RESTAURANT NEWS | D.C.
Chicago’s Other Pizza Squares Up in D.C.
At La Merna, two Chicago transplants serve crackly tavern-style pies.
LA MERNA | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Eric Barton | Photos by Brad Bobrow
6:17 a.m. ET, Aug. 11, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
The corner pieces disappear first. Then someone reaches for the center square, the one with no crust to hold onto, and tries to get it to the plate before the cheese slides off. This is how tavern-style pizza is eaten in Chicago, cut into a grid and shared across the table, though perhaps not always equally.
G. Bradley Shorten and Meg Schmitt have brought that ritual to Washington, D.C., with La Merna, their new restaurant in Dupont Circle. The husband-and-wife team began a soft opening this month, their first project outside Chicago.
G. Bradley Shorten and Meg Schmitt
Shorten comes to Washington with a following built on thin-crust pizza. He helped open Pizza, Fried Chicken, Ice Cream, a wonderfully literal Chicago restaurant that closed in 2022, and later took over Kim’s Uncle in suburban Westmont. At La Merna, the dough rests for nearly a week before it is baked into a crisp crust and topped with combinations like sausage and giardiniera or pepperoni, hot honey, and stracciatella.
Schmitt makes that stracciatella, along with the restaurant’s mozzarella and ricotta. She trained as a cheesemaker in Italy, and her work shows up across the menu. Stracciatella toast comes with melon, prosciutto, honey, and Calabrian chile. Fried gnudi combine ricotta, provolone, spinach, and basil before landing in vodka sauce.
“The pizza is the backbone of the menu, but everything else comes from wherever we’ve eaten well, whether that’s a cheese cave in Italy or a tiny bar in the Basque Country,” Schmitt said.
The couple also designed the 2,000-square-foot restaurant, collecting old lamps and other vintage pieces around Chicago and Washington. Wood paneling climbs the walls, tile covers the floor, and moody lights give the place the warm amber glow of a tavern remembered from childhood, even if you grew up nowhere near the Midwest.
Behind the bar, the cocktails wander between Italy and Chicago. The Capri mixes gin with peppercorn, coriander, and Amalfi limoncello. Coffee & Cigarettes is a smoky espresso martini, two habits combined into one considerably more efficient drink.
Later this year, Shorten and Schmitt plan to open Saints Way, a Chicago-style sandwich window next door. For now, La Merna offers Washington the version of Chicago pizza that requires no deep pan—just a crowded table and quick hands.
Richmond chef Kevin LaCivita reunites with his former Blue Goat team at Civita Italia.
By MARIA RODRIGUEZ
