Sette Osteria

One Word: Horrible.
The food was to greasy. On top of it I was sick all night long.
I don’t recommend it.

(3.5 stars) Another good dinner option on 14^th street, although I think there are better Italian options nearby. Solid pasta dishes, friendly service, and pretty reasonable prices. Although be careful when ordering because not every pasta dish uses homemade pasta (make sure to ask beforehand).
The meatball and Brussels sprouts small plate was a great start to the meal (polpette di manzo al forno). The meatballs themselves were fine, really the sauce and the Brussels sprouts stood out. Especially the sprouts.
As for the main dishes, it’s hard to go wrong with homemade pasta. The fettuccine con pesto was solid but not great. The pasta itself was well-​prepared as was the shrimp in the dish but the sauce was a bit underwhelming. It was on the watery side and had only a light pesto flavor to it, which faded the more I ate. The fettuccine alla bolognese was also good, served al dente style with a hearty sauce that was somewhat on the lighter side for bolognese dishes.

On a snowy DC night, we opted to walk here and get take out. The process was smooth and easy. The staff were super nice. We were asked if we wanted bread, etc. Everything was packaged perfectly. No styrofoam, no leaks or messes. The carbonara pasta I ordered was delicious. Not too heavy of a sauce. Good-​sized chunks of bacon. Plenty of flavor and nicely balanced. And our take out order was ready super quick too.

Brunch food came an hour late after putting our order in. Food came after she checked in the back. Hastily prepared I’m sure or we were forgotten. Because food came to people who came in 15 min before us.
When we asked to speak to Manager, waitress said that there was no Manager today.
What?! Lol. And no attempt to make things right.
Food was diner food quality. Nothing special.
Our first time and probably our last.

Great location and very tasty Italian fare. We were walking down 14^th Street and decided to dine at Sette on January 2. We enjoyed the lively atmosphere. Please keep the bread basket re-​fills coming!

Company dinner to celebrate their successes. On a Wednesday night at 6pm, it was dead. There was one gentleman at the bar and our party of 10. We were sat and while we waited for the last 3 of our party to join us, the rest of us enjoyed the fresh baked bread, the appetizers and conversation over our drinks.
When the rest of the folks arrived, we placed our orders. The service was absolutely amazing. They totally doted on us from the moment we arrived until we left, and the food! let me tell you, I ordered the Chicken parmesan and when it came to the table I was gobsmacked. The entrée was literally the size of three hands! That’s a Big entrée, and it was SO tasty too. Served with brocolini and fingerling potatoes (What is it with DC And Brocolini?) The sauce was amazing as was the texture and flavour of my entrée. No, I didn’t eat the whole thing. Only about a third. Sadly because I was staying in a hotel, I didn’t have a microwave and had to toss it rather than take it home. *sad face*

I went there just for drink late night with a friend since most bars around were packed. We told the server that we were there for drink. He probably figured that we won’t spend much $ that he didn’t seem to care our table, although I ended up ordering lots of drink and appetizers.
This explained why this place was empty on Saturday night.

Sette Osteria has pretty good food, a nice vibe, and an interesting wine list. Food is freshly prepared and comes out quickly. Ingredients are generally pretty high quality. D.C. doesn’t have truly great casual Italian food anywhere and this place doesn’t change it. Still, it’s good enough. The problem – and it’s a pretty big one – is that the service is sub-​par across the board. Stick with the pizzas, they’re almost all good, and check out the wine list. Deserts, particularly the molten chocolate cake, are surprisingly excellent for a place like this. But expect slow, forgetful service.

Come here for food, not for service. I’m always embarrassed to go out in DC with friends from other cities (Philly, NYC, Miami in particular) simply because DC just can’t seem to get service right! We have some delicious options all around the city — including this one — but service always seems to be mediocre.
My friends and I went in for a quick lunch on Sunday. The place is a bit noisy for brunch but not unbearable. We split a bowl of carbonara and each got different dishes. I had the chicken milanese which was great with greens and tomatoes right on top. My friends said their steak and crab cake sandwich were both good. Seriously, good Italian food. But I couldn’t believe how slow the service was!
I tracked it, it took our server 10 minutes to pick up our bill once we laid it down with payment. I mean, do you want our money? You couldn’t flag anyone down, and the one time someone came over to check on us we were in deep conversation. I don’t care about being interrupted, but just checking on us once over the course of an hour, and not even after the food came out, is lame.
Good al dente pasta with great options, terrible terrible service. When there are cheaper options with decent Italian dishes and better service, you shouldn’t get more than 2 stars.

