Filomena is an upscale Italian Georgetown eatery, noted for its “pasta mamas” who stand inside the front door rolling out sheets of homemade pasta. I have been to Filomena many times, most recently when three college friends came to town to celebrate 30 years of friendship.
Already disconcerted by the age-odometer turning over a decade, I was irrationally aghast when I found out we had 4:30 p.m. dinner reservations so that one of the group could catch an evening train. Is this what we’d evolved into, I wondered, the blue plate dinner crowd? Imagine my surprise to find the restaurant packed with people of all ages, even at that absurdly early hour. For Filomena is extremely popular and always crowded. 4:30 p.m. is the start of the dinner rush, not a blue plate occasion at all.
The dining area is large and open with garden statuary and antiques interspersed among the tables. It evokes images of old Italy. Two of us who had been to Filomena many times in the dark of night before both noticed for the first time the wall of windows letting light stream in. This made for a cheery late afternoon dinner, yet we never missed the windows in the past when dining by candlelight on the far side of the room.
Filomena is a formal restaurant where proper attire is expected except during the casual lunch hour. The wait staff is formally dressed, their behavior impeccable: at the ready when you might need them, invisible when you don’t. The dinners are equally reliable- always perfectly prepared and delicious. Not only have I never had even a small complaint about the food at Filomena, no one I have ever dined there with did either. Never undercooked or overcooked, not a tad burned, not even a mistake in placing an order.
As for what to eat at Filomena, the pasta made on site by the pasta mamas is mandatory. If you aren’t going to try it, you may as well skip this restaurant altogether, in my opinion. (This is not only the vegetarian in me speaking, although the vegetarian does applaud this advice.) The pasta is perfectly textured and elegantly sauced, no matter which entrée the diner chooses.
On this occasion we skipped the antipasti and salad, opting to eat only servings of pasta and dessert. Having savored the antipasti and salads on prior occasions, though, I can attest to their desirability. Antipasti choices include traditional Italian favorites like bruschetta, mozzarella di bufala, rice balls, and two varieties of stuffed mushroom caps, as well as seafood selections like shrimp scampi and Prince Edward Island mussels. Antipasti prices range from $6.95-$13.95.
Filomena offers four distinct salads. Though we considered ordering salad, the waiter talked us out of it as we were longingly discussing the dessert options and wondering whether salad was the excess that would push the dessert option off the table. Yet the salads were extremely tempting.
One was a frisee dressed in strawberry vinaigrette and topped with goat cheese and walnuts, another Mesclun field greens with crumbled blue cheese, toasted pecans and balsamic vinaigrette, while the third and fourth were traditional Ceasar and a Bibb lettuce/endive combo with green olives, imported Parmesan, and lemon olive oil dressing. All of the salads were priced at $8.95.
The entrée portion of the menu has five headings: one for pasta with vegetables, one for pasta with meat and poultry, and one for pasta with seafood, as well as a section for meat and poultry and one for seafood.
Ravioli di funghi consisted of house-made ravioli stuffed with varied Italian cheeses and mushrooms, its sauce a rich spinach and shitake mushroom cream concoction. It is nearly impossible to describe Filomena food without overusing the descriptor “rich.” The sauces might have been designed to speed up arterial blockage by a decade for those at risk of heart disease.
But their taste is superlative. Linguini cardinale is topped with Filomena’s celebrated lobster sauce and succulent chunks of lobster. Agnolotti alla panna is advertised as one of Filomena’s most ordered pastas. Fresh spinach and cheese filled ravioli with light cream sauce, it rivaled everything else on the table in richness.
Pastas at Filomena’s range from $19.95 for simple offerings like manicotti and cavatelli to $35.95 for the seafood laden plates like Festivale in Venezia, boasting not only lobster atop the black pasta but crab, sea scallops and shrimp as well. Pastas with chicken, sausage or beef strips were priced at $22.95.
Lamb, veal, New York Strip Steak, salmon, tuna and walu, described as Hawaiian butter fish, are some of the offerings available for folks who opt not to dine on pasta. Prices range from $24.95 to $38.95 for meat, chicken and fish entrées.
Filomena desserts reside in a clear dessert case inside the door, where guilt-ridden diners and gluttons alike can hardly avoid ogling them while waiting to be seated. Cheesecakes, truffles, mousses, tiramisu, raspberry marquis, hazelnut daquoise… no one needs to sell anyone on these desserts. Besides, the after dinner complimentary sambucca and amaretto requires an accompaniment, no?
This Washington, DC restaurant is hardly unusual for being frequented by Presidents and movie stars. Filomena boasts of visitors such as Presidents Clinton, Reagan and Bush, impressive certainly but not surprising. It is also winner of the city’s best Italian award for three years running.
Filomena is located at:
1063 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20007
202-338-8800
Filomena is one-half block south of the Wisconsin Avenue/M Street intersection in the heart of Georgetown. Metered parking is available under the Whitehurst Freeway, two blocks away, and there are two close-by parking lots at Georgetown Park directly across from the restaurant entrance and at Wisconsin and K Streets, N.W., two blocks south of the restaurant.
