If you love the European lifestyle, you’ll love Vapiano. At least, that’s what the restaurant’s website claims. And while the fast-growing, upscale chain of Italian restaurants can’t offer you month-long vacations or exquisite cashmere jumpers, it does provide its customers with a swanky, tasty experience for a fraction of what it would cost to hop over the pond-$7.95 for a huge bowl of pasta and bread.
At first, Vapiano’s aggressively chic black and red tinted atmosphere appears to clash with the restaurant’s casual, cafeteria-style ordering and seating. But once you realize that the perky chefs behind the white marble counter know what they’re doing, it’s easy to let go of your skepticism and take in the remarkably cool (for a franchise, at least) interior design.
Guests bring their pod-shaped bowls of steaming pasta to high marble islands and counters that cultivate a quaint communal eating experience. Each mastication station is furnished with bottles of olive oil ,and balsamic vinaigrette (the good stuff, no less), and, get this, fresh potted herbs just waiting to be picked and shredded onto your meal. Small table lamps give the whole place a dim glow, which makes the restaurant seem intimate, even when it’s mid-week lunchtime and you’re surrounded by Dupont Circle’s finest young professionals.
The lunch and dinner menus are one in the same, offering a wide selection of salads, pastas, and pizzas, all made with fresh ingredients right before your eyes. The intimate chef-patron relationship encourages creativity and ensures that your food is made the way you like it. Guests are encouraged to swap ingredients and create their own dishes, especially in the pasta area.
Vapiano uses only fresh pasta, all of which is on display in individual servings behind the chefs’ work station. Penne arrabbiata easily becomes fettuccine arrabbiata, with you calling the shots-go ahead, add some spinach. Make it spicier. You’re the boss. For the less spontaneous, the many “classic” and “premium” pasta dishes on the menu showcase the firm grasp that the restaurant has on classic Italian flavors. The carbonara is just creamy enough, allowing the bacon and parmesan to shine through without making the whole thing taste like lard.
The salads are nothing inspired, but are basics done well all the same. While you can easily get a standard heap of arugula with parmesan and enjoy it, there are enough other vegetables at your disposal to make that dull choice a clear cop out. The insalata mista and the Caesar salad are both substantial enough to become full meals without having to succumb to a pizza or pasta carb-bonanza.
The only disappointment was the pizza, which is a significant weakness for a chain that lists it as a specialty. The bruschetta pizza topped with arugula seemed like a revelation on the menu, but ultimately underwhelmed. Instead of being piled on at the end, the bruschetta was baked onto the thin crust along with the cheese and sauce, which made for a limp, soggy pie that demanded to be eaten with a fork and knife.
Don’t let the recession sap you of your desire for a night on the town. Given how inexpensive the food is, Vapiano is a restaurant for today’s world. The cheap entrees also mean you can spend more money at the bar. Enough said.
