Contrary to popular belief, you don’t actually have to travel all the way to Italy to find truly great pasta dishes (although I hear pasta in Italy is pretty out-of-this world). And while Italian restaurants aren’t quite as ubiquitous in D.C. as, say, tapas, ramen, or pho, there are still quite a few places serving pasta dishes that can rival anything from the boot-shaped country. Below are DCist’s favorite pasta dishes in the city. Bon appétit!
Photo by LaTur.
SWEET CORN AGNOLOTTI AND GNOCCHI AT GRAFFIATO: Homemade pasta is one of the highlights at Mike Isabella’s Graffiato, so much so that I couldn’t choose just one dish to highlight. Summer months bring a return of the much-loved sweet corn agnolotti; plump squares of tender pasta enclosing a silky corn puree. As a Midwestern transplant, it’s about as close as I get to the sweet corn of my youth in D.C. And in the winter, feather-light gnocchi is bathed in a luscious pork ragu with frothy rosemary ricotta cream. While the sauce is lovely, Graffiato’s gnocchi are singular for their petite size, pillowy texture, and slightly caramelized exterior. — Alicia Mazzara
Graffiato is located at 707 6th Street NW.
PENNE CARBONARA AT PASTA MIA: When I became lactose intolerant in my 20s, one of the foods I missed most was pasta with a cream-based sauce. Discovering penne carbonara was a revelation, because the classic recipe has no cream in it at all, yet the sauce is decadently silky thanks to rich egg yolks and Parmesan cheese. The carbonara at Pasta Mia is a hot, cheesy mess, and I mean that in the best way possible. Pasta Mia is old school Italian food, with giant portions and bold, unfussy flavors. A heaping bowl of penne is drenched in creamy, eggy goodness, peppered with saline morsels of guanciale (pork jowl) and liberally dusted with even more grated Parm. Think of it as a sort of mac and cheese for adults, because you’ll devour it with the gusto of a hungry child. — Alicia Mazzara
Pasta Mia is located at 1790 Columbia Road NW.
SMOKED POTATO GNOCCHI AT CASA LUCA: I’m not a huge foodie. I mean, I like to try a lot of different things, and I experiment in my kitchen to usually middling results, but truth be told I’m mostly too poor to hit up whatever new joint Mike Isabella or Jose Andres has open. Luckily, my parents are big foodies and often dine out in D.C. a lot. Sometimes they invite me. That said, I recently dined with my mother at Casa Luca and there smoked potato gnocchi left quite an impression on me. The large, pillowy gnocchi are both tender and chewy, smothered with a generous portion of boar ragu, served with a side of wild greens. I’m usually a creature of habit when it comes to dining (I rarely stray from eggplant parmigiana when I eat at Italian restaurants), so I already know what I’ll be getting when/if I return to Casa Luca. — Matt Cohen
Casa Luca is located at 1099 New York Avenue NW.
Linguine with Kimchi and Uni at Range. Photo by Alicia Mazzara.
LINGUINE WITH KIMCHI AND UNI AT RANGE: (Ed. note: Range has since taken this off the menu, but hey, maybe this will inspire them to put it back on). Kimchi and pasta doesn’t seem like it should work at all, but somehow all the disparate flavors come together in this Italian-Asian mash-up from Bryan Voltaggio. The kimchi flavor is subtle, lending the faintest hint of spice and fermented funk to a light tomato sauce. Ribbons of uni (sea urchin) melt as you twirl the noodles, like foie gras of the sea. The result is unexpected enough to keep things interesting but familiar enough to crave it again and again. — Alicia Mazzara
Range is located at 5335 Wisconsin Avenue NW.
LINGUINE PUTTANESCA AT MAPLE: I love the homey atmosphere at Maple, and I keep going back for the Linguine Puttanesca. The capers and olives add a salty richness to the rough-chopped sweet tomatoes, and the olives bring a nice textural element without being overpowering. Honestly, I think I always end up gobbling this dish so fast—down to the last noodle and final dot of sauce on the plate—that I don’t spend too much time pondering it and describing its merits. All I can really say is YUM. And, unlike most restaurant pasta dishes, the linguine at Maple has no eggs, so the dish can be made vegan if you hold the anchovy and parmesan. — Lynne Venart
Maple is located at 3418 11th Street NW.
