L’Ardente

L’Ardente is one of DC’s best Italian restaurants—except on days when it’s not. 

The upscale East End spot is packed daily for brunch, lunch, and dinner. Sunlight pours into the gold and white dining room through the floor-to-very-high-ceiling windows. During the day, coworkers hover over their farro salads and funghi pizza to avoid heading back to the office, and at night, couples cuddle up in velvety teal booths as they split the slightly greasy cacio e pepe Lady & The Tramp style. Friends clink $32 Porn Star Caviar Martinis (yes, this is real), and chatter alongside loud Italian pop music—so loud sometimes that you have to yell to talk to your tablemates. It’s everything you’d expect from a self-described “glam Italian restaurant.”

L'Ardente's main dining roomphoto credit: Nina Palazzolo

Warning before you enter the restroom.photo credit: Nina Palazzolo

But the scene isn’t L’Ardente’s problem. The inconsistent food is. One day, the bell pepper-shaped zucca is a sweet and spicy dish that you’ll want to immediately text the group chat about. Other days, it’s blander than Hunts tomato paste straight out of the can. Luckily, they serve the pizza at every meal—The Americana, aka a pepperoni, is our favorite thing here. We were excited about the ricotta, goat cheese and spinach ravioli in a bright lemon butter sauce, but the texture of the pouches reminds us a bit of Elmer's Glue. The signature 40-layer lasagna is almost always on point, though it is admittedly hard to mess up truffle, cheese, and short ribs.

L’Ardente is a fun place to be, thanks to the lively crowd and music, and you can often have a really enjoyable meal. Avoid lunch here altogether, and grab a reservation for an end of week dinner—this is when the pasta chefs have their head in the game. But be forewarned that if you end up here on an off day, the most interesting thing about the food is the tiramisu flambeed table side (just hold onto your eyebrows).

Food Rundown

photo credit: Nina Palazzolo

Zucca

This little bell-pepper-shaped pasta is served with a spicy sausage ragu and fennel pollen that has a generous meat-to-pasta ratio. On a good day, the sausage is juicy, the fennel is potent, and the spice is just shy of clearing your sinuses. But on a bad day, it’s so bland it seems like they skipped the pollen, and just ground up some nondescript meat-like substance and threw it in there.

photo credit: Nina Palazzolo

Americana

When in doubt, get the pepperoni pizza. While that’s our motto all the time, it’s especially true here—it’s the one dish that’s good every time we go. They’re generous with the cheese, the sauce is the right mix of sweet and tart, and the pepperonis do that thing where they cup up and turn into little grease bowls.

photo credit: Nina Palazzolo

Tiramisù Flambé

The tiramisu here is more of an experience than a dessert. They douse a little chocolate ball in alcohol, set it on fire, and it melts to reveal the actual ladyfingers inside. We do love the display (be careful with long hair), though the tiramisu itself is nothing to write home about.