If you ever find yourself in Arlington, Virginia, and you head anywhere other than The Italian Store on Washington Boulevard (they have another location on Lee Highway as well), you are wasting your time. Situated inconspicuously among several other restaurants and drug stores on a non-descript main street, the simply titled Italian Store requires no further explanation.

I’ll offer an analogy though.

Whatever the Italian word for Nirvana is… this is it.

Blessed no doubt by little old ladies and God Himself, The Italian Store is not only a “store” but a restaurant as well, though calling it either one of those things is a bit like saying Amazon is a “company” and Google is a “website.” It’s intense. And somehow it’s all packed into a little old-school Italian deli.

Funny thing is, I barely scratched the surface this weekend. They’ve got hundreds of bottles of wine I didn’t try and dozens of pastries and candies and pastas and whatever the Italian word for tchotchke is. I went for the pizza, and damn their pizza is good. I’ve had plenty of good pizza in my day, but ain’t nothin’ like The Italian Store. They’ve got various coffees too, and an al fresco dining area I imagined occupied by Tony Soprano and company, sipping espressos while waiting for their gabagool. Next time…

I lived in Northern Virginia for more than a dozen years and never found my way to this holy land until weekend… foolish me.

Needless to say, though, I’ll be back.