Home Plate

by David Hagedorn

Chef Johnny Spero is known for highstyle cooking—his D.C. restaurant Reverie earned a Michelin star—but pizza is his favorite food.

Which is partly what led him to team up with Alexandria-based Aslin Beer Co. and Arlington entrepreneur Scott Parker (Bronson Bierhall, Barley Mac, Don Tito, Poppyseed Rye) to launch Nighthawk Brewery & Pizza, a 10,000-square-foot beer hall that opened in Westpost (formerly Pentagon Row) in March.

Nighthawk, which seats a whopping 343 inside and 82 on the patio, was designed by D.C.-based 3877 Design as an homage to The Max, the student hangout in the ’90s sitcom Saved by the Bell. It’s a vast space filled with red and blue neon lighting, slick picnic tables, TVs set to sports channels and a sprinkling of video arcade games. The brewery part of the operation is on display behind glass windows.

Nighthawk offers two kinds of pizza: 14-inch Midwest tavern pizzas ($16 to $22) and 8-by-10-inch deepdish pies ($17 to $22).

To achieve the tavern pizza’s thin-and-crispy crust, the dough is rolled out and left uncovered in the refrigerator overnight (“This creates a dry surface when it hits the stone,” Spero explains) and then baked at high temperatures in an electric deck oven. Fan favorites include a littleneck clam pizza made with mozzarella, provolone, fontina, pecorino and white sauce; and a pepperoni pie with pickled peppers and hot honey.

Chef de cuisine Ryan Garisek devised the thick-crust pizza’s focaccialike dough, which owes its crispy edges to a liberal coating of olive oil and takes more than 30 minutes to bake. Carnivores will appreciate the pie topped with bacon, ground pepperoni and Italian sausage, caramelized onions and three cheeses.

Spero estimates that thin-crusts account for about 70% of pizza sales, but you can count me in the minority: I love the thick-crust pepperoni pie.

The brewpub’s menu also features a variety of appetizers (tater tot nachos, meatballs, hickory-smoked wings); sandwiches (try the Dundee burger with two smash beef or Impossible patties, fried onions, American cheese and pickles); snacks; and salads. Spero couldn’t resist adding some chef-y items, like burrata with porcini oil, but he concedes that most customers come for the pizza, burgers and wings.

The beverage program includes a full bar, draft cocktails and about 20 Aslin beers (10 on tap) with low ABVs. Brews are $4 to $5 for half pours and $6 to $7 for full pours. Crowlers-to-go ($8 or $10) are available, too.

Nighthawk provides table service, although customers order and pay with QR codes. Happy hour (Monday through Friday, 3 to 6 p.m.) is a good deal. It brings $5 draft beers, house wines and rail drinks; $8 tavern cheese pizzas; $10 tavern sausage-and-pepperoni pizzas; and half-price starters. nighthawkbrewery.co

If we had our way, every day would be sundae at Harvey’s, the restaurant and market that chef Thomas Harvey opened in The Little City in March. His stunner of a banana split ($12) tops the tropical fruit with vanilla and chocolate gelato, house-made caramel and chocolate sauces, honey-roasted peanuts and the chef’s favorite snack—popcorn coated with Tajin, a seasoning mix of ground chili pepper, lime and sea salt. Harvey credits Naomi Gallego, former executive pastry chef for the Neighborhood Restaurant Group (NRG), for the inspiration. The two met in 2017 when Harvey was chef of The Partisan, an NRG restaurant in D.C. (now temporarily closed.) “She’d make these wild splits that were lots of fun with wow presentations,” he says. “I knew I’d have one on my menu.” harveysva.com

The aroma of cloves hangs in the air as I dig into a saucy bowl of tender braised oxtails and lima beans. My lunch is courtesy of Hedzole (pronounced hey-JOE-leh), a fastcasual eatery that sells at the Sunday farmers market in the Mosaic District, and until recently at Urbanspace in Tysons. The dish is accompanied by Ghanaian jollof rice (flavored with tomatoes, ginger, garlic, nutmeg and cayenne) and a spinach stew that owner Candice Mensah thickens with ground white melon seeds. “The seeds look like uncooked oatmeal and melt into the stew,” she explains.

Hedzole—the word means “freedom” in the Ga language of Ghana—follows a familiar buildyour-own model. Pick a protein (chicken, salmon or oxtails), a rice (jollof, coconut or waakye, a blend of black-eyed peas and sorghum leaves) and then top it off with the stew and/or sauce of your choosing. All orders come with fried plantains and cabbage-carrot slaw. Bowls range from $13.50 to $22, depending on the protein. A vegan meal option is available for $12.

Mensah, 44, is a D.C. native and Temple University alumna whose parents immigrated from Ghana in the 1970s. She says she caught the culinary bug as a child, transfixed by PBS cooking shows such as The French Chef, Yan Can Cook and The Galloping Gourmet. Her mother, Constance Baddoo-Mensah, introduced her to Ghanaian cooking at an early age and now works alongside her.

Mensah always wanted to open a food business, but doubts and excuses—that she didn’t go to cooking school; that it would be too hard— got in the way until 2019, when she finally took a leap of faith and applied for a stall at the annual Taste of Springfield. “People thought we had been doing it for years,” she says. “That menu is pretty much the same menu I have today.”

She brands her cooking as “Pan-African soul,” in that the options venture beyond Ghanaian traditions. Oxtails, for instance, are prevalent in the Caribbean and the American South, but not in her parents’ homeland. In Ghana, jollof rice is served only on special occasions. “I cringe at jollof rice being everywhere,” Mensah confesses, “but at the same time I want jollof rice to be everywhere.”

That African food is finally getting some overdue attention is a plus, she says, although American diners have only just begun to explore the culinary depth of a continent with 54 countries, each with myriad regional cuisines. “Most of my customers are not Black or African,” she adds. “This food appeals to all people, not a subset.” hedzoleafroeats.com