3 days ago
D.C.'s Sensational Italian Pizzeria Is Coming to Union Market
Naples native Giulio Adriani, the award-winning pizzaiolo behind Slice & Pie and the adjacent Lucy Bar off the U Street NW corridor since 2022, will plant a flag inside Union Market this summer (1309 5th Street NE).
Scheduled to arrive the second week of July, Slice & Pie's second location will sit alongside the new Taste of Lucy, an abbreviated version of its sibling cocktail bar. He'll roll out the same menu of Detroit- and New York-style pies and slices that prompted Italian organization 50 Top Pizza to crown Slice & Pie America's no. 2 slice shop last year, making a huge jump from no. 41 in 2023.
The rest of Adriani's menu at the new restaurant will include other dishes that the original is known for. This includes appetizers (garlic knots), sandwiches (meatballs, prosciutto), and Italian desserts (cannoli and tiramisu).
The Roman Catholic pizzaiolo respects the first U.S.-born pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, in a holistic way and has no interest in making money off the 'pope presence.' He's adamant he won't name a pie after the pope.
'The fact that he's American, it's a big thing for the nation, it's a good marketing tool, but I'd rather keep the saintliness of the figure intact and not try to benefit from it,' says Adriani. (He also doesn't do deep-dish Chicago pies, where the pope is from.)
And then, as for the new cocktail bar, Taste of Lucy will offer a condensed version of the menu from the original. There will be five cocktails and about four to six wines by the glass, as well as Neapolitan pizzas, a different weekly pasta dish, and appetizers. A daily happy hour menu (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.) is in the works.
Adriani's working on a pair of Union Market-specific cocktails. The first is a yet-to-be-named riff on a Paper Plane with two types of tequila, amaro meletti, Aperol, and lemon juice. The other one will be a clarified rum punch, 'something fresh, easy to drink,' he says.
A wall will separate the 800-square-foot space, with pink neon-lit Slice & Pie on the left and Taste of Lucy to the right. While Slice & Pie won't offer seating, customers will have full view of the kitchen to watch the dough-flipping process. Customers can enjoy slices in Union Market's common area, unless they sit in one of the roughly 20 seats for drinks at Taste of Lucy's booths and bar.
Adriani had originally planned to open Slice & Pie's second location at the Parks at Walter Reed (1155 Dahlia Street NW). But life is random, and negotiations between Adriani and Union Market landlord Edens that puttered out during the pandemic resumed once Parachute Pizza left the food hall at the end of 2024.
'Union Market has always been on my list,' says Adriani. 'I am a New Yorker, so I love Chelsea Market, and I think also communal space has always been something that's intrigued me, so it's something very exciting.'
However, Slice & Pie's Water Reed location is still under construction. Adriani plans on opening this third restaurant around Labor Day.
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