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Rafagino Ristorante, Old Keene Mill Rd in Burke - Chef Rosa Buono and GM Paulo Carvalho's Fine Dining Italian


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It's a little further away, in Springfield in name only. It's in the Kings Park shopping center, on Burke Lake Road at Braddock Road. It's where Vinnie's used to be, next door to Caribou Coffee.

Too bad, just a bit too far for lunch on workdays...but now that I know where to find it...maybe on a weekend...BTW, have you tried Rafagino's in Burke? It's in a shopping center so it's a bit hard to find, but well worth the effort.

I happened to run across this quote from the Dr. Caligari's Liquor Cabinet blog:

This Saturday, I went to a fabulous restaurant, Rafagino, in Burke, VA. It's authentic Italian food, the food is delicious, and everyone is treated like a VIP. It's in a strip mall, so many people would probably think it was just so-so (plus it's in Burke, and not Downtown *snobbysniff*), but it you let that turn you away, good. More for me. The dining room in Rafaginos is small, so call ahead for a reservation. The wine list is good, the tiramisu is awesome, and the espresso is among the best in town. After dinner, the owner, Paulo, came by for a chat. We talked coffee for a bit, touching on how difficult it is to get a good espresso in the DC area.

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Escoffier,

It's funny you should mention Rafagino's today. When I was at Restaurant Eve today for lunch, Todd asked me if I had been there. The owners are friends of his, and he says the food is wonderful.

I haven't tried it yet, but I hope to do so soon. I just found a link to their menu here. It looks good.

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Escoffier,

It's funny you should mention Rafagino's today. When I was at Restaurant Eve today for lunch, Todd asked me if I had been there. The owners are friends of his, and he says the food is wonderful.

I haven't tried it yet, but I hope to do so soon. I just found a link to their menu here. It looks good.

Every time we've gone, the food, service, wine and ambiance are wonderful. A true family restaurant with good prices and value. Sadly, that is something that is becoming rare these days.

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Escoffier,

It's funny you should mention Rafagino's today. When I was at Restaurant Eve today for lunch, Todd asked me if I had been there. The owners are friends of his, and he says the food is wonderful.

I haven't tried it yet, but I hope to do so soon. I just found a link to their menu here. It looks good.

I, too, was in Eve for lunch with my wife today. I believe my wine went sailing in your direction. Small world. Todd most graciously, and unnecessarily, comped the wine.

Rafagino's is a great little place. Husband is Portugese and runs the FOH, wife is Italian and is BOH. Great values in Portugese wines on the list. Service is casual yet refined.

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I, too, was in Eve for lunch with my wife today. I believe my wine went sailing in your direction. Small world. Todd most graciously, and unnecessarily, comped the wine.

Rafagino's is a great little place. Husband is Portugese and runs the FOH, wife is Italian and is BOH. Great values in Portugese wines on the list. Service is casual yet refined.

Wow, Brian, you don't look anything like your picture! <_<

Portugese wines, huh? Just one more reason for me to check it out sooner, rather than later! Thanks for that tip.

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Is that 10 minute drive gonna turn into 30 with rush hour? That's my biggest concern.. with all the family in town, I don't want to end up stuck in traffic and showing up late for the ceremony. BUT.. I also don't want to eat crappy food.

Go to Rafagino when you have time to enjoy the food and service and the wine list. All are excellent and deserve proper attention. You'll be glad you spent the time.

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Go to Rafagino when you have time to enjoy the food and service and the wine list. All are excellent and deserve proper attention. You'll be glad you spent the time.

I've been to Rafagino and think it is excellent, but... I don't really think of Rafagino as being near GMU.

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Based on the reccomendations I'll probably have to give Rafagino's another try, however my experience there was less than stellar. The food was adequate, if I recall I had a grilled calamari appetezer(good) and a linguini/seafood dish(okay), but the service was decidedly not good. The small strip mall space led to servers with other table's dishes constantly bumping into our table for two as they hurried about, yet when we needed attention for food and drink we were fairly well ignored. It took a very long time to get our initial order in also. Price/Entree value seemed a little on the high side for what we recieved also.

I'll concede that it is somewhat unfair to definitively comment on the place after only one visit and out of respect to my fellow posters I'll probably try it again but my initial visit left me unimmpressed. I did a similar drive -by quick meal at a place called Pino's a few strip malls away(with the same strip mall ambience) and while also a one time experience (take it for what it's worth) the food there seemed tastier.

BD

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I've been to Rafagino and think it is excellent, but... I don't really think of Rafagino as being near GMU.

Well, it is Fairfax County... :) . I guess it depends on what your definition of close is. I consider anything within 20 to 25 minutes close...YMMV.

