The First Bunch

Ovvio Osteria – Fairfax, VA

The calzones here are some of the best I’ve ever had. They are quite large and, unsurprisingly, due to their artisanal nature, sport a hefty price at $14.99 for the cheapest. My favorite is the spicy italian sausage calzone. The dough is handmade and is fired in a brick oven. This gives the dough a delicious crisp and scorched flavor. The calzone contains tubs of ricotta and unique, fresh mozzarella and Italian sausage chunks. The ingredients create a watery inside and create quite a mess if you aren’t methodical about your calzone eating. It is served with a side of delicious marinara. I’ve also eaten their margarita calzone, but I didn’t like it as much as the spicy Italian sausage. However, I do recognize how well it was crafted, despite my personal tastes. Still very good. It gets an A- and is only detracted by the expensive price. (EDIT: I believe this restaurant has since gone out of business – due to YELP reports.)

Ledo’s Pizza – Springfield, VA

A franchise restaurant with pretty standard calzones. I’ve been to the one nearest my house in Springfield, VA at least three times and each time I have left satisfied. So far, this restaurant offers the cheapest calzones around; at &7.99 apiece. The calzones are square, and are served on a plate big enough to get messy with. They are also served with a side of marinara which, as I’m starting to learn, isn’t always standard in the calzone game. The chicken calzone is very satisfying, and contains chicken, red onions, mushrooms, and mozzarella. The dough is a little tough, but flaky. It almost has a fried-type of quality to it. This one is a solid C+

Paisano’s Pizza – Burke, VA

Terrible. Dough was bready and without flavor, the filling was decent but only took 60% of the volume of the dish, leaving a lot of bread to eat. The dish was served without a side of marinara, so the limited amount that was contained inside the pocket was all you have to eat. This is more of an institutional pizza place without any real culinary merit at all. A small pizza franchise that a few locals patron because they’ve convinced themselves that paying extra for sub-par quality is better than ordering at a “chain” like pizza hut or dominoes. The calzone was a standard $8.99, but was literally the worst calzone I’ve ever eaten because no thought or effort went into it at all. Score: F-

Mangino’s Pizza – Burke, VA

Not very good. It was almost as if you asked a Chinese restaurant to make a calzone with the ingredients they had on hand. I ordered the Lucky Luciano calzone with Italian sausage. The chef took an entire length of Italian sausage and cut it in half lengthwise. Then they roll the sausage in pizza dough together with a lot of banana peppers. This causes the calzone to be very long and thin. Almost a dog-bone shape. There isn’t much in the way of cheese, and the sausage isn’t sliced any further. This makes the calzone hard to eat because you can remove the entire sausage with one pull of the fork. The banana peppers create a strange umami flavor with the dough and the cheese. The “calzone” was quite small, and for $10.99, it was not worth the price. It was served with a side of marinara, which was alright. I’ll give this one a D- for at least some creative effort.

King’s NY Pizza – Fairfax, VA

One of the best in the area. I’ve eaten at this restaurant three times and tried a different calzone each time. They put a decent amount of ricotta and mozzarella cheese in their calzones and they are medium-large and, for $9.00, are the best value in the Northern Virginia area. There are no artisan surprises here, no culinary creativity run-amok, just good calzones with standard (and fresh) ingredients that taste great. So far my favorite has been the Ham Calzone. The ham they use is heavily cured and the saltiness plays well with the mozzarella cheese (but not too salty). The restaurant itself has a nice atmosphere, never seems crowded. Anoush, the waitress, is wonderful, but the other staff members don’t appear to care too much. I give this calzone a B+

Valentino’s NY Style Pizzeria & Restaurant – Alexandria, VA

Fantastic, Authentic and a unique location in a world saturated by franchises and high-end dining. There isn’t any flair when visiting this place, but you get the feeling that this is real Italian and that there’s actually a guy named “Valentino” who owns the business (maybe not, that’s just speculation). What I’m trying to get at is that this place definitely gives the “Italian pizzeria” vibe. Their calzones are quite standard in shape; the classic “moon-shaped pocketbook” thing that you’ll see in TV or movies. I ordered the Deluxe Calzone, because I thought it would showcase their skills. They definitely use the freshest ingredients I’ve ever seen in a calzone. In fact, I think they cooked the base calzone closed, then cut it open and fired it once more with the added ingredients. The calzone was served open-faced and the most delicious marinara sauce I’ve ever had came along with it. It was a medium sized dish, and I had no problem finishing it off. The atmosphere of the restaurant was great, the calzone was fresh, unique, and contained everything a calzone should; mozzarella, ricotta, good dough, marinara on the side. The slices of Italian sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms really brought this one home. The price? Only $9.75. Given the taste and the value, I’m giving this one an A+. Just spectacular.

