Officina — Restaurant in Washington

Poor service, especially for its price point and expectations, overshadows a nice ambiance and solid food.

A good friend and I came here on a Thursday night for Winter Restaurant Week. Masseria is still on my bucket list, but I was eager to try this offering on The Wharf by Chef Stefanelli. While I appreciate the relative financial value and deals during Restaurant Week, I also understand they are typically more crowded and service may be a bit slower than normal.

The interior of the two-story restaurant is very nice, and the large interior windows allow you to look outside to the river for a scenic view while you eat on the second floor.

The service, however, was very rough. While the greeting and seating was smooth, the rest of the night had several unfortunate incidents. Our server took our order for the 3-courses, and we each got a drink pairing (I went with the wine, my friends with the cocktails). The tl'dr is that although the restaurant was a bit busy, they were not understaffed. It just seemed like they were not well managed or good at remembering orders... I'll speak in detail to the service by course before getting to the food itself.

For the first-course, all our food came out at separate times. The meatballs I ordered and our drinks came out first, and then shortly after the complimentary bread. I was given the wrong wine to pair with the meatball, but was fine as it technically paired with the bread my friend had ordered. After we had finished the meatballs the waitress asked if we had ordered all out food (we said no), and then had to ask us for our entire order again. She came back 15 minutes later to confirm it again. For the entrees, the food came out together and promptly. However, we did not get our drinks for at least 15 minutes. We couldn't grab out waitresses attention, but there were several employees hanging out at the bar, so we called one over and asked for our drinks. They then eventually came. Dessert course was fine, although drink pairing did come about 5 minutes after the food.

Because I talked too much on service, I'll rapid fire on food: The complimentary bread was dry and plain - very disappointing The meatballs as an appetizer were good, although simple The sourdough with ricotta was OK, again the bread seemed a bit plain My entree of Rigatoni w/ Goat Rogu was good, although not out of this world. Certainly did not make up for the poor service. The wine pairing with it was OK - although not a must-have by any means. The tiramisu was good, and paired well with the lambrusco to end the night.

There are many great Italian restaurants in the area at lower price points, thus I don't feel compelled to...

I consider myself a foodie and I’m a big believer in you get what you pay for but in this instance, picking up McDonald’s on my way home would be more satisfying.

I’m truly astonished by the good reviews. My only guess is that tourists visiting DC just like that it’s near the water.

Unfortunately the restaurant is water adjacent rather than water front with most of the restaurant having zero view of the water so if you’re coming here for ambience and views it isn’t there.

The restaurant is nice and clean and the upstairs features an open kitchen so you can watch as most of the cooks stand around on their phones. This isn’t a dig at the cooks being on the phone but more of the fact that nothing at this restaurant seemed to actually have been cooked while we were seated.

My boyfriend and I ordered two pasta dishes to share. I ordered the seafood linguine and he ordered the octopus pasta dish. And we each of us ordered an espresso martini. I had to order mine twice because they only brought one the first time.

The espresso martini was in a 3 ounce glass rather than your typical 5 ounce martini glass and I think the 2 ounces the shaved off were the vodka. Which doesn’t seem like a big deal but with a price tag of $18 each you probably want to savor each sip underwhelming coffee.

After our drinks arrived a cook wheeled a cart of frozen meats stacked with piles of ice through the restaurant which should have been my first sign that everything to come was frozen.

All of the seafood in my dish was previously frozen and chewy and to make things worse tasted like it had been reheated to a lukewarm flavorless dish. The octopus in the seafood pasta was so overcooked I couldn’t chew through it. The overcooked seafood didn’t mesh well with the less than al dente pasta not to mention the portion sizes are not for someone that comes in hungry with two shrimp, 2 muscles, and one tiny octopus and 5 ounces of pasta at almost $40 per pasta dish. As for the octopus, I don’t think I have ever been fed something so disgusting in my life. It tasted like I was eating vomit. I took one bite and gave it back to my boyfriend and told hi I wasn’t going to eat it. My pasta dish was terrible but at least it resembled pasta. The octopus dish was truly horrific and was so acidic.

All in all If you want to spend $120 on dinner and leave hungry while hating yourself for eating the food because it was too expensive throw away, then sure, try it.

Otherwise, pick any number of better Italian...

Thinking of hosting an event at Officina at the Wharf. DONT. We wanted a nice spot to host our new son-in-law‘s family here in DC – after our Daughters wedding in NYC. Found Officina and thought it would be perfect. I was concerned when the staff repeatedly failed to get back to me when we were trying to coordinate and plan the menu… But they were generally pleasant and the setting seemed lovely so we went forward. Fast forward to the day of the event – our daughter woke up with the flu – saw a doc and got the diagnosis - and immediately called me. I have cancer – can’t be exposed to infection. We didn’t know who else in the family might be sick – so we needed to cancel the event. I immediately emailed Officina staff… Didn’t get a response… Called and left voicemails… Didn’t get a response… Called the main number for the restaurant… Rolled to voicemail… Tried again later in the afternoon….. nothing. That was the way the entire day went. When Officina finally called us that evening – they claimed they never got any messages – but I had copies. After days of going back-and-forth with their management…and attorney…..they decided that we would lose our deposit – but they refused to give us credit for a future event… AND we had to pay for the entire event for 15 people! They took no responsibility for the fact that we couldn’t reach them. The real kicker… If I had known in the morning that we were going to have to pay for the entire event - no credit or consideration … I would’ve given the event to business colleagues - let them enjoy an evening with families and friends… It would’ve been a great business move. By contract, Officina was within their rights to charge us – but that’s not really the point is it… My daughter was sick. I have cancer. We tried to reach them all day long…. Were fine with a credit. Nope. Our son-in-law is an executive chef at a restaurant in Manhattan… He tried speaking to management… Same response. Poor service… Poor management....