Paparazzi Alert!

Reprinted from: Where Magazine - Washington DC
By Jean Lawlor Cohen
March, 2007 issue


Never, this far from Rome, has dining out morphed so easily into a Fellini film. Two handsome new Italians want to sweep us off our feet - D'Acqua in Penn Quarter and Famoso in Chevy Chase. Both prove ready for their close-ups.

D'Acqua says "from the water." Its iced counter piled with fresh catches says "seafood market." Indeed this venture of fine chefs Francesco Ricchi (Northern Italy) and Enzo Febbraro (Southern) touts its m.o. - pick your fish, pay by weight and tell them how to cook it. Or just troll the menu for some amazing tastes. This is Pennsylvania Avenue, after all, only a few blocks west of the Capitol

These two claim "simplicity" but send out sophisticated beef carpaccio with mushrooms, black truffles and anchovies; Neapolitan-style lamb and pork sausage; smoked salmon with pear and mustard sauce. And pastas like seafood-porcini ravioli or agnolotti with buffalo cheese and artichokes.

Most dramatic presentation? The salt-crusted whole fish, that Mediterranean staple, here silky and seductive. HGTV-famed Yvette Piaggio has transformed the dining room and bar with scumbled-Tuscan gold walls, gleaming woods and translucent, marbleized chandeliers, a mellow stage set for La Dolce Vita.

Famoso means "famous"- like its neighbors Bulgari, Cartier and (right downstairs) Max Mara. It even has local-celeb greeters - Joe Giannino, alum of Hollywood haunt Cafe Milano, and Ralph Frederick, sometime playwright. But star billing goes to Gabriele Paganelli, the Emilia-Romagna native who oversees, and his colleague Romina Lugaresi who runs the kitchen.

Begin with spiedino (kabobs of black tiger shrimp and calamari) or prosciutto-wrapped buffalo mozzarella with mesclun and basil. Next test the pastas from tagliatelle with pecorino (aged in tuff rock caves!) to ultra-rich, black squid ink spaghetti with lobster, tomato confit and brandy. Most show biz moment: the arrival tableside of a Parmigiano-Reggiano wheel in which the server flames risotto with black truffle-pheasant ragout.

Ah, Marcello, we're not even to the entrees yet - Florentine-style steak, branzino in a pouch, lamb medallions with Swiss chard - or the desserts laced with amaretto, hazelnut or grappa, the hot molten chocolate cake, the Bolognese trifle with rose petal liqueur.