Brunch!
* $ 15 bottomless mimosa or Bellini, I had the Bellini and it was great, she came by often to refill the glass
* French Toast was $ 10, it came with fruit and was cooked perfectly
Service was great and the waitress was very attentive. Will def be back!

This place came through in the 11^th hour! We had 10 15 dinner reservations at Barcelona a few doors down for my friends birthday, and they were just taking too long. So we wandered in to here for drinks, and decided to stay for dinner. Good thing, because our table wasn’t ready at Barcelona till 11. Just to summaries, because there is really a lot of good I could say here… Amazing. Drinks, food, service, was on point. They accommodated our 10 person party within 15 minutes, split the checks, and were attentive. I would definitely come here again.

Came in to grab a quick to-​go lunch and Karla was the waitress behind the bar. Her service was greatly impersonal. My first time coming and I was skeptical to go since the previous reviews indicated poor service but food was great.
She never asked if I’d been there before and thank goodness I have some sort of idea what I wanted. We struggled to identify that fettuccine already was what I wanted and she was just rushed to put my order in. I decided to go with shrimp and she replied «oh you want chicken»? Which showed me she really wasn’t paying attention. Had it not been across the street from my meeting place, I wouldn’t have gone. I’m sure I won’t go back.
Lastly she returned my card and pen to sign on the table as if she didn’t want to hand me the items. I take that as über disrespectful.

Food was good. Service was not good.
We arrived — a group of 6, yes, I know but — and were told we couldn’t sit at X, Y and X tables because we didn’t have a reservation; the restaurant was 85% empty. They put us at a compromise table. Ok, fine. After +10 minutes of making eyes with the staff, I flagged someone down and asked for bread for the table and ordered multiple bottles of wine. Our bottles of white wine finally arrived, barely chilled, but they did give us a table-​side chilling bucket. And excellent wine glasses. I do recommend what we ordered, Pinot Grigio. +5 minutes the bread arrived and we ordered our food. Water was refilled frequently, which was definitely appreciated. At a decent wait time, food arrived but the veal/​potatoes were cold and the sauce congealed. The fish was supposed to be bone-​free, but was not; it was tasty, but could have been a warmer temp. The rest of us had pasta and it was all very, very good. However, we were told the portions were very large and we’re recommended to split it — I strongly disagree and I regret splitting my penne. The veal came back reheated. The next bottle of wine arrived and it was chilled to perfection. After we all finished our meals, we waited 5 – 10 minutes for our empty plates to be cleared. We have been sitting here long enough for me to write this review and no one has approached us to offer another bottle or suggest dessert or ask if we want the check. Everyone has disappeared. I will conclude with: I am very thankful the restaurant had the window walls open.

Came here for my boyfriend’s birthday weekend brunch with a group of friends.
Service was very friendly and accommodating for our last-​minute group of 8. To be honest, the food wasn’t that great – I had the eggs benedict, which were fine, but I wouldn’t come here again for the food alone. Let’s be real – we were here for the bottomless mimosas, which were great! They were, of course, mostly juice, but refills were quick and aplenty and we left totally smashed. Mission accomplished.

This was our second time coming here and the food is stellar!
Best eggplant parmigiana, next to mom’s!
Looking forward to coming back soon.

