Thompson Italian — Restaurant in Alexandria

As a neighbor living a block away from the new Thompson Italian location, my wife and I have eagerly anticipated the opening of their new outpost in Old Town since it was announced. On their first night we queued up to the bar, ordered a cocktail and a glass of wine and proceeded to sample a few of the menu items.

Our initial disappointment with the somewhat limited menu and decidedly untraditional spin on some of the "Italian" dishes gave way to delight with the crispy brussels sprouts which - while not really crispy - were surprising in composition and quite simply delicious. The garlic bread that we ordered to accompany the brussels was certainly not short on butter and garlic, so much so as to be soggy, though tasty nonetheless. Debating between the squid ink bucatini, the gnocchi and the pork cappellacci, we opted for the pork. While perhaps nothing is more important when judging pasta than that it comes appropriately al dente, the edges of the cappellacci were hard, dry and seemingly undercooked. More off-putting was the overwhelming sweetness of the sauce, which I assume came from the aged balsamic. My palette may lack sophistication when it comes to this dish, but to my taste it was a one-note miss. In looking around at other diners in our vicinity it was also evident that portion sizes skewed small, for what it's worth. Fortunately, dinner ended on a very high note with the chocolate budino. Wow. For chocolate lovers this was one of the most outstanding deserts we have enjoyed anywhere in the DMV. Kudos!

Our experience with the service was pleasant, though a bit perfunctory. It was their first night of course, but we and a few other Old Town residents noted that there didn't seem to be any real effort to express an interest in developing a local following, but it is early in the game to judge that. Overall, we remain excited and optimistic about this new entry into the Alexandria dining scene, where consistency, value, warm customer service and originality will win loyalty from...

Thompson Italian opened their second location in NOVA about a month ago. Their Resy app suggested two parking lots and one parking garage. The parking lots were full on Friday at 5pm. The Cameron Parking Garage closed at 6 pm, so it wasn't really an option. When we arrived, we checked in with the hostess. There wasn't much of a waiting area.

We were seated in the dining area. Our server Kenneth seemed impatient and quite irritated like he didn't really want to be there or do his job. He provided minimal service/communication.

For drinks, Rebecca enjoyed her Black Manhattan up. She liked the alcohol strength in the cocktail. My boyfriend ordered the Solace Partly Cloudy New England IPA but was given something else. I enjoyed the The Sun is a Star cocktail, which consisted of Tangueray gin, St. Germain, starfruit, lemon, and amaro molecular spheres. It was served over the rocks. I liked how it was sweet, fruity, and refreshing.

We felt like the food was pretty average and quite expensive. While waiting for our food, we were given bread - toasted foccacia and EVOO. For appetizers, my boyfriend and I shared the Smoked Salmon Rillette, which consisted of smoked salmon rillette topped with limoncello pearls and served with salad with pickled fennel and toasted focaccia. It was good but was a small portion for $18. All of us got various pasta dishes - Gnocchi, Tagliatelle, and Saffron Malloreddus. We liked how the pasta was fresh. The Saffron Malloreddus consisted of cavatelli topped with braised lamb shanks, crispy capers, golden raisins, marcona almonds, and pecorino. The dish had texture but lacked flavor. The Tagliatelle consisted of wider than usual tagliatelle topped with hen of the woods, chestnuts, confit garlic, and parmesan. It was greasy and lacked salt. We passed on dessert because it was the price...

We made reservations for Valentine’s dinner on the Saturday before V-Day, as two couples. We showed up on time and the bar area was packed, so it was tough for us to stand in the doorway area, while the hostess got us checked in and found us a table, as there’s not really a vestibule or waiting area. Once seated, our server (tall, slim guy with a very bad attitude) came to our table.

Service throughout the entire dinner from him was some of the worst I’ve received in years, as he was intentionally being rushed, rude, and unhelpful; one issue was we ordered a bottle of wine and when it came, the person in our party who’s a sommelier did the tasting and instantly identified it as corked and advised our server. He rolled his eyes and took the bottle away. He came back within about 2 minutes and said 3 people tried it and they said it wasn’t corked. TERRIBLE! You don’t argue this!! He was quickly advised it, indeed was and we changed our wine order to a different wine. Fortunately, that bottle tasted fine when it arrived.

On to the food… Our appetizers/salads arrived very quickly, which we found odd. We ordered a salad and got something different instead… we questioned this and then our salad appeared and the runner said that first thing was “on the chef.” As for the entrées, they definitely didn’t meet our expectations in the least, especially for the high prices. Flavors were off. Just not what we expected, as it appears they were poorly executed. We did order dessert and can honestly say the desserts were great.

The four of us are foodies, are into wine and understand enough about restaurants to know what to expect and definitely can say we were so turned off by this entire experience, we can’t...