Italian eatery Mamma Lucia (1302 East-West Hwy) has a menu that goes on for days: pasta, pizza, frutti di mare — the works.
However, what’s missing from this bright corner restaurant is the one thing it needs the most: personality. It’s what distinguishes pasta sauce from ketchup, spaghetti from 99-cent ramen noodles, mozzarella from Cheez Whiz.
For instance, the mozzarella fritti ($7) is tragic. Thin slices of cheese are smothered in a dense, bland breading, then deep fried until nearly burned. It arrives inexplicably cold in a pool of warm, salty marinara sauce.
Gone is the ooey, gooey, stringy fun of molten cheese. No tangy sauce to tease the crisp breading. Just cold corrugated cardboard in tomato sauce.
This exercise is repeated with the arrival of the pollo parmigiana ($10 at lunch, $16 at dinner). Thin slices of boneless chicken are enveloped in thick, bland breading and then deep fried until blackened. A thin veil of strangely chewy mozzarella cheese covers the chicken.
The leathery chicken is served with a massive mound of spaghetti tossed in dull pasta sauce. In fact, the running theme at Mamma Lucia is lame sauce. Most notably, it lacks trademark Italian flavors like sweet basil, bold oregano, nutty parmigiana and fruity olive oil. It’s like eating crushed tomatoes out of a can.
The calamari alla marinara ($9 at lunch, $16 at dinner) offers sauteed squid tossed with linguine and marinara sauce. The squid itself is taut, crisp and bears a bold, garlicky flavor. However, the linguine is soft (read: overcooked), and the marinara sauce is incredibly watery.
Mamma Lucia also sells pizza whole (starting at $12) and by the slice (starting at $1.75). Either way, the crust is soft and chewy, the cheese lacks any creamy flavor, and the sauce just sucks.
Table service is hit or miss. It can be expedient one day, painfully slow the next. The carry-out service doesn’t fare much better. (The delivery service has not been tested.)
Mamma Lucia — more like mama mia.
Mamma Lucia, 1302 East-West Hwy, Silver Spring, (301) 562-0693.
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I see your point on the food – but I totally disagree on the pizza – I find ML pizza to be some of the best around (albeit EXPENSIVE!) – and I like the sauce, which is tomato-ey, not tomato-pasty. I also like the meat sauce on the lasagna – it’s not your usual lasagna but quite tasty.
i generally agree that there’s not much to their food – nothing great, but nothing awful either (maybe i went on a bad night, but i tried vicino’s as a point of comparison and found their sauce just as bland and one-dimensional), plus the portions always guarantee enough for leftovers. however, mamma lucia’s saving grace is the gelato – sweet jeebus, that is tasty stuff!
Wow. I can’t believe there’s a ML-hater. Where are you from? Mama Lucia’s has the closest thing to NY-style pizza in the entire DC metro area. It’s all about the crust, the crust, the crust. Chewy, thin, with some crunch to it. The sauce is sauce, not some sugary paste or worse, “pizza sauce.” It’s expensive, but honestly, it’s worth every penny. Try it plain, or with roasted red peppers and ricotta or even meatballs. We alternate between this and the Corner Pub’s excellent (large size only!) homey pan pizza with their excellent sausage.
Mamma Lucia’s pizza is way better than any of the options in Silver Spring and most of the DC area.
I also like their garlic toast bread basket.
Thanks for your candor, Notevenclose.
You wrote:
I’m from Brooklyn, New York — specifically, Bay Ridge. It’s where “Saturday Night Fever” was filmed, and it’s where more than a few mob hits went down. Every other storefront is a pizzeria.
For my money, Mamma Lucia’s pizza — with its bland, rubbery cheese, dull sauce, and the absence of any flavor — doesn’t pass muster.
I think they are an overpriced chain. $12 for average pasta is absurd.
Born and bred Bensonhurst, and I want to know where else in the fabulous, but pizza forsaken town you go for real NY pizza? Is it exactly like the old school Brooklyn? No, it has less oregano, which isn’t really authentic Italian anyway, and way less greasy. Better than NY, nah. But close enough, and way better than anything else they have in this entire city, unless you get way up in B’more, and then we can talk some pizza.
It’s also not cool to brag about mob hits. Very bridge and tunnel.
Closest to New York pizza in DC? Good God, but that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve seen on this website. Good job there, buddy. Have any of you ever been to AV on New York and 6th NW? Place has been there for 50 years and years better than any thing else I’ve found outside the five boroughs.
I agree with your review, had the veal marsala a few weeks ago. Tough and over salty. They use way too much garlic, too. Afterwards, I wasn’t just worried about talking to people, I was worried that they could smell coming from a block away. And God forbid they cook the bloody pasta right. I’d love a little bite to it, you know, rather than a warm goo of craptastic overly tart tomatoes and noodle-mush.
Thanks for your comments, Brooklyn Girl.
You wrote:
My bad. Didn’t mean anything by it.
You also wrote:
Frankly, I go to New York for real New York pizza, just as I would go to Philly for a cheesesteak sandwich or Mrs. K’s Tollhouse for crabcake. (Had a terrible experience at Crisfield.)
My problem with Mamma Lucia’s pizza isn’t that it doesn’t taste like Brooklyn, but that it doesn’t taste like anything. The cheese truly has the taste and consistency of rubber, and the sauce doesn’t have any flavor at all.
My wife is from L.I. and we used to live in Queens, so I’ve had my share of great NY pizza. We haven’t found anything like it here. However, one place that we both like, which has personality and very good pizza (though not NY style) by the slice, is Giussepe’s in Rockville, right near the movie theater. I agree about Mama Lucia’s. It’s boring and the pizza is mediocre. I would love for someone to open a true NY pizza by the slice place in the area, but I think it’s in the water and can’t be done.
Mama Lucia has a couple good things going for it. While one reviewer says its pizza is New York style, I won’t say that rave review, which only Ledo’s and Pizza Paradiso deserve. Still Lucia’s Pizza is nothing to sneeze at. It is better than your average Dominos, and I must say less oily than Papa Johns. It is wise to come just as they open, as then the pizza by the slice is fresh, and the slices don’t have to be reheated in the tiny oven by the register. That reheating is to be avoided. Additionally, their gelato sells out quickly so get it when they open, as it is as good as any gelato in Venice Italy that I’ve had. If looking for a bargain, their spinach calzone hits the mark. The owners love repeat comers and always try to strike a nice friendly conversation with you.