Masseria — Restaurant in Washington

Extreme highs in tasting splendor in some courses were disrupted by some surprisingly pedestrian other courses. Attentive service by our waiter was undone by poorly coordinated overall table service resulting in poor / uneven pacing of courses and misses like us waiting without water at the beginning of our meal for nearly 15 mins. A mix of brown wood and soft amber lighting in the dining room against the stark polished metal of the open kitchen created a warm atmosphere. In the end, it didn't make up for a lackluster $1,000 anniversary dinner.

Our 6 course meal began with a sampling of antipasti:

1st course: Crudo Aged Branzino. Radish. Finger Lime. Gherkin.

Funghi Fritto Chicken Fried Chicken of the Woods Mushroom.

Foienoli Foie Gras Mousse. Pistachio. Truffle.

Burrata Wellfleet Oyster. Caviar. Cipollini Onion.

Amatriciana Guanciale. Cherry Tomato. Chili. Black Pepper. Pecorino.

Except for a scant few fleeting flavor notes, there was nothing memorable in this first antipasti tasting course, even with a (surprisingly underwhelming) foie gras mousse supplement.

2nd course: Storione Sturgeon. Celery Root. Celery. Brown Butter. - Nothing remarkable or memorable here.

Fegato d’Oca Foie Gras. Quince. Sicilian Brioche. Pistachio. Mostarda. - Absolutely extraordinary. Every bite was an ascent into the stratosphere. I will dream of this dish for a long time. The combination of these flavors was a masterpiece.

3rd course: Culurgiones -Rutabaga Filled Sardinian Dumpling. Black Garlic. Dandelion. Pancetta. Parmigiano Reggiano. - Quite tasty, very creative blend of elements.

Tartufo Bianco Alba White Truffle. Parmigiano Reggiano Risotto. - Another launch into the heavens, possibly the best risotto of any form I've had. Really remarkable dish.

4th course: Strascinati - Hand Pulled Puglian Pasta. Goat Ragu. Pecorino. - Tender bites of goat ragu with some al dente pasta and just the perfect amount of pecorino made this a solid offering.

5th course: Kagoshima A5 Wagyu Striploin Sunchoke. Kalette. Beef Fat Crumpet. Red Wine. Beef Tendon. - The A5 was epic on its own, but the bites of crispy and starchy sunchoke and butter kalette with the red wine reduction alongside made this a spiritual experience.

Intermezzo: Mela e Uva Crab Apple. Gala Apple Kombucha. Concord Grape. White Wine Zabaglione. - Quite a delicious and memorable palate cleanser, we would have been satisfied if this was a light dessert and end to our meal.

6th course: Torta al Cioccolato Baked Chocolate Mousse. Mascarpone. Dulce di Leche. Fiore di Latte Gelato. - They were just showing off here. The chocolate mousse on its own was divine, but then adding the mascarpone, dulce di leche and gelato just sent us back to the moon.

As you can see, some really high highs with some middling other courses. I think you can find better sustained Michelin quality experiences elsewhere in DC, and definitely for a fraction of the price.

Cocktails were good if not spectacular, definitely not Causa or anything on that level but fine if overpriced ($70 for a French 75 is just silly).

Honorable mention for their delicious focaccia paired with that otherworldly tomato paste, which if combined together does taste...

Even for a free, fully comped meal, I would not relive my Masseria experience. It's hard to tell this story in a short way, because something went wrong at every turn, but here is a sample of what happened:

The bathrooms look like something out of a dive bar - rusty doors, water leaking out of the toilet, spilled soap on the sink that was not cleaned up an hour later. Our server pushed us to decide on supplements and cocktails (extra $$$) without ever explaining what the tasting menu or wine pairing were (a supplement to what, I asked). The welcome drink and bread course were lackluster. The appetizers were also, and were placed out of order so the server fumbled to explain them. The pasta was under-cooked (crunchy?) and we were made to feel like it was our odd preference for mushy pasta, not their mistake in the kitchen, that was the reason we sent the pasta back. I had to explain one of the courses to the table to my left and on the right the couple asked us what we ordered and why our tasting menu was different than theirs. Confusion abounded. For the main we were asked if we were OK with beef, and when offered duck we said we'd prefer that. A little while later, the server shows up with rabbit, no explanation. Then after being told how the duck wasn't ready yet (it had a few more days to age), 10 minutes later we had the duck appear in front of us without warning. Our meal ended unceremoniously with someone dropping off a bag with some olive oil (I guess?) in it. Then as we were getting up and talking to the table next to us, finally smiling and enjoying ourselves, the hostess comes to "invite us to leave so they can use our table". After an utter failure of a meal, we were hustled out so they can get our table back 5 minutes sooner. Somewhere in this whole process the manager made some hushed reference to our meal being comped, so we were merely thoroughly disappointed, not livid.

Masseria felt like a zombie restaurant - going through all the motions but no one able to pull together a real experience...or even many restaurant basics like cleaning the bathroom or serving people the food they ordered. Everything we experienced also shows up in the other negative reviews about Masseria, so while we might have had a confluence of problems, those underlying problems were not isolated events for us. Unimpressive food and wine in inadequate quantity. Poor service. Confusing "industrial chic" for "we don't...

Too rigid-- my husband and I went to Masseria last night (8/13) to discover a broken air conditioning unit and a very hot, packed restaurant with an open kitchen. As we sat and wondered why it was so hot (our waiter didn't come by to take a drink order for a full 15 minutes so we flagged another waiter down and finally got something cold) we could feel the sweat rolling down our backs. We debated going to the nearby Bidwell but stayed because we thought the air would get better. It never did. The service was so slow through the night that we wondered if we were supposed to grab our drinks ourselves - as a result only had 2 drinks. There was no explanation of the wine pairing, I ordered a cheese plate and was asked which cheeses I wanted without being given any options, our waiter spoke to us in the meekest of hushed tones and clearly could not get away from us quickly enough. (For the record, we are very polite and tried to be sympathetic)

The food was good, but not great. My crudo was delicious and beautiful, but my fagottini was swimming in olive oil and the waiter tried to convince us to mop up the rest of our dinner with semolina bread, brother I didn't come to this restaurant to fill up on bread. About this time the restaurant manager (?) came to ask us how our dinner was and we said the food was fine, but that we were hot. He stated that the restaurant had a technician over earlier in the day to fix the AC but was unable to fix it entirely. My olive oil poached halibut was half cooked and raw on the inside. Then the desserts came in rapid succession - they were good, but the ice cream melted so quickly I'll never know how good it actually was. $300 later we were riding in a nice cool Uber.

A couple of constructive suggestions:

1. The restaurant texted me to tell me that Foienolli was a special for the evening. How about a phone call to tell me that I could wear shorts because the A/C was out?
2. Recognizing that people have to make a wage and that's probably the reason the restaurant chose to remain open - how about a complimentary glass of COLD prosecco and a quick apology before we got started?
3. Why not serve ice water? The water that was poured quickly became lukewarm - just for the nights when your A/C is busted a couple of ice cubes and a cold towel might have been nice.

Restaurant management is too rigid/lacks introspection and service is too slow...