Cantina D'Italia — Restaurant in Herndon

TLDR: Trashy behavior/language from owners ruined the experience. Food was mediocre.

Unfortunately, the visit started off bad. I arrived at 9pm. (They close at 10pm) I waited for roughly 5 min before a waitress even showed her face. There was only one patron eating in the entire restaurant at the time. When I told her I needed a seat for one, she literally looked at her watch right in my face. That should have been my first clue. Then she said, if you can figure out what you want fast, it'll be OK because the kitchen closes at 9:30pm. That should've been my second clue. I overheard people in the back corner table cursing loudly and acting like children. One male voice in particular was the worst. He kind of led their conversation and the others sounded like followers hanging on his every word. Sad really. I spoke to the other woman in the restaurant and commented on the language. She agreed it was pretty bad.

The food was good. I got the Cappelli D'Angelo Alla Chef. The shrimp was definitely not fresh gulf Shrimp (I eat fresh from the gulf Shrimp regularly) but it was still ok. The rest of the dish was pretty good though.

The house salad was pretty good. It consisted of a bed of lettuce, sliced carrots, small chunks of celery, onions, a slice of cucumber, sliced radishes (I'm pretty sure that's what they were) and Italian dressing.

The bread was mediocre. It literally had zero flavor.

The problem with the entire experience was that table in the back corner being very loud and cursing uncontrollably. Talking about strippers sitting on his face and other ridiculously trashy comments. I'm a Marine and I'd never speak like that in public, it's disrespectful and unprofessional. When I mentioned it to the waitress, she said "oh, that's the owners." That's even worse! So the "owners" were acting like that with patrons in the restaurant? Absolutely abhorrent behavior. I would maybe have returned based on the food, but I'm disgusted with myself currently for supporting these people. I really wish it didn't go that way. I hope they realize that kind behavior is unacceptable in a public setting, but based off their (mainly his) behavior I'm not confident.

Based on this visit I'll very likely never return. If you have morals and values, you'll be better off visiting a different establishment to eat.

Oh, I just found out I was also overcharged for my dinner by ~$5 vs the online menu price. Oh well, won't ever...

The only complaints I had about this place was the lighting and the service seemed a little slow at first. It was very dim and I coudl barely tell it was open when I drove up. There was no one to greet me as I walked in and it took about a minute for someone to come and seat me. He didn't even go over the specials. Just handed me a the card and said they were on there. My server on the other hand was amazing. He brought everything to me right away and made sure that my table was clean when I was done with my plate and made sure that I always had some water and bread.

The bread was not what I expected for an italian place. It was still delicious. Crunchy on the outside while light and fluffy on the inside and served as a great tool to slope up my soup and sauce.

The soup I had was cream of crab and is now one of my favorite if not my favorite soups I've ever had. It had a smooth, rich texture and the taste amazing. The crab stayed nice and tender and there was plenty of it in the soup. It was definately not overpowered by the creamy base of the soup.

I then ventured into the gnocchi with creamy tomato sauce and mushrooms. I've never had gnocchi before, but I can't imagine that it can get much better than this. It was like pillows in my mouth. The sauce was just thick enough to stick to the gnocchi, but not too thick as to take over the gnocchi. The mushrooms were...

12/28/23: I put in a large order through DoorDash and driver went to pick up and the damn place is closed after spending alot of money! Dasher informed me with pics and I tried calling the restaurant and no one answered! I can't believe this! How can the restaurant accept an order and it shows it's being prepared on the DoorDash app but they're closed when it indicates they're open on both their website and the DD app? I had people depending on this order besides myself and now have to figure out how to get my money back!

Previous review from 4 months ago.Love the food but this is not an ethical establishment.

Have gone here off and on for years. Was here 3 wks ago for takout and charged $9 more (overall) than stated on their menu. Owner/ mgr said their prices have gone up but hadn't updated their menu prices. I thought that was wrong but went ahead and paid the additional charge. Submitted a msg soon after through their website asking how this could be allowed to happen as businesses are supposed to honor their published prices but never got a response. Here it is 3 weeks later and their online menu through their website still has the old prices. This is totally unacceptable. Will go elsewhere which is too bad as their food is good but don't like dealing with...