce because it was only the sweeter and on the more "ketchup-y" side.

The dough of this calzone very not very good. It was tough because all of the moisture was baked out of it. Furthermore, the knives they provide to cut their food with are butter knives, which made it slightly frustrating. The taste of the dough was pretty good, and also on the sweet side. They did not doctor the dough up like some places do with cornmeal, cheese, or cuts in the bread. The fillings were your medium-quality pizza-place toppings, italian pizza sausage and a decent pepperoni. One thing I noticed is that they brought the heat way up on this calzone through baking it, and the cheese was molten. The ricotta was mixed well with the toppings but lost its consistency because it was baked too high, which is confirmed by the toughness of the dough that was miraculously unburned.

I can say with full confidence that this establishment makes very good food, and good pizza. If I had to try this place again, I might even get their pasta as recommended by my coworker. Their pizza looked delicious. However, I am forced to rate this calzone as a C because of the negative aspects listed, which were offset by the positives of it's price and the tastiness of it's fillings and marinara.

Pizzamore - Mt. Dora, FL

My mother surprised me with a trip to go get a calzone at a local Mt. Dora hotspot named Pizzamore (that's Pizza + Amore if you didn't already put it together). The surprising thing is that this restaurant is inside of a house. Literally, I felt like I was eating dinner in little johnny's bedroom.

I ordered their calzone and had them add pepperoni into it. The ingredients were pretty good, the pepperoni was a decent quality and the cheese was very thick. They did include ricotta, but no ham - which is why I added the pepperoni. The calzone was sufficiently cooked, the bread was overcooked at the tradeoff that the ingredients were at the proper temperature. One thing that this restaurant seems to do is to liberally pepper the outside of the bread with dry parmesan cheese and bake it into the dough. This gives the bread a crunch which, while not inherently bad, added to the feeling that the dough was overcooked.

The calzone was medium large, and was more on the expensive side, at $12.99 (because of the added pepperoni). The last criticism of this dish is that the marinara was not very good, and was clearly canned and reserved.

I give this calzone a C- for the value, and artistic merit that was taken with it that didn't quite add up. 

Giovanni's - Lake Mary

Myself and an old friend went to this establishment on his recommendation. On the menu, they had a classic calzone, a vegetarian calzone, and something called the "Special" calzone. I, of course, went with the special calzone - the price of which was $12.99. When it arrived, I saw that it was a large calzone, not medium large as usual, but just flat large. The calzone was oven baked in a regular oven. The dough was burnt, and crispy. This turned out to be my least favorite part of the dish, because it flaked away as you tried to cut it and burnt (or overdone) dough is always chewy. However, the insides of the pocket were very good. Mr. Giovanni threw in everything and the kitchen sink. It had pepperoni, meatball, ham, mushrooms, green peppers, onion, sausage, ricotta cheese, and mozzarella cheese. Usually, when we see this many ingredients in a calzone, we don't get the ricotta. This time, we did. All of these standard pizza-topping ingredients came together to form a very delicious medley. The calzone was cooked quite nicely inside. This lends to my theory about the difficulty of cooking a good calzone. Had the outside not been burnt, the insides may not have reached sufficient temperature to cook well. Calzones are hard because they are a trade-off in many ways. Unfortunately, the dough and the price detracted quite heavily from the overall quality of it, leaving me only to be able to score it as high as a C+. I wouldn't go here and get it again, but if I found myself back at Giovanni's in an unplanned way, I might be interested to try the other calzone.

Italian Pizza Kitchen – Van Ness Area – Washington, D.C.

I was excited for this place. Two separate people I know recommended this location to me as a great place for calzones in Washington D.C. Living in Virginia, I don’t get the opportunity to get into the city very often, but I made the trip out for this one. The restaurant is a cozy corner café. Upon entry, me and my friends were seated and placed our orders. The food arrived after about 15 minutes, all three of us ordering a calzone to share. They ordered the Italian Calzone, and I ordered the Napoletana. All the calzones ran $12.95, no matter which version was chosen. I went with the Ham calzone so I could establish a baseline, since the menu boasted ricotta cheese. When it arrived, I noticed that it was the common size of medium-large, which put me at ease. Upon the first bite, I would describe the dough as fluffy, the calzone appeared to be baked in a regular oven. The outside was crisp and well timed. The dough itself wasn’t sweet, nor was it sour. It was regular dough. The presentation of the dish was also one of the best I’ve seen. The chef opted for the risky striations cut into the top of the calzone for visual effect. An aged parmesan was liberally sprinkled over the top. I knew it was a higher quality cheese because its strong concentrated flavor took over a lot of the dish in the parts that it touched. Inside was a nice low-moisture mozzarella with a medium quality ricotta cheese, curdy and seasoned with basil pocketed towards the front. The ham that was used appeared to be a standard pizza topping style ham, cut in quarter inch thick strips and without heavy curing. The cheese inside was not all the way congealed due to the chef paying attention to the dough as the indicator of readiness. This is often the struggle with calzones, cook the dough perfectly and the insides haven’t gotten hot enough to cook correctly, or cook the inside correctly and risk a burnt crust on your dough. Some chefs seem to cut the striations in the top of the pocket in order to allow the hot convection air to cook the insides as well as the outside, but the risk there is that, while eating the calzone, it loses its heat too quickly and becomes cold halfway through. The calzone did suffer from this common issue. However, the marinara sauce was fantastic; earthy, with a hint of spice, albeit only given in a very small carafe. Overall, I enjoyed the calzone. I had a bite of my friend’s Italian calzone and, I think that if I visit again, I might end up ordering that one. I score this Calzone as a B- due to the price for the issues present with it. Presentation was great, timing was great, a few issues with the flavor and quality of the ingredients, but overall not just average.