SEASONAL TAGLIATELLE AT BIRCH AND BARLEY: Birch and Barley isn’t focused solely on pasta, but there’s always homemade pasta on the menu. The toothsome strips of tagilatelle are paired with a rotating parade of seasonal ingredients—usually some combination of a melt-in-your-mouth braised meat or seafood, sweet roasted vegetables, and piquant cheese. I swooned over a rendition with goat ragu last year, but more recent offerings of braised rabbit and figs or sausage-stuffed calamari sound equally mouth-watering. Whatever the pairing, the wide strands deliver the perfect balance of tender and chewy that only comes with excellent homemade pasta. — Alicia Mazzara
Birch and Barley is located at 1337 14th Street NW.
LASAGNA AT BASIL THYME: Lasagna from a food truck is an unusual proposition, but it’s Basil Thyme’s specialty. Despite threatening to close in the face of new food truck regulations, the popular pasta truck has kept chugging along, serving lasagna that would be at home in any number of brick-and-mortar restaurants in D.C. The homemade noodles are layered with gourmet ingredients like lobster with sherry cream sauce, butternut squash, goat cheese, black truffles, mushrooms, and gorgonzola. — Alicia Mazzara
You can follow Basil Thyme’s movements on Twitter.
CAULIFLOWER-SPAGHETTI DISH AT PALENA: (Ed. note: Another dish that’s not currently on the menu, but Palena’s constantly evolving menu suggests it could come back. Our taste buds are begging you to bring it back, Palena). Spaghetti may seem like the most boring of the pasta formats, not shaped cutely like tiny bowties or elegantly like campanelle. But leave it to Palena to take this starchy staple up a notch. Their spaghetti dish with ground-up cauliflower, pine nuts, hard-cooked egg, and shaved pecorino cheese is hearty but not too rich, nutty, a little sweet, and a nice alternative to to the many tomato or cream-based options out there. Though this exact pasta isn’t always on their ever-changing menu, Palena often offers similar ingredient combinations that are also delicious. — Nicole Dubowitz
Palena is located at 3529 Connecticut Avenue NW.
CRESTE DE GALLO AT THE RED HEN: Sometimes I like to order pasta just for the shape. Creste de gallo is probably the most unusual pasta shape on this list; it looks like a rooster’s crest, curved and frilly. But the inventive, seasonal sauces are the real reason to order the perfectly al dente pastas at The Red Hen. In the case of the creste de gallo, tender morsels of duck breast meet earthy mushrooms in a tomato-based sauce, while mini cubes of sweet potato add a velvety pop of sweetness. — Alicia Mazzara
Red Hen is located at 1822 First Street NW.
VEGAN LASAGNA AT FOOD FOR THOUGHT: So it may not be a five-star restaurant or the latest Jose Andres venture or whatever, but Food For Thought—the cafe situated inside Black Cat—makes a damn fine vegan lasagna. No, I’m not vegan, but something about the daiya cheese just blends so well with Black Cat’s sauce (more so than their three-cheese lasagna). And just so you know, this isn’t some store-bought ingredients concoction. It’s a family recipe from Black Cat owner Dante Ferrando’s father, who’s been making it at Food For Thought for years. The last time I can recall eating it I was quite inebriated at the Black Cat’s 20th anniversary shows and a friend and I collectively decided that drunkenly scarfing down some lasagna was more important than watching Girls Against Boys play. I regret nothing. — Matt Cohen
Food For Thought is located at 1811 14th Street NW.
CARROT PAPPARADELLE AT TOSCA: Tosca may have the ambiance of an airport lounge, but it’s been serving solid upscale Italian fare for years. Preparations are delicate, and the pasta is made in house. The carrot papparadelle with rabbit ragu has been on the menu for some time, but if it ain’t broke, why fix it? The peach-colored noodles are draped in slow-cooked rabbit, white wine, and thyme for an aromatic finish. — Alicia Mazzara
Tosca is located at 1112 F Street NW.
