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, opened around 1999, and Duccini's Pizza 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 runs the strip; both stay open until 04:00 on weekends. The slice has become a DC visual shorthand, written about in Washingtonian's late-night annual round-ups and parodied locally as the city's anti-tasting menu.

Common allergens: Gluten, Dairy

Make it at home

Yield Makes 1 jumbo pizza (8 slices)Hands-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.

This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.

Where to eat jumbo slice

Jumbo slice in Washington DC

Pizza Mart Adams Morgan ★ 3.7

Daily 11:00-04:00

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 in the late 1990s for the bar crowd.

Try: 18-inch jumbo slice

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

2445 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009

Duccini's Pizza Adams Morgan ★ 3.6

Mon-Thu 11:00-02:00, Fri-Sat 11:00-04:00, Sun 11:00-02:00

Duccini's Pizza Adams Morgan in Washington DC is the 18th Street jumbo-slice counter facing Pizza Mart, the other Adams Morgan claim to the jumbo-slice late-night format invention.

Try: Jumbo slice and stromboli

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

2400 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009

Jumbo Slice Pizza ★ 3.4

Daily 11:00-04:00

Jumbo Slice Pizza in Washington DC is the third 18th Street late-night pizza counter on the Adams Morgan strip, holding the same 04:00 weekend close as the Pizza Mart and Duccini's neighbours.

Try: 18-inch jumbo slice

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

2341 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009

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