Caruso's Grocery

"Matt Adler’s decidedly unmodern tribute to classic red sauce joints delivers dishes heavy on nostalgia, quality ingredients, and technique, all served in a red banquette, vintage photo-laden dining room. Adler’s kitchen makes its own gnocchi, fettuccine, ravioli, and bucatini topped with a spicy Neapolitan ragu. His personal favorite pasta is penne alla vodka with peas and prosciutto. A sophomore location sits in Maryland’s Pike & Rose complex." - Tierney Plumb, Mekita Rivas

"Matt Adler’s decidedly unmodern tribute to classic red sauce joints takes diners on a well-worn path that carefully steers clear of the contrived. Dishes heavy on nostalgia, quality ingredients, and technique are served in a red banquette-lined, vintage photo-laden dining room that buzzes with hospitality and delight. Tender chicken parm with a light breading gets tucked under a zingy marina, hunky garlic bread arrives with a bowl of four-cheese sauce for dipping, and shrimp scampi gets splashed with house-made limoncello. Drinks, like a Manhattan with an amaretto rinse and antipasti dirty martini, receive equally attentive treatment. Keeping with the theme, the menu is surprisingly affordable. Adler also runs a second location in Maryland’s Pike & Rose complex and is a partner in the newly opened Cucina Morini in Mt. Vernon Triangle." - Tierney Plumb, Emily Venezky

"There's nothing like a place where you can joyfully shout across the table and maybe spill tomato sauce on your new white shirt, and that’s why we come to Caruso’s Grocery. The always-busy Italian-American restaurant is inspired by old-school spots that peddled everything from parm to prosciutto and served heaping plates of pasta in the center of it all. Caruso’s plays up its affection for them with black-and-white photos lining the walls, tables tightly packed together, and a bar stocked with affordable red wines. Expect a menu full of comfort meals, like saucy pork meatballs, sides of spaghetti marinara, and warm garlic bread." - madeline weinfield

"Dining at this Italian restaurant in Capitol Hill feels like entering a world where bad days don’t exist. Diners are snugly packed into tomato-red cushioned booths, trading in the day's passive aggressive emails for zesty lemon-butter chicken piccata and rich and velvety blood orange crème brûlées. The restaurant is always bustling with regulars who know to book weeks in advance so as to not get stuck eating dinner at 9:30pm. But it doesn’t really matter when you eat—or what you eat, because each bowl of truffle butter alfredo and spicy seafood tagliatelle is here to remind you that while not every problem has a solution, pasta is always there to make it just a little better." - omnia saed

"The quaint, yet palatial hideaway in Southeast makes its roasted garlic Caesar with the usual romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese, and anchovies, topped with Caruso’s homemade dressing ($13.50)." - Vinciane Ngomsi