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Based on recommendations, we took my father here for his birthday. I gave him the choice of Ray's and trying something new. He picked this place. We should have gone to Ray's.

While my dish was good, two others were mediocre and my wife's pasta was downright poor.

The service itself was also on the unsatisfactory side. The good took forever to come and it seemed like the staff was ignoring the tables stuck without their food (I know the look, I used to wait tables).

I understand that this isn't the kind of place where your food is up in 10 minutes, but ours took an hour and it was late on a Tuesday night. Maybe they have issues back in the kitchen.

Honestly, I felt we would have had a better mean at Carabbas.

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On a very slow, cold, rainy night on a Columbus Day Sunday, Rafagino was fairly empty with only a few tables taken, but the suave owner, Paulo Carvalho, greeted the trickling of patrons by the door, just as he has done for 18 years.

In a downscale strip mall, Rafagino is a downscale version of fine dining, with service that is more European than American. Silverware is cleared after each course (DC restaurants, please take note), wine and water are attentively refilled, and no customer is left feeling neglected or unwanted. You are not "eating" here; you are dining.

Aside from the service, the wine list is probably the restaurant's biggest strength, with many palatable wines priced in the $20s and $30s. A 2010 Placido Chianti ($29, and erroneously listed on the menu as a Chianti Classico) was everything you'd want with this meal - understated, with mild, ripe (but not overripe) red cherry marching in lockstep with its supporting acidity - a fine, food-oriented Chianti that can be taken home if you don't finish the bottle.

I wish I could go on with my praise, but I must stop here. The bread in the basket was industrial, day-old, slices of baguette-like substance that was what you'd find on a bad day at Shoppers' Food Warehouse, served with foil-wrapped pats of real butter and a decent olive oil. I didn't try the Lemonade ($2), but believe my young dining companion when he said it tasted bitter and unappealing (if I were Rafagino, I'd consider offering the San Pellegrino Limonata which is now becoming more-and-more widely distributed, now even available for home delivery by Deer Park).

Carpaccio di Tonno ($10.95) was a plateful of flattened tuna, looking like a prosciutto, sprinkled with capers, a central thimble of what might have been crushed anchovies, and capers. It was on the dry side (meaning that the tuna wasn't at all glistening), but it was pleasant enough.

Gamberoni Avolti in Pancetta e Scamozza ($10.95) were four shrimp, baked and served in their own clay pot (DC restaurants, please take note), wrapped in pancetta and smoked mozzarella, topped with a drizzle of balsamic. At $2.25 per shrimp, this was an expensive dish, but I can't tell you how much I appreciate it having been served in its own baking vessel. "The cooking times for shrimp and pancetta are different," my astute dining companion remarked, "and there's no way the doneness of this dish is going to be perfect." The drips of balsamic added a tinge of sweetness in the millimeter of broth that had formed in the bottom of the clay vessel, and better bread would have gone a long way toward saving this dish.

A daily special of Rigatoni con Bolognese di Cinghiale ($16.95) was a plain, white bowl of dried rigatoni, not cooked to death, bottomed with an enjoyable sauce with wild boar that could have doubled as ground beef. The price seems reasonable, but this needs to be a sauce dish, and it needed twice the amount of sauce to have been successful; as it was served, it was tolerable, but stingy in the only place where it really mattered.

Cotoletta di Agnello con Carciofi al Rosmarino ($25.95) was the one big loser of the evening, the two small T-bones of lamb being so tough (uncuttable with anything not serrated), bland, and soulless that I would have difficulty discerning this was lamb had I not known. It appeared at once frozen, braised, and reheated, and was rescued by the occasional artichoke and its accompanying side of linguini in oil. The Grated Parmesan service tasted powdered to me, and added nothing to either the linguini or the rigatoni.

Rafagino brings out mostly purchased desserts on a tray in a fairly elaborate presentation - about a dozen in total. A tulip of Vanilla Ice Cream with Caramel and Walnuts ($8) was cold, store-bought ice cream with corn-syrupy caramel and ... wait a minute ... the umami of the walnuts magically bringing my last glass of Chianti back to life and over the top. Yep! The best wine pairing of the night was with the walnut aspect of this dessert. Surprise!

Rafagino has a wine list worth knowing about if you're out for a civilized dinner, and service that can match most any restaurant in the Virginia suburbs despite it's strip-mall roots. The mostly older (50s, 60s) patrons genuinely appreciated Mr. Carvalho's deft hand running the front of the house, and were all happy. Good service costs money, and it's worth it, too, because I'll remember this aspect of Rafagino long after I forget the leathery lamb chop.

But this dinner for two, all-in, was a painful $130. At this price, the food simply must be better - a lot better - and there's no amount of service that can dance around that simple reality.

Does anyone here realize how hard I work? :(

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