Sfoglina Rosslyn — Restaurant in Arlington

I'm glad we had reservations for outdoor seating because the weather was absolutely gorgeous when we went. Sfoglina in Rosslyn can be hard to spot if you're new to the area, but the location overall is easy to get to. There's some street parking and also a parking garage right around the corner (in the same building the restaurant is in). There's limited space in the garage though. Remember to take your ticket with you so you can get it validated! When you make your reservation, you'll have to put $25 per person, which they do charge to your card. You'll receive a refund when you get to your reservation (or if you cancel more than 24 hrs prior).

The restaurant itself is very very cute inside. Great ambiance with dim lighting, cute decor, and a well maintained outdoor space. We were greeting promptly by the hostess and didn't have to wait for our 7:15 reservation. Inside it seemed like it could get a little loud but outside it was very very quiet, perfect for conversations. I came with a friend, but honestly this would be an excellent date spot.

Our waiter was very knowledgeable and nice an helped guide us through the menu. You get complimentary bread with olive oil - that bread was delicious We ordered some mozzarella bar items (burrata and charred sweet peppers) as starters. It went perfectly with the bread. For entree, I chose the mafalde telefono, which was good - the pasta had the perfect chew. It was underseasoned for me, but Italian food typically is. A bit more salt would have made it perfect and this review 5 stars. For dessert, we got tiramisu to share and it was also good - very rich and creamy, you could tell they used real mascarpone and not a combo of it w/heavy or whipped cream.

Price-wise, I felt it was a little overpriced. It was $12 for a little round of burrata and another $12 for some sliced, sautéed peppers. Our app came out to $24 and I didn't feel it was worth it. The pasta I ordered was $28, and I understand that pricing given it's made in house but portion felt a little small plus there was no meat or protein with it (although portion was perfect for me, those with larger appetites would probably need two entrees to feel satisfied). I might just be comparing this to Filomena though just bc they make their pastas in house too. Dessert I think it priced well ($13), the portions are shareable, at least for the tiramisu.

Knocking down that star honestly was a combination of the entree, price point, and one other thing - although service overall was good, there was a whole 30 mins between when we finished our entree and when we could flag someone down for dessert. I was getting antsy and trying hard to make eye contact with the waitresses/waiters/servers on the other end of the outdoor space. We were catching up and I know most places are short staffed so it wasn't THAT big of a deal, but 30 minutes is a really long time. It was another 20+ minutes between when we put in the dessert order and when we received it. This pushed us close to their closing time and they were nice enough to let us continue to chitchat. Overall, I enjoyed my meal and would come back for a date. Just a couple things to iron out...

So this was a holiday opportunity for us to do dinner with our two boys and Sfoglina looked like a good choice so we decided to give it a shot. The reality after spending $450 with only two drinkers was not what we had hoped for so I share this so that other families in the future can have a better experience and receive some value for their spending. First of all the booth was so wobbly that the hostess did not want to seat us at the table and instead put us at a four top by the bar which was also wobbly by enough to spill wine. This kind of basic front of house failure should tell you everything about how you are leading your team and the level of attention that your management team is spending on the customer experience. There is simply no reason at this price point to not have basic dining room things in place. Only complacency and lack of management skill can make that happen. The server Joseph was excellent. Attentive and in control and fabulous throughout the meal. Wine choices were good but probably at least 15% more expensive than they need to be. Prices were also listed and then more than were quoted on the menu which I assume is a 9oz pour but that seems like a little bit of a bait and switch. As for the food, everything that you did not make was great. Burrata, prosciutto, rosemary bread were excellent. Avocado salad was too spicy. The spice should be a flavor profile on something like that, not a punch and we did not finish it even thought we like spice and found the salsa in the avocado to be delicious. The braised beef agnolotti was excellent. The branzino was just a pile of olives and it prevented us from enjoying the fish. The potato gnocchhi was just all mushroom. The pasta actually seemed quite good but the mushroom was so overwhelming that it was hard to tell. No delicate touch here. The tagliatelle was watery and you could not even taste the oil. Agli e olio is one of my favorites because it appears deceptively simple but requires care to pull off. This was inedible. Maggianos and Macaroni Grill both do it much better which is frustrating. Finally, we ordered some garlic bread with dinner and it was cold, burned and even my boys who will eat anything and did not touch it after the first bite. Overall just a super frustrating experience because you can tell that the restaurant has potential but no one is checking the food...

My team and I dined here last night as a celebratory team outing. I’ve dined here many times prior so it was a fairly simply recommendation for myself. The interior looked amazing per usual and every detail was much appreciated.

As we were a bigger table, we set in their mini private area which was fairly warm so we had to turn on the fan to cool down. Our waiter was sweet but we did realize that she forgot about us a few times which led us to leave the table to find assistance from another team member.

Our first set of drinks were a variety of spritz, old fashioned, and mocktails which were all delicious. Apparently, on Tuesdays they have $10 spritz so that deal came in handy.

As for the appetizers, we ordered an array from grilled octopus, rosemary bread, focaccia bread, tomato and burrata, and Caesar salad. I believe there was one more but can’t remember it at the moment. The appetizers were ok but will say that the deconstructed Caesar salad was my favorite. I do wish we would’ve selected other appetizers but we didn’t .

For the main meal, most of our table ordered the lobster squid ink pasta and one person ordered the bolognese. All of the lobster squid ink pasta dishes (about 4 of us ordered it) the lobster was severely undercooked and translucent.I thought that was interesting especially for a fine dining establishment and such a pricey meal that it would’ve been executed better than what it was. We all returned them to the kitchen to be cooked thoroughly which was a disappointment. During the wait time, we all slowly began losing our appetite and when we finally received the cooked lobster dishes— most of us were somewhat full. Nevertheless, some of us packed the leftovers while other left it behind.

We continued with our experience by ordering the tiramisu which was a surprise for all of us. It wasn’t the traditional tiramisu we all we respected and honestly was hoping but instead we received a chocolate cake base that’s been soaked heavily in alcohol with a mascarpone and espresso/chocolate powder topping. To be honest, it fell short for all of us but will say that our waitress gave us a complimentary soft serve which was much appreciated.

Overall, this had to be the worst experience food wise but maybe next time we’ll have a...