Trattoria Roma

We had a poor experience at Trattoria Roma. We had reservations for dinner on a weekend evening, and we weren't seated for a half hour after our reservation time. Once we were seated, it took over 15 minutes before anyone came to get our beverage orders.

The service throughout the evening felt like they were phoning it in. No one came to check on us and while the restaurant was bustling, it just felt like no one really cared whether or not we were having a good experience.

The food was also disappointing. We started off with mussels marinara, and were immediately turned off by the strong fishy smell. We sampled a few anyway but were so disgusted that we did not even eat half of the appetizer. The seafood platter was slightly better but the mussels included in that were also of poor quality. The pollo Roma was fine if a little dry and one of my friends who ordered pizza also did not eat all of his meal because the crust was a strange flavor. The only person at our table who was satisfied with her meal ordered the pasta - so I'd recommend that if you go there.

Positives: the salads were tasty, there is a good wine selection, and the ambience was fun and intimate. I really wanted to love this place - seated in the basement while waiting for a table, I got a very home-y, grandmother's Italian kitchen-style vibe - but the service and quality of food were so poor that I won't be back. For me, there are too many great restaurants in Old Town to take another chance on Trattoria Roma.

We had a gift certificate for 25 dollars and its right around the corner from me so we checked it out on a Saturday night.  It looks a lot nicer from the outside than it does on the inside. The service was perfectly fine but the food was mediocre at best.  The veal was chewy and bland.  The pizza was decent but there are much better options in the city.  It was barely worth the meal that was discounted 25 bucks.

I've tried every other Italian restaurant in the neighborhood, but finally got to Trattoria Roma last night. First off - please don't think that my 3 star review is bad - it's not. I thought everything was very good and my complaints are fairly minor, but nothing really blew me away. The setting is very average - with cheap tables and white paper table clothes, and the wall decor is somewhat cheesy. Aside from that, the manager and servers were EXTREMELY polite, nice, attentive, and gracious. We had bruschetta which was weighed down by all the oil they put on, but the tomatoes were nice and ripe. Caprese Salad was ok at best. Now - onto the main courses: 1) the chicken special was amazing - battered chicken breast with proscuitto and parmesan cheese in this amazing alfredo sauce that had brandy in it as well - amazing. 2) the shrimp scampi spaghetti dish was very average and not flavorful (sad). So in short, this is a very good average italian restaurant, but for my money I'd rather go to Orso's or Topo Giggio.