“The story goes that the pans were made with leftover sheet metal from Detroit car manufacturing. It’s a working man’s food, it’s not a highbrow thing.” So says Naomi Gallego, executive chef of Little Beast, which opened its location in Reston in September. She’s talking about one of her great passions, Detroit-style pizza.
Since the debut of the original Little Beast in Chevy Chase in 2018, the pastry chef, perhaps best known for her work at DC’s Blue Duck Tavern and Le Diplomate, has been thinking a lot about pizza. And in Reston, it shows. The Detroit-style pies, with their bubbly focaccia-like crusts, are clearly stamped with the mark of a fine chef. So are the thinner “Grandma” pies, available with an array of creative toppings.
Little Beast is named for co-owner Aaron Gordon’s two young daughters (“They truly are little beasts in the most wonderful possible way and some horrible ways also,” he jokes) and is meant to be family-friendly, but this stone-hearted adult was just as readily swept up in the wild rumpus. Local artist Penny Lauffe painted a cheerful mural depicting monsters created for the original restaurant by German street artist Kim Köster. One of Köster’s mischievous creatures decorates the menu, too: The blue puffball, with a single bright eye, playfully wields a giant fork, ready to nibble. That and ultra-friendly service set a tone for a convivial (and indulgent) meal. It’s all too easy to order a draft cocktail and get delightfully swept away.
Co-owner Kristen Brabrook runs the Reston restaurant as both partner and chef. She’s the force behind finger-licking appetizers such as the VA fried chicken wings above. The local chicken is marinated in buttermilk and Old Bay before it’s dredged and fried. The result is tender meat that literally oozes flavor with each crispy bite. A drizzle of Old Bay-flavored country gravy enhances the big, local zest.
Ox Tots are a keen idea that falters in execution. Brabrook uses short ribs that are long-braised with root vegetables and aromatics to make the rich, fried bites. The only problem is that in deconstructing the beef with a mixer’s paddle, the resulting texture is too fine, leaving the centers mushy.
But this was the only false step I encountered at Little Beast. And that’s most true of the pizza. The buttery squares of crust are fermented for 48 hours, which yields a playful pinch of sourness. It’s baked in the aforementioned metal pans with cheese that abuts the crispy edges. Gallego is careful to emphasize that her pies are covered in crumbly cheddar-style Wisconsin brick cheese along with provolone and mozzarella. Between that and the high-hydration dough that creates a bubbly body, the result is crisp outside, but velvety and airy inside. A diner might be tempted to eat the dough on its own, and for them, it is available as a starter of focaccia with “dippy things,” such as flavored hummus and pimento cheese.
But focaccia doesn’t quite share the appeal of a fully topped pizza. The sauce is cooked down to a thick, tangy slurry and applied in a pair of “racing stripes” on top of the cheese that may not cover the full surface area, but it is so concentrated that this is enough to flavor every bite. Of the toppings I tried, I favored the meaty Motor City. Its pairing of bacon and pepperoni, with their crisp edges that mimic the crust, along with pillowy meatballs provides a textural bonanza that’s irresistible. Though one server told me that one pizza will feed one person, plus “a midnight snack,” I found that a single slice easily sated me after appetizers.
The Detroit pies are mostly simple, and while there are cheese and pepperoni options for the Grandma pies, most of those are anything but basic. What is a Grandma pizza? According to Gordon, it’s the invention of Sicilian immigrants on Long Island. With neither the time nor the brick ovens to make the pies they had crafted in the Old Country, they lined sheet trays with dough and made adapted Sicilian pizzas for the grandkids. “It’s known for its simplicity. It’s a nice pairing, I thought, with the Detroit pizza,” Gordon adds.
The basic dough of the Grandma pie makes it a blank canvas for a variety of toppings. The same braised short ribs that get made into Ox Tots appear on pizzas, too, with caramelized onions, mushrooms, and garlic. The thin slices of star anise-cured pork belly that are stuffed into bread from Lyon Bakery for Little Beast’s banh mi are also blanketed over the thin crust with all the ingredients you’d expect from the Vietnamese sandwich, including daikon, carrot, jalapeno, and cilantro, as well as a homemade hoisin aioli. Among the Grandma pies, my favorite was sprinkled with shredded duck confit. Knots of well-caramelized onions blend with the cheeses on top to create an impression of French onion soup. The Gallic-inspired pie is finished with dollops of fig jam for an unexpected sweetness.
Speaking of sweetness, one end of Little Beast is occupied by a counter that sells desserts and pastries as Red Velvet Cupcakery, a business that Gordon previously opened and closed in Reston Town Center. But this isn’t a review of Red Velvet, which Gallego told me to hit early in the day in order to grab bites of the butterkuchen that she learned to make while living and working in Germany, as well as cinnamon rolls crafted from laminated dough left over from creating croissants.
Ssticking to the savory, there is more than enough to recommend a visit to Little Beast. The pizza on offer may be a working man’s food, but chowing down on a slice is about as far from laborious as one can get.
12100 Sunset Hills Rd., Ste. R6, Reston
See this: Not-so-scary monsters fill a mural in the main dining room. Mood lighting, including a neon sign, gives the bar area an atmosphere of its own.
Eat this: VA fried chicken wings, Motor City, duck confit Grandma-style pizza
Rating: ★★★★
★ Fair ★★ Good ★★★ Great ★★★★ Excellent ★★★★★ Superior
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