Obelisk Restaurant – DC

This high-end Italian restaurant located near Dupot Circle, tends to be a well-kept secret in the DC dining world. Never on the top of the list of must-do restaurants, but for over 20 years, serving up some of the best Northern Italian cuisine in the area. It’s a tiny restaurant, maybe 25 seats with a prix-fixe menu for $75 each. This buys you five courses including a large anti-pasta course, pasta, entrée, cheese, and dessert, plus cookies with the bill. Chef Peter Pastan, who also owns 2Amys pizzeria, specializes in simple well-prepared Italian foods.

Good: The food! Overall, the quality is high here. Anti-pastas including risotto balls, roasted red peppers, duck meatballs, and sardines wrapped and baked were all very good. The pastas were all light and ethereal. Breads are all house made and perfect compliment to the meal. You won’t leave hungry, that’s for sure. Also for a small place, the table spacing was great, with plenty of room between each to allow for more privacy.

Bad: Ambiance is ok, but the place could go for a little bit of an update. Looks to be the same furniture since they first opened. Entrees were good but not very exciting. Cheese was good but only two types. A third would have been a good contrast.

Wine: The wine list was very good with only Italian selections. Hard to say how well priced the wines were. They did have a few selections in the $30-50 range, but many more from $75+. Wine by the glass also were anywhere from $6 to $16. A selection of 3 daily cocktails were also available along with a full bar for anything else.

Overall: The restaurant, while missing on a few things, overall, was a wonderful experience, with the food meeting all my expectations. Needs a little bit of a makeover, but aside from that makes for a nice romantic dinner.

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