Anyone hoping for a classic American waffle floating in sweet syrup and topped with a glistening pat of butter will leave Wicked Waffle disappointed. “No Butter, No Syrup” reads the tag line for the new restaurant near Farragut Square. Instead, Wicked Waffle claims to represent centuries of European culinary tradition with its waffle sandwiches, soups, salads, and desserts—an ironic assertion, considering the shop is designed for the busy American on the go.
The restaurant’s interior is cramped, making stays longer than the five minutes it takes to prepare a menu item uncomfortable. Adding to the urgency to escape is a lack of chairs or tables, forcing the consumer looking for a more leisurely lunch to stoop to the level of eating his meal on a nearby bus stop bench.
Aside from its utilitarian system for crowd management, the shop has an aesthetically pleasing modern décor. Two rows of small, low-hanging cubic lamps illuminate the red and white waffle-textured ceiling. A row of flat-screens above the “Order Here” sign cycle through an assortment of the exquisite-looking meals on the Wicked Waffle menu.
Despite the delicacies flashing by on the monitors, that age-old lesson quickly sinks in: food never looks as good as it does in the advertisements. The Wicked Club recommended by the employees behind the glass counter turned out to be a rather standard club sandwich with rectangular waffles replacing the bread. The assembled sandwich was unceremoniously dumped into a nondescript (albeit compostable) cardboard take-out box.
The speed of service, however, was quite favorable. The attitude of the employees in general did not disappoint: both the manager and staff responded quickly and earnestly to customers’ wishes, even when asked to modify a menu item to personal tastes and preferences.
That service comes at a questionably high price. Paying $9 for sandwiches (and $8 for salads) is absurd, especially considering the relatively small portion size. Wicked Waffle attempts to explain the price with a promise of fresh, local ingredients updated daily.
The high quality of the thin, flavorful slices of turkey, crispy bacon, crunchy lettuce, and glowing red tomatoes on the Wicked Club was truly noticeable. Yet replacing the bread with waffles added little in the way of taste. What I ended up with was an above-average club sandwich, far from the scrumptious waffle-feast one would hope for.
Indeed, the novelty of waffle sandwiches, waffle-flavored soups, and waffle-topped Caesar salads quickly wears off. The airy waffles and freshly purchased ingredients may be healthy, and the customer service may be above par, but Wicked Waffle cannot disguise what it truly is: an overpriced take-out sandwich shop trying to get by on a breakfast-for-lunch gimmick.
