Northern Virginia is home to some of the most delicious Italian food, with eight Italian eateries featured in this year’s 50 Best Restaurants. From chicken parmigiana gnocchi to mixed-berry tiramisu, these Northern Virginia restaurants are serving up mouth-watering modern and traditional Italian cuisine.
By Alice Levitt, Dawn Klavon, and Monica Saigal
Price Key: Entrées = $ 15 and under | $$ 16–25 | $$$ 26–40 | $$$$ 41 and over
Carbonara (No. 8)
Arlington | Italian | $$$
As quickly as you can say “red sauce Italian,” most of us already know what our order will be. But while there’s nothing wrong with a craving for fried mozzarella or spaghetti and meatballs, it’s a pity not to take advantage of veteran chef Mike Cordero’s showmanship.
NoVA food obsessives likely already know about the housemade bucatini, spun tableside in a wheel of parmigiana. But since Carbonara’s debut last year, Cordero has continued to break new ground.
Where else will you find chicken parmigiana gnocchi? The Frankenstein of earthly delights features an enormous, flat chicken breast beneath a blanket of melted mozzarella. A server comes to the table and slowly eases a pile of airy gnocchi in vodka sauce on top of the breaded bird. You may only succeed in eating half, but that means more to love as leftovers.
This is one Italian destination where it’s best to keep an open mind and choose the chef’s latest edible innovation.
Eat This: Fritto misto, chicken parmigiana gnocchi, pistachio-ricotta dusted cake
Osteria Marzano
Alexandria | Italian | $$$
You might find yourself trotting confused through an office building in search of Osteria Marzano. But stay the course, and you will be rewarded with an optimally seared, medium-rare filet mignon.
Atop its crisped edges is a raviolo of near-identical dimensions beneath shaved black truffle. Get out your steak knife. Cut in and the al dente pasta oozes with cheesy cacio e pepe sauce. You may be accustomed to it on pasta, but it’s even better on a tender steak. On the side, Parmesan-covered fries are made eminently moreish by a side of red-wine demi-glace.
By the time you finish with a Nutella pizza that’s topped with so many buoyant mini marshmallows it feels like it will float away like a hot air balloon, you’ll be utterly won over. With its unusual creations that await in an office building, this is the definition of a hidden gem.
Eat This: Arancini, filetto al cacio e pepe, Nutella pizza
Roberto’s Ristorante Italiano
Vienna | Italian | $$$$
When Roberto Donna and his wife, Nancy Sabbagh, opened their first restaurant in Vienna, the goal was to create an eatery the neighborhood would love. Three years on, the bustling dining room proves they’ve succeeded in that goal.
But Donna also said that he wanted to bring back guéridon service. With a cooking station wheeled to nearly every table, they’ve mastered that art, too. At Roberto’s Ristorante Italiano, it’s almost a sin not to order the fettuccini alla parmigiana.
The fresh pasta is twisted and turned — with a bit of the water in which it was boiled — in a wheel of aged parmigiana. The al dente result is George Clinton–level funky, creamy, and all-around pleasurable.
Don’t skip dessert. The dome of chocolate-and-hazelnut-flavored semifreddo all but melts into its pistachio cream sauce. It’s so intensely nutty, it nearly skims into bitterness.
Yes, Roberto’s is beloved by the neighborhood. But an everyday neighborhood restaurant? It’s miles above it.
Eat This: Pancetta di maiale croccante, fettuccini alla parmigiana, semifreddo di gianduia
Semifreddo Italian Cuisine
Manassas | Italian | $$$
The signature dessert may be in the name here, but diners are rewarded with far more than sweets if they visit this workaday Manassas strip center in search of savory Italian fare. Here, chef-owner Franklin Hernandez plies his trade in the open kitchen with equal skill given to every course.
The grilled Caesar, known as the Romana salad, features lightly blackened leaves that have kissed fire. The heads of romaine are accompanied by unusually light Caesar dressing, oversized grill-marked croutons, more than its share of Parmesan, and sweet biquinho peppers.
Housemade pasta is a natural choice, but don’t overlook meat and seafood dishes. The bistecchina con funghi features a New York strip flavored with wild mushrooms and paired with garlicky spinach and cheesy polenta.
If you’ve already had your fill of the eponymous semifreddo, the chocolate cake (torta di cioccolato) boasts layers of both milk and dark chocolate. Yes, the sweet stuff is worth a visit, but you may not have room for it after a meal full of Hernandez’s other delights.
