Vapiano: Hopefully Better than the Name Sounds
DCist swung by the opening dinner last night at Vapiano, now open at 1800 M Street NW. It’s a European-based pizza, pasta, and salad bar that claims to be leading a new trend in the restaurant industry deemed “Fresh Casual” (which was strange, given the greeters at the dinner were dressed to the nines). What does that mean? Vapiano explains it as “somewhere between the nicest of fast casual and the hippest of dining casual,” think high European fashion meets family-style Italian. With that being said, if you’re looking for rustic Italian pizzas and pastas made right in front of you (you order directly from the cooks, a la High Noon) at great prices in a hip atmosphere, then you might want to check Vapiano out.
The menu is broken into four areas: insalatas, antipasti, pizza, and pasta. It is then further categorized into price groups A,B,C, and D; A being the lowest and D the highest. Insalatas come in at $4.25 for a small and $6.50 for a large with $2.25 for extras such as turkey or filet of beef. Pastas start off at $6.75, for Group A, which are basics like pomodoro and pesto to Group D at $9.75 with goodies like ccampi and crayfish in lobster sauce. Pizzas have the same price points and go from simple Margheritas to elaborate Crudo e Fichi, which includes Prosciutto di Parma, Figs, Acacia Honey, Tomato Sauce and Mozzarella. Antipasti ranges from Bruschetta for $3.00 to Beef Carpaccio at $9.00.
This is a place that intends to cater to all demographics. When working downtown you can get in and out on your lunch break and it’s a change from your usual turkey on wheat hold the mayo sandwich. If you’ve got a hankering for some late night comfort food after you’ve slammed a few back, Vapiano serves until midnight, seven days a week. But, in between government workers during the day and partiers at night, the place is welcoming enough to bring the family for dinner (sorry, no early bird specials for Grandma).
If you can’t make it to M Street, they recently opened their Arlington location at 4401 Wilson Blvd. and are scheduled to open one in Chinatown this coming August. Washington is the restaurant’s first foray into stateside dining, though the chain has several locations in Europe including Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and one squeezed into Asia: Baghdad Avenue in Istanbul. Maybe we can use this as our common ground with the Middle East…
