Big ol' Top Chef fan here. I've seen all the seasons, have favorite chefs, and favorite episodes. Spike has a few places in DC; a pizza place, a burger joint, but nothing with a comprehensive menu. I don't blame him for that since you can make boatloads of money slingin' burgers a pizzas, but when I heard Isabella was opening a restaurant in DC I was pretty excited. On top of that, a couple of friends are chefs there so that led to more excitement.
A friend and I went to Graffiato last week, both for the first time, and I was not disappointed. Its a casual place with great food that won't cost you 60 bucks a person. The first floor of this place had a pretty big open kitchen, but we sat upstairs in the quieter section of the restaurant. The lunch menu is not too extensive which prevents asian-menu-syndrome where folks like myself panic over choosing 1 out of 179 possible options.
The first thing that we ordered was the sweet corn agnolotti. This was a small plate (they all are here) with agnolotti pasta, chanterelles, and pine nuts. This dish was really rich, but the portion was such that it was not going to ruin the rest of our meal. I could have easily eaten an entire plate of this, but we had two other orders to polish off as well. Next we had the chicken thighs with pepperoni sauce and grape tomatoes. This sauce almost won Top Chef All-Stars for Mike Isabelle and is probably the most talked-about thing on the menu for people who have not dined here yet. I didn't wanna be the guy ordering the most popular thing on the menu, but I had to try it. The chicken was good, don't get me wrong, but it would probably rank at the bottom of the things we tried. It could use more of the pepperoni sauce (thats the highlight of the dish right??) and more tomatoes too. in my opinion, chicken is pretty boring so if you have something that makes it not boring...pile that shit on. The third thing e ordered was my favorite by far. The forager pizza has no tomato sauce and no mozzarella, but it is a GREAT pizza. Goat cheese, sauteed mushrooms, and dates make a phenomenal combination and this was the highlight of my experience there. We had two types of gelatto for dessert. I insisted we try the watermelon while I was told the peach would be much better. We tried both. The peach was MUCH better than the watermelon. I walked to Dolcezza the next day to see if their peach was as good...but it wasn't.
Graffiato is cheap enough that you can go on a whim and not have to plan a week around it. At the same time, the food is exciting enough that it could make your week.
Overall: A-
Highlights: Forager and Peach gelatto
Lowlights: Gimme more pep sauce pimps!
Sidenote: Great waitstaff
