Il Mulino

Il Mulino

1110 Vermont Ave., NW

Washington, DC

Nearest Metro: McPherson Square



Unfortunately my Wednesday restaurant week dinner got cancelled and my Thursday lunch was postponed. On top of that, the place I was going turned out not to have restaurant week. So we had to "settle" for a reservation at Il Mulino on Friday. I didn't try to get reservations at Il Mulino because we were eating at a normal time. When our lunch got pushed to 1:45, there it was with an open table, so I took it. Il Mulino understands restaurant week (in fact, they have the deals through the month of August). They put out a very good menu and they serve their guests to their standards. I went with one friend from work and we, surprisingly took the same menu items. For the record, their other appetizers were a mesclun salad, a soup and a calamari; and the other entrees were a grilled salmon, a spaghetti primavera (vegetarian dish which the waiter said was excellent) and another vegetarian pasta that was pretty much a marinara sauce.

Menus (same for both of us):

Appetizer: Proscuitto and melon - served with honey dew melon, blackberries and raspberries.

Entree: Sliced steak in a slight red wine reduction (London Broil) served with garlic potato cubes.

Dessert: A trio of flourless chocolate cake, tiramisu and "italian cheesecake."

Sweet:

Management: I have to put this in there because they did a fantastic job with Restaurant Week. They put out a good menu for a $20 restaurant week lunch. They didn't hold anything back and they even included three FULL dessert portions for two people. I was impressed and pleased with that. I like a restaurant that tries, especially after my last experience at Cafe Promenade.

Proscuitto and Melon: Wow! The prosciutto was very good. It was as good as anything I can get from Italian store. That said, it was no better (although it's difficult to imagine prosciutto much better than i get in the Italian store anywhere in DC). The melon, however, was nothing short of the best honeydew I've ever put into my mouth. As a disclaimer, I didn't start liking most melon until a couple of years ago (I still don't like watermelon too much), but this melon was perfectly sweet and moist and complemented the subtle saltiness of the thinly sliced prosciutto. The presentation of this dish was also very nice with the ham prominently displayed around the sides of a glass dish with the melon inside of it. As the piece d' resistance to this item, Il Mulino saw it fit to put blackberry and raspberry in with the melon. These fruits, two of my favorite are clearly more expensive than melon and showed a clear departure from Cafe Promenade in their desire to go the extra mile and put in a little more for their customers.

Dessert Platter: I think I need to laud this dessert platter as a whole even though I think it's only a restaurant week thing. The platter had a full serving of three desserts (for two people), the tiramisu, chocolate flourless cake and the Italian cheesecake. I will applaud Il Mulino on putting this sampler out and knowing what the customer really wants. The chocolate cake was so good that I decided to order another one to take home. I'm not sure what to say beyond watch out, it actually made my cheeks sweat. The Italian cheesecake was extremely unique. It was unlike other cheesecakes, it was much softer with somewhat of a flan consistency, but the taste of a good cheesecake. The crust was very soft and it wasn't what I was expecting. It was, however, really good when mixed with the amaretto cream that it came with. The tiramisu didn't impress me but a lot of that is because I'm not the hugest fan of it and it's very difficult to differentiate. It wasn't super soggy which I would consider a good thing, but the flavour didn't excite me that much.

Atmosphere: Il Mulino is a relatively crowded restaurant, but the set up is such that it is easy to hear in general. There was a large party next to us and I had no trouble hearing my fellow foodie. The decor is simple, yet elegant with a nice combination of dark reds and whites that you can find in a lot of Italian restaurants. There was some mystique about it. Maybe it comes from the restaurant's Long Island Italian roots.

Bland:
Sliced steak: I really enjoyed my steak, but my friend didn't seem to appreciate it as much. They were both cooked the same way, so it was just a matter of preference. I'm not used to a London Broil inside of a restaurant but I thought that it was very flavorful but perhaps a tad overcooked. The red wine sauce was very good though. I think that the marinade may have saved the meat a little bit. I think it may have been a little dry otherwise. I thought that the square potato fries were very good. They were lightly fried and had plenty of garlic.

Service: I think that the problem may have been our server. He didn't have any more tables than the other servers, but he seemed a bit overwhelmed. He was extremely friendly and managed to keep our drink glasses full with the help of others but he wasn't as attentive as I would have liked. It took us quite a while to pay our checks and he was often back in the kitchen. That said he didn't detract from the meal, he just didn't make it special. I saw other servers that seemed far more attentive walking around, so I think it was only him.

Bitter:
You know, I can't really say that I found anything particularly bitter about Il Mulino. The experience was quite good. We were even able to find parking without incident. The parking lot next door charged us too much though.

Recommendations:
Quality: ****. I think you are likely to get some of the best Italian appetizers and desserts in town. I would still recommend Filomena for pasta and perhaps a couple of places for meat as well, but I think that for those of you non-kosher diners, you'd probably enjoy the calimari or a number of other items on their appetizer menu and the chocolate flourless cake is to die for (or from).

Value: $$$. I think that Il Mulino is the type of restaurant that likes to treat their customers right. They are going to give you a lot for your money. That said, I can never fully justify spending THAT much on Italian food as it's all somewhat easy to make if you buy the right ingredients and there are a lot of similar places. That said, they know where to get those ingredients. Il Mulino is quite expensive though as you will not likely get out of dinner there paying less than $60 a person without wine.