PIOLA – Arlington, VA

I tried this restaurant on a co-worker’s recommendation. She is a real Italian, born and raised and emigrated from Italy. She said this restaurant had the best pizza she’s had in this area. So, naturally, I had to try their calzone. According to their website, PIOLA is an Italian based (franchised) pizza chain. The first thing to note about this place is that it’s not easy to get to. It’s in the middle of downtown Arlington, and I had to pay $10 to park. As I got closer to the restaurant I noticed there was metered street parking. Novice mistake. When I entered the restaurant the hostess asked “how can I help you?” which I thought was an odd question. After an awkward explanation of why I came to a restaurant for some food, I was seated. It was after the lunch hour (approximately 1:30PM) but it took the waiter 15 minutes to approach me. He was very pleasant, and I ordered their calzone. They had only one calzone on the menu; a ham and mushroom. I also ordered a Guarana, because I love that Brazilian soda and haven’t had it for a while. Upon eating the dish, I noticed that the dough was thin and slightly crispy, which was nice. It was a medium-sized calzone filled up with sliced ham and mushrooms, mozzarella and marinara. The problem I had with this calzone was that the marinara was very watery and leaked out everywhere all over the plate. It was tasty, but needed to be reduced or thickened considerably. The calzone was also notably missing ricotta cheese. Now, I don’t think this is a rule of law or anything, but many of the tastiest calzones appear to contain ricotta cheese. The ham was decent, the mushrooms were sautéed, it appears to have been fired in a brick oven. It was not served with marinara. The price for this calzone was a whopping $15.00. This calzone wasn’t worth anywhere near that price. While eating it, I realized that their pizza must be pretty tasty, since their ingredients were good. However, it just didn’t translate well into the calzone format. It then took the waiter almost 15 more minutes to come around after I ate and offer the check. I give this calzone a C- for being a menu after-thought.

Pizza Boli’s – Fairfax, VA

Now this calzone was odd, but not in a bad way. Note: it is not a dine-in restaurant. In fact, this isn’t even called a calzone on their menu, but a Stromboli. It, however, has all of the makings of a calzone. There was a pocket of bread, sausage, mozzarella, and sauce. I had to wait around for them to make it (of course). The guy at the counter was pleasant and the cost wasn’t terrible; only $9.99. For what this “Stromboli” is, I think it’s a couple of dollars too high. I’ve had better calzones that were cheaper. I ordered the Regular Stromboli, it had Pizza Cheese, Pizza Sauce, and Ground Beef. I’m not sure what type of ingredients they use, but it tasted like… carnival food. It’s hard to describe. It tasted like a manufactured meal instead of one that was handmade. The cheese was indeed regular pizza cheese. The dough was just fine and bready, just like pizza dough, and the ground beef was exactly like the ground beef you would get on a pizza if you ordered a meat lover’s. So, I suppose what I’m saying was that this just tasted, literally, like a folded over pizza with ground beef topping. Nothing more, nothing less. I give this “Stromboli” a D+ since it wasn’t terrible, the price was too high, but, ultimately, there was nothing that differentiated it from a pizza with the same topping.

