Sette Osteria — Restaurant in Washington

I went to sette osteria with high hopes. However, it was a horrible experience from beginning to end. To begin, when we arrived to our reservation, there was no one at the host desk, and we stood there for a solid 5 or so minutes before anyone returned. Several employees made eye contact but none of them greeted us. Finally, the hostess came and seated us. We waited almost 10 more minutes before our server came to greet us. As we were on a bit of a time schedule, and because we had so much time before the sever came, we ordered our drinks and food at the same time. I ordered a dish with a New York strip steak, rare, (I believe it was on the specials menu) and my date ordered a Cacio e pepe (a pasta dish). While waiting on the food, the old fashion I ordered arrived. HORRIBLE! There was so much muddled cherry in there the drink had a strong red tint and looked like diluted cranberry juice. There was a huge orange wedge in there (supposed to be an orange zest) and small chunk ice, and by the taste of it, it was missing aromatic bitters. Given how long it took to get the drink, I opted to just drink it, but was not at all happy with the flavor.

About 30 minutes from ordering, the food arrived. The presentation was that of a common late night diner with a smattering of imitation fine dining. let that sink in. A New York strip topped with sliced blue cheese with a side of skinny French fries which looked like ore-ida frozen. Kinda felt like I had a leftover steak from a restaurant and had some fries in the freezer to go with it for a late night bachelor snack I heated in the microwave. But I digress. The steak which I ordered rare, was so rare I’m surprised it didn’t moo in pain when I cut a piece of it. Speaking of cutting. I had to track down another server to get a steak knife so I could cut the steak. Anyway, I can handle a rare steak (I mean I ordered it rare) but this was undercooked even for rare. So I informed the server (who didn’t seem to know a steak temperature from a stop sign) of the concern and she took it back to have it corrected. Another 15/20 minutes later, the replacement steak arrived. Wait, no, sorry. It was the same steak. They simply put it back on the grill. Now, I don’t have a problem with the same steak. However, the issue was there was sliced cheese on top of the steak which would make it difficult to finish cooking the steak properly. So instead, of removing the cheese, they put it back on the grill just on that bottom side. So, not only did they overbook it to the point of medium well, it was overcooked on one side and the barely visible pink center if the cut was closer to the top.

As for my date’s food. She said it was bland and very oily. I tasted it and agree. As it sat in the plate, all the oil in it began to collect at the bottom, leaving a pool of olive oil, noodle sediment, and seasoning.

By this point, it was more entertaining to see what else could go wrong. To prove this theory, and because how could you screw up cheesecake, we ordered cheesecake. In honestly, this cheecake is why there’s 2 stars instead of 1. Though, if I’m being more honest, if I could give zero stars, the cheesecake would’ve brought it up to 1 star.

After the cheesecake, we had to flag The server down to get the check and we’re glad to be done as the experience was hardly enjoyable. Do yourself a favor and...

Last night my friends and I decided to go to Sette Osteria-- a restaurant that I generally love to take friends from out of town to for a special occasion, however tonight was hands down the worst dining experience I have had in the past 6 years of living in DC. From the moment we sat down, we could tell that our waitress, Karla F, was irritated about something. She was very curt to us, and ignored our request for bread for the table multiple times. We had ordered two bottles of prosecco at this point and were waiting for a friend to arrive, so we had ordered the bread and water and some appetizers. However we didn't even get the chance to order dinner because the second our friend walked in, the entire staff began to discriminate against him because of his slow rate of speech, which is a speaking quality that all of our friends know to be characteristic of our friend regardless of whether he has consumed any alcohol or not. Before our friend even got a chance to place an order, the waitress came over and told him her manager said that he could not be served alcohol. We were all speechless, we had a group of 7 coming for a special occasion dinner to celebrate friends moving abroad and another friend's new job. We were planning to order entrees and stay for a good hour or two, at least, celebrating. We asked if there was any reason for this, and the waitress told us first that it was her boss' decision and she was just following protocol, and then we asked her again and she confessed that she had just lied to us and that it was based on her own discriminatory judgments based on the way our only non-white friend looked and spoke. We had barely finished our appetizers and still had some wine to finish, so we asked for more bread to finish the dips/burrata that we had been allowed to purchase and were ignored for half an hour until they realized we would not be leaving without finishing the food we had paid for, and finally brought us bread. I don't know why this waitress chose to be so discriminatory to our friend with absolutely no basis, for his own celebratory dinner, but we will definitely...

I went here with one of my friends on a whim. She is a strict vegetarian and I have celiac disease. I was nervous that we might not have been able to be accommodated because we did not call ahead, this was not the case. Our waiter was phenomenal! He indicated the gluten free and vegetarian labeling in the menu, but when we proceeded to discuss our dietary restrictions, he told us that he would personally check with the chef about our choices. I made sure he was sure to explain that my food could not come into anything that had wheat or had touched wheat and again, he took this back to the chef. I asked if the Tonno Sicilia could be made GF (as it was not labeled gf). Although he was very young, he pointed out that I may encounter a problem with the pine nuts, but was sure the chef would be able to adapt the meal to fit my needs. He checked with the chef and the pine nuts were left out and my meal was prepared in a separate area of the kitchen. It was delicious!!! My friend ordered a pasta dish and requested fresh seasonal veggies and they happily accommodated her wishes.

Since we had such great luck with our entrées we decided to take a chance on dessert. I knew this would be a gamble but our waiter checked with the chef about what I was able to eat without getting sick. He said the only 100% GF dessert option was a cold berry soup with fresh berries inside, topped with vanilla bean ice cream and crush amaretto cookies. The waiter said the chef hand made the dessert himself and developed the recipe. He put the ice cream on the side (stating that although it should be GF, they used a creamery and could not contact anyone to verify due to late hour). He also left the cookie crumble off. The dessert was amazing and so flavorful for being so light.

I did not get sick, was treated very well and had a phenomenal meal and experience. I would recommend this to any DC foodie or anyone that is unable to digest gluten. I cannot...