Jumbo slice
Photo: Peter Fitzgerald · CC BY 3.0

History

The jumbo slice was born on 18th Street NW in Adams Morgan as a late-1990s response to the corridor's late-night bar crowd. Pizza Mart on 18th Street, opened around 1999, and Duccini's Pizza on U Street both lay claim to popularising the format: eighteen-inch slices cut from a thirty-inch pie, served folded in foil after 22:00 and especially after 02:00. The slices are designed for the after-bar walk, not for serious eating; the cheese-to-sauce ratio is engineered for absorption rather than balance. The Pizza Mart-Duccini's rivalry defines the after-hours slice; both stay open past 04:00 on weekends.

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Common allergens: Gluten, Dairy

Make it at home

Yield 1Hands-on 30 minTotal 2 hrDifficulty Intermediate

Ingredients

  • 500g 00 flour
  • 10g fine salt
  • 5g instant yeast
  • 320ml warm water
  • 30ml olive oil
  • 200ml prepared pizza sauce
  • 350g low-moisture mozzarella, grated
  • Olive oil for the pan

Method

  1. Whisk flour, salt and yeast. Add water and olive oil, mix to a shaggy dough, then knead 6 minutes until smooth. Rest covered 90 minutes at room temperature until doubled.
  2. Heat the oven to its hottest setting (260C or 500F) with a steel or stone on the upper rack.
  3. Stretch the dough to a 50cm round on a generously oiled large baking tray. The dough should be 4mm thick, slightly thicker at the rim.
  4. Spoon the sauce thinly across the dough leaving a 2cm border. Scatter the mozzarella to the edge.
  5. Bake 8 to 10 minutes on the steel rack, rotating once, until the cheese is bubbling and the underside is deep gold. Slice into 8 huge triangles and serve folded.

Tip from the editors. Cut the slices generously oversized; the jumbo slice is more performance than pizza, and a properly enormous wedge is the entire point.

Where to eat jumbo slice

Jumbo slice in Washington DC

Pizza Mart Adams Morgan ★ 3.7

$ Street food

Pizza Mart Adams Morgan in Washington DC is the 18th Street late-night pizza counter, one of two rooms claiming to have invented the jumbo slice.

Try18-inch jumbo slice

TipCash is fastest after midnight; one folded jumbo slice walks two people home from the Adams Morgan strip.

Directions

Duccini's Pizza Adams Morgan ★ 3.6

$ Street food

Duccini's Pizza in Washington DC is the U Street NW jumbo-slice counter near the Adams Morgan strip, open to 05:00 on Friday and Saturday nights.

TryJumbo slice and stromboli

TipThe mushroom-and-pepperoni jumbo slice is the favourite; the stromboli is the under-ordered second pick.

Directions

Jumbo Slice Pizza ★ 3.4

$ Street food

Jumbo Slice Pizza in Washington DC is the 18th Street late-night pizza counter on the Adams Morgan strip, holding the same 04:00 weekend close.

Try18-inch jumbo slice

TipThe cheese-slice with hot honey is the closing-time editorial pick; sit on the sidewalk bench facing the strip.

Directions

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