Summary–
Pros – lovely atmosphere, courteous staff
Cons – somewhat bland flavors; mistaken orders
This place is okay, but not sure I would go higher than 3.5 if I was being generous. Generally, the items I personally tasted lacked flavor. Had an order of the parmesan fries at happy hour before dinner. These were essentially just vehicles for the cheese. The fries themselves lacked flavor almost entirely.
I ordered a margherita pizza with prosciutto, but they brought me one without. Accepted it because the pizza was already the last dish to be brought out and I didn’t want to hold up the rest of my party. The sauce was pretty bland, which made the pizza unremarkable.
Tasted my wife’s gnocchi, which was better and would probably be what I would order if I visited again.
I was generally unimpressed, but the staff was nothing but nice/​courteous, so there’s that.

Brunch on Sunday: Ordered the filet mignon benedict, the eggs benedict and 2 apple cider mimosas. With tax and gratuity the bill came to $ 50.11.
THE FOOD: It was okay. The filet had no seasoning but the egg was poached perfection and the spinach also rocked. The server was nice. Con: There was not enough hollandaise sauce. There’s no real reason to get a mimosa unless you go ahead with the bottomless deal for $ 15, which can be a bit steep for some people.
Overall, the meal was okay. It was nothing amazing. I personally wouldnt come back based on the fact the food wasn’t hot when it got to our table and the meal was just average.
I’ve had better tasting brunch for less.

Great Italian dishes, great happy hour, great servers and awesome bartenders… what else could you want? The Cavatelli All’indiavolata is awesome with the sausage and broccoli rabe! I also love the lasagna, and for a lighter dish the veal piccata. The happy hour had a special menu with awesomely low prices for great small plates — however the pizza is also a great deal, and not small either — the mushroom is a favorite! Behind the bar, say hi to Benjamin and Louis… they are the best and most friendly bartenders in town!

I’s very rare that I encounter an awful place. I’ve encountered disappointing food. I’ve encountered disappointing service. Though I’ve never experienced such ill preparedness.
Starting with the only thing that I’d give 1 star, the food. Yes, the Cannelloi di Ricotta Espinaci was satisfying. It wasn’t anything that would make Sette Osteria memorable, but filled my stomach.
My real surprise comes from how long it took to get my food (about an hour) and how our waitstaff (not waitress, waitstaff) just didn’t know what has happening in their restaurant. We ordered a bottle of wine. They were out. When asking for another recommendation similar to the one that was out, they didn’t have anything to offer. When offering parmesan cheese, it took 15 minutes to return with it. When asking for the checks, they asked if we needed the paper copy or if we could just hand over our credit cards.
So no, I will not be back. Though I hope Sette can get their staff up and running so they can focus more on their food.

This was really close to getting 1 star but I guess it doesn’t deserve that since I didn’t throw up afterwards. (Edit: changed my rating). This is just a terrible restaurant. One of the many fake DC Italian restaurants but this one takes the cake for being really bad due to its horrendous service.
The first bad sign of the night was that our reservation for 8:30pm was pushed back thirty minutes for no reason. Next problem is that when we finally get to sit down, we probably had to wait 10 or so minutes to get water and be asked what we wanted to order for drinks. While waiting for that, we are never asked for bread or anything. When our drinks finally came, it took me waving at a random waiter to take our appetizer order and main course. I couldn’t tell you who our waiter was the whole night because we had to do most of the ordering ourselves. Just terrible.
And as for the food, I’m not going to bore you but my chicken parmesan was really bland and nothing to write home about. The burnt bread that we finally got was just that so not even worth it. And I tired getting an Old Fashion drink that they couldn’t get right not just once but twice. So I gave up asking and told them to return it. Good thing they took it off the bill. Minor victory. If you don’t know what kind of drink it is, it just consists of 4 ingredients. That was the least of my problems with this place.
Finally my ultimate complaint is that I really don’t know who my waiter was for the night. And not that we had numerous staff members stopping by our table but we didn’t even have one. I still need to tip since someone brought our food but it hurts to pay for this check. We simply had a table of 6 people so nothing massive and this place wasn’t that insane for a Saturday night. We were there for nearly 3 hours so something like this is no longer a nice dinner but now it is an event.
I was originally going to go to a cheap but delicious kabob place tonight but passed on it for this crap. Talk about a major point swing.
And now that I’ve written this, I decided to drop it to 1 star. Avoid at all cost even if you had a free meal here.