NOTE: The restaurant serves a lunch buffet.

L'Appetito's: For Down-Home Greek and Italian Comfort Food

By Nancy Lewis
Thursday, January 25, 2007

It's rather dark walking along MacArthur Boulevard in the Palisades area on a cold, blustery winter evening, but there is no shortage of pedestrians, including joggers and parents pushing baby strollers, as we head to L'Appetito Ristorante near Dana Place.

The long and narrow restaurant is welcoming. Up front, there is a bar with a big flat-screen television (tuned to a college basketball game, but with the sound muted) and a few tables. Separated from the bar by long curtains, two parallel rows of tables march down the slender dining room.

One wall of the dining room is exposed red brick, and the opposite is covered in a large, mostly orange mural that depicts Nero watching as Rome burns. The floor is wooden, the high ceilings are covered in tin and at the very back of the room hangs a painting of a Venetian canal.

L'Appetito has been a neighborhood place in Palisades for 15 years, offering Greek and Italian food for in-house dining, takeout or delivery. The restaurant was purchased in November by restaurateur Francis D'Cruze, who is adding Belgian touches to the menu.

Waiters seem to know most of the customers as regulars, and throughout our dinner there is a steady stream of people arriving to pick up large orders. The restaurant's delivery area is exceptionally large, extending from Arlington through downtown to George Washington University in Foggy Bottom.

There's nothing really fancy about L'Appetito, but there is a real down-home feeling, an atmosphere of comfort fostered with many nice touches. On Thursday nights, there is live music. On a recent Thursday, Drew Stevens played the tunes we baby boomers grew up with -- Cat Stevens, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. Frank Plumer plays the accordion every other Sunday at brunch, and there is entertainment for children at brunch on Saturdays (a magician is scheduled this weekend).

L'Appetito's menu includes most of the usual Greek and Italian favorites: souvlakia, chicken kebabs, eggplant parmesan, spaghetti with meat, veal piccata and veal Marsala, along with sandwiches, burgers and roasted chicken.

At lunch there is a buffet featuring slices of pizza, several entrees, salad ingredients and desserts. A chicken kebab salad features wonderfully moist and juicy chunks of grilled chicken served over a bed of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese, all dressed with just a touch of oil and vinegar.

Dinner begins with a basket of warm garlic bread, and most dinner entrees include a small house salad.

Pastas and pizza are the winners here. Orders of veal piccata (with lemon and capers) and veal Marsala both tasted of overcooked meat and sauces that were merely spread atop the meat rather than cooked in to provide real flavor.

But, oh, the pizza!

We ordered a small bianca (white) pizza as an appetizer. Mistake! That small, 12-inch pizza would have been more than enough for dinner for the two of us. (The medium size is 14 inches; large is 16 inches.) Rather than the flat crust variety we were expecting, the crust was thick, chewy and tasted of good yeast development in the dough. A thick layer of spinach was covered with mozzarella infused with garlic and sprinkled with olive oil. One slice each was all we allowed ourselves so we'd have room for the other courses we had ordered.

The salad was crisp chunks of romaine lettuce, adorned with a few slices of cucumber and cherry tomatoes and napped with a light Italian dressing.

We split an order of the handmade ravioli stuffed with spinach; the pasta was almost gossamer, and the filling was a perfect match, essentially a mousse of spinach and cheese. The tomato sauce that topped the ravioli was light and creamy with chunks of tomato. The waiter provided a gravy boat filled with freshly grated parmesan.

Although both veal dishes were disappointing, the angel hair pasta topped with that same fresh tomato sauce was not -- it was just as light and flavorful as the ravioli.

Tiramisu and strawberry shortcake are among the desserts made in-house. The shortcake is more intriguing -- more like a gateau than the southern delicacy. Several layers of cake were filled with whipped cream and strawberries and topped with fresh strawberries in a glaze.

And the leftover pizza provided a great lunch the next day.