Eat This: Grilled Romana salad, bistecchina con funghi, torta di cioccolato
Sfoglina
Arlington | Italian | $$$
“Happiness is a bowl of pasta made with love,” chef Fabio Trabocchi has said. At his homage to handmade noodles, the word “lust” may be just as appropriate for diners. As prettily herb-topped as they are, his dishes are a deeply visceral experience.
Provolone garlic bread oozes with melted butter at first bite, as the haystack of grated Parmesan on top fuses to the crunchy, allium-suffused loaf. Get it with the shareable-sized gnocchi. The velvety-plush potato dumplings all but disappear in a sauce that’s dotted with cheesy mini meatballs, fennel-redolent Italian sausage, salty pancetta, and hearty cubes of braised beef. The gigantic bowl empties with embarrassing speed, so get more than one pasta to ensure that there will be leftovers.
Even the tiramisu, with its intense, coffee-soaked bitterness, bests what you’ll find at other Italian restaurants. Sure, it was made with love, but your passionate drive for another bite (Dare we say “gluttony”?) is as sinful as the carb-filled meals served here.
Eat This: Provolone garlic bread, gnocchi Sunday sauce, Sfoglina tiramisu
Stracci Pizza
Alexandria | Italian | $$
Really? A pizzeria on the 50 Best list? Yes, really.
Stracci is no mere pizza joint. Ingredients are hyper-local and uber-seasonal. The dough ferments for 72 hours and the stracciatella cheese — for which the restaurant is named — is pulled by hand.
What started as a food truck is now a bona fide destination where you’ll likely need to wait for a table. Once seated, you’ll be greeted by well-informed servers but order through a QR code.
The seasonal salad is a must, especially one summery mix of greens with juicy cherries, pistachios, creamy goat cheese, pickled onions, and garlicky saba vinaigrette. Special pizzas change more than once a week. Hope for the corn carbonara, which adds local sweet corn to the crunchy Roman-style dough, along with salty cured pork cheek, egg yolk, and blobs of cream-oozing stracciatella.
But even the mainstays are always fresh. The Brooklyner features pepperoni and sausage atop tomatoes and fresh basil, with a hint of Calabrian chile and honey for a spicy-sweet delight. Seasonal desserts like blackberry granita will delight, but so will the concentrated flavors of the tiramisu.
This is one pizzeria that more than earns its place on any best list.
Eat This: The Brooklyner, seasonal salads, tiramisu
Thompson Italian
Alexandria & Falls Church | Italian | $$$
You’ll admit it without hesitation or embarrassment: You made a reservation at Thompson Italian for the carbs. Before the freshly made pasta, there’s the free focaccia, so indulgently oily that it leaves a rectangular print on your plate when it’s gone.
But have you tried the salad? Chef-owners Gabe and Katherine Thompson are masters of flavor, and while many of their greatest works are noodle-based, their medium is local produce.
It stands to reason that a summer melon salad would be memorable. Balled honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon, along with slices of cucumber, a honey-lime vinaigrette, whipped feta, jalapeños, mint, and crumbly olive “granola” conspire to make you salivate even after it’s gone.
Fruity desserts like mixed berry tiramisu and blackberry upside down cake are Katherine’s domain, and they’re just as fresh, seasonal, and intensely flavored.
Yes, order a bowl or three of creamy, truffled mushroom mafaldine. But don’t skimp on salad — or sweets.
Eat This: Summer melon salad, mafaldine, mixed berry tiramisu
Trattoria Villagio
Clifton | Italian | $$$
Even the best restaurants often have a weak link or two, but we dare you to find one here. In the quaint hamlet of Clifton, this inviting Italian spot exudes warmth and charming Mediterranean flair.
Gracious service in a setting that bursts with character is a sign of good things to come. From the first bites of focaccia dipped in olive oil, the menu delivers a well-curated celebration of Italian favorites, enhanced by offerings from a tempting raw bar.
Lightly dressed Caesar salads and crispy calamari with housemade marinara are formidable preludes for standout plates like rustic baked meatballs, Asiago-stuffed gnocchi, and tangy lobster-filled ravioli. The seven-layer dark chocolate cake, draped in caramel sauce, offers a decadent finale.
Clifton’s welcoming, small-town setting only enhances the home-style appeal here. And as you leave, you’ll note that there was nary a hiccup to an evening of la dolce vita.
Eat This: Baked meatballs, stuffed gnocchi, seven-layer chocolate cake
Feature photo of Thompson Italian by Rey Lopez
This story originally ran in our November issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