Mamma Lucia – Inside Fair City Mall – Fairfax, VA

I had been to this plaza-style mall once before to watch Hacksaw Ridge with a church group. I didn’t realize that the restaurant that dominates the hall was actually Mamma Lucia’s, so when I saw this restaurant online, I thought to myself “Why haven’t I heard of this place?” The way it’s described online makes it sound like a small bistro opened by an Italian woman that serves authentic Italian fare. What this place is, in fact, is a food-court style restaurant a-la-Sbarro. Don’t be mistaken, just because it feels like a mom-and-pop Sbarro stuffed into a small and ancient mall where one might find a dollar theatre, it was still quite good. The calzone I ordered here was made fresh. It had sausage, ham, and pepperoni in it, along with a healthy amount of mozzarella and a generous helping of ricotta. The calzone was cooked well, the dough was good, and it pocketed a good amount of its insides without being too “bready”. It was one of the smallest calzones I’ve eaten so far being, what I could call, medium-small. As a matter of fact, I think it was probably completely regular. The only calzone I ate that was smaller was at Mangino’s and that one was terrible and pricy. This calzone only set me back $7.49 with everything I listed. The sauce that it was served with was a standard marinara sauce. However, it did have a light kick to it that I found appetizing. I believe the sauce was store-bought and not handmade. The taste of the calzone felt a little like something you might get at a fair or a carnival. It felt “commercial” and not specialty-made. Of course, considering the venue, I wouldn’t have expected it to have come from a le cordon bleu chef or anything. In actuality, I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed it comparatively to other calzone’s on this list for the price. The store-front here would have justified a calzone in the D or F range, but I happily give this one a C+ for the taste and price. Yes, this calzone beat out a high-end Italian eatery due to the price, pleasantness of the staff, and its standard taste.

Villa Bella – Burke, VA

From what I can tell, this is one of the two restaurants from the same owner. The other one is Giardino’s in Springfield, VA. The menus appear to be identical, so I think I’ll probably avoid traveling to the other one. I purchased the Calzone Paradiso. According to the menu, this calzone contains Tomato Sauce, Mozzarella, Onions, Sausage, Prosciutto and Pecorino cheese. So the first thing I noticed when I received the calzone was that melted cheese was on top of the bready pocket. This added a nice visual touch and some crunchy cheese flavor towards the middle of the meal. The calzone was exactly what I would describe as medium sized, normal by all accounts. The dough was stone-baked to perfection. From the very first bite, one could tell that the bread was the same… and I mean the same… bread as the pizza dough. Literally. The dough was covered in corn meal; the same way Domino’s Pizza is. In fact, I thought it was domino’s until I actually got into the guts of the dish. Not to say this was a bad thing, but the texture brought back memories of church lock-ins and all night drinking parties when I was in college. One you reached the innards of the calzone, the diner will notice the sausage without haste. It is some kind of ground sausage that has a strong bacon flavor to it. The tomato sauce was also immediately present, and I would describe it as wet like the kind I experienced at Piola’s (which an actual Italian confirmed is more authentic) and not chunky or thick like it was store bought or filled with thickening agents. I thought it tasted fine. A big criticism of this calzone is that there was way too much prosciutto in it. Everything tasted salty. In fact, this isn’t the first calzone I’ve eaten that was overshadowed by the salt that comes from the cured meat. It was like solid soy sauce; very salty. I’m not sure I’ve ever had pecorino cheese before this occasion, and I found it to be a lot like mozzarella, but lighter and easier to eat. The onions were chopped and still contained their aromatic flavor, which added nicely to the meal. The biggest downside to this calzone is the price - $14.95. I have eaten other $15 dollar calzones before and this one just didn’t feel like it was worth the price. I would have happily paid maybe $10 for it since it was better than some others on this list, but not anywhere close to being the best. The wait-staff was nice, but again… the hostess asking me “how can I help you?” This is a really confusing question for someone who has just walked into a restaurant, since the only obvious answer is… “Yes, I would like some food please.” When I asked how much the diet coke was, the waiter told me “I don’t actually know the price”, prompting me to see if it was possible for him to find out. Otherwise, a very pleasant experience. The marinara sauce it was served with was thick and spicy, I enjoyed it. The meal was also served with a side of artisan bread and oil, which I thought was a nice touch. An interesting point about this restaurant is that there was no ricotta cheese in the calzone, but they had calzones on the menu that do have ricotta in them. In fact, many of the calzones contain completely different cheese options; as if each calzone was designed separately. I give this calzone a C+. The score being detracted on by the salty flavor, the price, and the odd choice of dough.