We've been pining for RedRocks Pizzeria to bring their terrific Neapolitan style pizzas to H Street for a couple years now. Their team looked at a handful of H Street locations -- and was a finalist to fill the space that will soon become Maketto -- before finding the perfect spot at 1348 H Street. The building is double wide, recently renovated, and boasts an open skylight retractable roof as well as front open façade. After various delays, RedRocks H Street will open once they've finished training staff, and you're going to want to check the place out early and often.
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| 1st floor booths, center bar with 20 taps and flat screen TVs |
RedRocks already has a few locations around the DC area, but plans to treat H Street as its flagship. The H Street location will be the group's largest and will feature executive chef Angel Mendoza who has overseen the menu at their other locations, 18 beers and two wines on tap, three levels of food and drink, and an outdoor roof deck with an indoor-outdoor bar and Capitol views.
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| View from the roof deck include the Atlas Performing Arts Center and the Capitol |
A recent tour of the space reveals a large and attractive environment, featuring a good deal of exposed brick, high ceilings, and abundant natural light. The roof is all glass and retractable and is the largest of its kind on the East Coast and the management team hopes to keep it open most of the time. The large space is one of several features that are likely to be received as family friendly in a neighborhood that increasingly boasts a large number of families with young children. RedRocks H Street also has a large private dining room with a full bar and additional pizza oven, which will make it easy to accommodate large private parties. It feels spacious and bright, but they've managed to maintain a comfortable ambiance.
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| 2nd floor dining room has ample space and natural light |
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| Retractable roof is huge, welcomes tons of light and will be open as much as possible |
Co-owners Doug Baj and James O'Brien have installed neighborhood resident Ken Fulkroad as general manager. RedRocks will be open daily, offering lunch and dinner with brunch coming soon (yes, there will be bottomless mimosas). Brick ovens are located on the first and second floors and will continue churning out fresh pies for late night dining. Reservations are certainly not required, but can be made via their website through City Eats. Look for them to open quietly and to welcome neighbors in for brick oven fired pizzas before the end of next week.
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| Co-owner James O'Brien & neighborhood resident GM Kenneth Fulkroad in front of the roof deck's indoor/outdoor bar which features 20 taps |
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I know at some of their other locations they serve gluten free pizza. Anyone know if they will be offering GF pizza on H?
ReplyDelete@Kathryn,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, RedRock will not be doing a glutenfree crust. I know there's a number of folks around here who are GF, but they want tostay as true to the DOC standards of Neapolitan pizzas as possible, and thus are using wheat flour to make their dough.
I attended the grand opening this evening. The retractable roof was open, and the streetfront doors ajar. Free drinks to patrons at the grand opening. The low point of the evening was the $5 garlic aioli crostini which appeared as 2 thin, over cooked slices of bread not as big as my hand. The highlight were the delicious housemade meatballs on my RR Meatball pizza and that fluffly but crispy and flavorful crust. Meatballs FTW! Service was good, though our water was never refilled (finished right at the end of our meal, and we didn't hang around for dessert), and the busgirl hung out leaning against the wall behind my husband's chair for the duration of our visit, except when she popped over to clear a table. We'll definitely be back to have pizza and beer. Should have checked out that roofdeck...
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