Ristorante TOSCA — Restaurant in Washington

I came here for our anniversary and had a terrible experience. We were treated as if because we were younger, our money isn’t green. I’ll separate this into two parts. Part one, a review of the food, and part two, a review of the experience.

Part One The food here is mediocre and there isn’t much to choose from. We had the Capesante (which is TWO scallops) and the risotto for our appetizer. The Scallops were probably the best part of the entire meal and the risotto was just bland and flavorless. For our Entrees, we had Ravioli del Plin and the Anatra, which is duck breast. The Ravioli was the exact opposite of the risotto. Its favor was overpowering. After two bites, we couldn’t stand it anymore. The duck breast wasn’t anything special. It tasted the same as duck you get from a Chinese Take-Out Restaurant. I’m not sure if we were complimenting Chinese Take-Out, or insulting Ristorante Tosca.

Part Two This was worst experience I’ve had in a restaurant, which ruined our anniversary night. It started with us being seated in some corner table next to a wall. It was a Tuesday, so there were plenty of other seats, but we got seated on what seemed to be the worst spot. Then the wine. We ordered a bottle and our glasses were poured. After my first sip, I noticed there was something in my glass. It was a piece of the cork from the bottle. We mentioned this to the waitress, Angela, and were confronted with an ill-mannered response of “OK. What do you want?” We were shocked to hear such an aggressive response from a waitress that seemed like she’s been in the business for some time. It was obviously the servers fault that there was cork in my bottle, since I never touched the cork nor the bottle. She brought the cork back out and you could see that there was a chip on the top of the cork. It was obviously her mistake, and instead of offering to replace my glass, we got a filthy “What do you want?” After that, our Entrees took about 50 minutes to get to our table from the time of our initial order. Meanwhile, the ladies that were next to us were greeting with complimentary glasses of champagne just for sitting down. Their salads and pasta entrees were in front of them within 30 minutes. Which just made us feel that because were a younger couple, we weren’t a priority. It was disrespectful. Once we were done with our entrees, we were presented with a dessert menu which we declined. We were offered coffee and also declined, as we were done. I didn’t know that declining dessert, coffee, and saying “we’re done” doesn’t hint the waitress to bring out the check. We waited for 20 minutes and Angela never brought it around. We had to mention it to her again.

This restaurant was a terrible mistake. Usually we go to "Fogo De Chão" down the block for events like this, but we wanted to try something new. But instead Ristorante Tosca ruined our anniversary dinner. It would’ve been at least somewhat pleasant if the food was great and the experience was bad, or vice versa. But they were both just as awful. They need to be grateful that we even decided to leave a tip at all, even if it was the standard 15%, for being disrespectful and discriminatory.

Also, how do you run...

I have been floating around the Central/Northern Virginia/DC fine dining circuit for around 10 years now and can safely say that I have never felt less welcome in an establishment, fine dining or otherwise, than I did in Tosca.

We reserved a spot for the Valentine's event prix fixe menu. Our waiter arrived at our table about 10 minutes after we were seated, quite literally dropped the menus and cocktail book on the table, then ran away. I still have no idea what his name was. After two more passes with nothing said, he asked if we wanted a drink. We each ordered one (I ordered a Jalisco Martini, which was good). We then waited for too long until he showed up again to write down our selections with a dry, "Know what you want yet?" I ordered the Wagyu Strip Loin which I was promptly informed "I don't have it. We have a New York Strip." This spiel was heard 4 more times at the surrounding table. It's a cardinal sin to understock what was very obviously going to be a hot ticket item. It got people in the restaurant, though, so maybe that was the plan.

The first course we're the appetizers, burrata and duck leg confit. Pretty decent but I would say that the burrata had a harder set than I'm used to. Second course was pasta. I had some pasta (name escapes me) with a boar ragu and spicy nduja. My pasta was about a minute south of al dente and required a good amount of work to cut, let alone chew. My lady's dish was served with lobster which, and I can't stress this enough, was positively hammered into rubber oblivion by the cook. Having the pasta course, sparing as it was, be a total letdown is a dark mark for any Italian restaurant. Third course was the NY Strip and a lamb loin. Both were, again, decent but nothing spectacular by any stretch. During this time, I tried to order a second cocktail (Mezcal Paloma) which I was later informed they were out of, as well.

Final course was a dessert flight. Most of it was good except for the fact that I nearly broke the serving dish trying to break a -meringue- with my spoon. I don't know when that was made but they might consider removing concrete from the stand mixer.

During all of this we saw our waiter maybe 4 total times and he said around 12 words. The food was brought by runners and the waiter never checked to see if things were alright. Even more disappointingly, the section adjacent had a young woman server who was pleasant, informative, and took great care to introduce each dish and drop a quick "bon appetit" before whooshing away. I wish I could have tipped her based on what I was able to catch by leaning over.

In the end, this was a massive damper on what was supposed to be a joyous, romantic evening. I hadn't even fully stood upright before the waiter plopped in and slapped his hand down on the bill. I've never felt more like a table was being turned. I will never visit here again and I strongly suggest you consider a number of other options before you...

What a horrible dinning experience. I made a reservation for a girls night dinner since we were in the mood for Italian and i'd enjoyed dinner at Tosca before with my uncle. Upon arrival, they checked our coat and all seemed good. Then we sat down for dinner. For context, we are three black women and happened to be the only black people in the restaurant. The server didn't seem very pleased to be serving us. Took him forever to get to our table and didn't even walk through the menu or any specials available. I had to ask him to walk us through the menu and even then, he didn't do it compared to a white couple who sat down a few minutes after us. You could hear him explaining with detail what was on their menu. I guess he saw a big tip coming from them and not from us. Next point was him telling us they didn't service half bottles of wine after it was clearly displayed in the menu. Another awkward interaction. After this, we discussed getting some appetizers before dinner and he told us to place all our orders now cause that's how the chef likes it. Well ok, excuse us. So we took our time to select what we wanted and placed our order. In the meantime, we are observing that other tables aren't getting the same treatment as we are. He would barely check on our table and the couple sitting next to us got their food before us and there was a lamb order from my view. I suppose he heard us complaining and decided to bring us bread. He was lucky I was hungry lol. I would have flung that bread away. Finally the food came and I'll say it was good. We had the Risotto, Agnolotti, and the Garganelli. After we were stressed and forced to order quick quick smh. Then came time to order the dessert, the waiter was nowhere to be found. I had to ask another waiter to place in our order because ours conveniently disappeared and focused on other clients he knew would tip them well. Can we guess what they looked like? Yup, not black. We finally got the desserts and they were ok. I like chocolate so I can always eat it but the pistachio one I thought was ok even though it is a favorite. After what seemed to be ages, we finally got our check and left. The goodness of my heart we still tipped cause you know, folks gotta pay their bills but I just don't know if I want to visit this restaurant again. The server Atelio (I may be messing this name up) ruined the experience and people who serve especially in restaurants should keep their biases at home and provide the best quality service they can and if you feel like you don't want to serve black women, then pass it on to someone who is happy to and this goes to the Tosca team to deal with that. outside of that,...