Pizzeria Orso - Will Artley getting artzy!

Pizzeria Orso
400 South Maple Avenue
Falls Church, VA 22046
Tel: (703) 226-3460
orsoinfo@pizzeriaorso.com

Will Artley is a man with a plan.  Right now that plan is turning the restaurant opened for someone else into his place.  He's got skills honed with The Neighborhood Restaurant Group at Evening Star Cafe in Alexandria, where he was the head chef for several years. 
There's something about veggies getting ready for prep that excites me.  Not sure why, but it does.

Tyson and Will

This is Will working on the morning prep.  Mike Palmer and I showed up just before lunch to do some shooting and eating.

They do a lot of roasting of things other than pizza in the awesome oven.  This puppy can get to over 1000 degrees.  It's made from special imported clay.  The pizza is Neapolitan style.  Will trained with VPN people to learn the tricks of the trade.  He doesn't use the Neapolitan starter for his dough as he feels it doesn't do well in the Mid-Atlantic area.  His is a sourdough-based pizza.

Chef Jayson Lewellyn and me after I'd just had a bite of the Orso pizza.  It was great to have Jayson with us as well on this shoot.  I never get tired of chefs telling me what they think about the same things I'm trying. 

 

Mike was having a good time shooting.  This place has a lot of good light and is very casual.

 

This is Will and his sous, Tyson.

This was a straight mozz & basil pizza.  Clean and herby tasting.  The tomato flavor was explosive and hit me right in the palate.  Very neat.

Tyson Tossin'

Mike and Will checking the progress.

This is the Mufaletta Sandwich.  Nice fresh greens tasted like they were just yanked from the garden. The pepper spread had just enough heat to make it interesting.

Will and Tyson conferring about the finer points of little pepperoni and showing a little taco meat (the triangle of chest-hair that shows when you don't have a t-shirt on under your chef shirt.)  I've stolen this colloquialism and will now use it as my own.  Thanks Will!

The result was a tasty creation.

Mike caught me goofing around..

Lunch is served!  We got to try a few different pies and the Mufaletta. 

Mike "Two-shot" Palmer

The other pies were good, but this was the Ferrari of white pizzas.  I haven't had one even close to this good since Janis Maclean left RedDog in Silver Spring.  I usually get my white pizza with prosciutto, but this one came that way straight off the menu, so I didn't have to insult Will by asking for it.  This pie has mozzarella, pecorino, grana, ricotta, garlic, and prosciutto. Definite food wood. The flavors were in perfect balance. 

Another shot of me and Jayson.  Keep your ears open about this duo.  We've got big things coming.

Will looking tough.  Don't mess with my mozz!
All-in-all, a great lunchtime shoot with a very personable chef.  I wish him all the success he can handle.  He's one of the genuinely nice guys in the biz.
If you go, I believe they've just rolled out a new menu, so there should be a whole bunch of Will's creations to sample.  Let them know you heard about it on Pleasures of the Table.

Behind...and in front of the scenes at LivingSocial's 918 F St. Inaugural Event

LivingSocial is getting...well, social.  The brick and mortar facility they've created is pretty cool.  A lot of good companies/people were involved with the project including Winmar Construction, VSAG Consulting, FDS Design, Streetsense, and yours truly.
Let's start by exploring the venue itself.

This is the demo/teaching kitchen.  It's beautiful if you get excited by shiny stainless and haute technology.  There are monitors all over that display the feed from the automated camera covering the action at the head cooking station.  Imagine you and 30 of your closest friends learning how to make signature dishes from the famous chefs who actually created them.  This is a stellar idea as these chefs would normally have to shut down their restaurants to do a teaching class like this, and the view wouldn't be nearly as good.

Acres of stainless....

A little artsy treatment from Snapseed and Hipstomatic.

All the tools you could need.  Top notch, shiny and new!

This is one of the mixed-use spaces that was set up as a dining room for the trial-run event I attended.

This shot was taken in the bar downstairs.  It has a cut-out in the ceiling that allows you to view the live music area from below.

Another mixed-use room.  This venue has many.  Too bad Bob Ross isn't still alive..it would have been fab to have him teach people how to make love to their trees here.

This is the restaurant kitchen where Mike Isabella was pulling it all together for our introduction to his new menu. This was the first night the Living Social facility on F St. was open, and Mike used the opportunity to showcase his menu for Bandolero, his new restaurant that will be opening in Georgetown in late spring.

Here are the items we got to try.  We had a table of four (and what a foursome it was) so we just asked them to bring us one of everything....

These glasses were being prepped for the appetizer cocktail which was a favorite of the table.

Various dips and guac.

Fresh tortilla chips and pork rinds for dipping.  Tasty.

Crispy fish....

Steak, crab...

The texture of this tamale was perfection.

More interesting beverages...they wanted to make sure we had a happy time!  My favorite was the City of Gold (in the champagne glass).

Short ribs braised to perfection.

Tasty veg soft tacos...

This is a shot I took just before Mike had all the servers gather round so he could explain the offerings to them.  He puts together some tasty food.  Graffiato is still one of my favorite places to go.

Here's a shot of Mike after the festivities, grabbing a much-deserved drink with John McCarthy of MICROS.