Giovanni's Trattu Italian Restaurant Washington, DC review-post-html.htm

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		RESTAURANT
	REVIEW

Giovanni's Trattu Italian
Dupont Circle
1823 Jefferson Pl., NW
Washington, DC
20-2452-4960
Open Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner,
Saturday for dinner. Dinner until 11 p.m Friday and
Saturday.

For almost 30 years, Giovanni Viezzi has been a loquacious presence in such Italian restaurants as K Street's long-gone Tiberio and the still thriving Cafe Milano in Georgetown. In between, Viezzi managed Trattu, a friendly little place that flourished in the '80s and early '90s by offering virtually the same plates of agnolotti with cream sauce and penne all'amatriciana at half the prices then being asked at the pasta palaces. A couple of years ago, armed with the belief that there still was a niche for good, modestly priced Italian cooking in a neighborhood ruled by Galileo, i Ricchi, and Osteria Goldoni, Viezzi became his own boss by reopening the long-shuttered Trattu. With bare-brick walls accented with colorful Sicilian crockery, this trattoria has the appeal of an intimate little Italian restaurant of the sort that is becoming a thing of the past. At lunch, the menu offers mostly-under-$10 pastas and main courses that top out at $l2.95--a golden-crusted veal chop Milanese, pounded out to plate-filling dimensions and accompanied by a refreshing salad of arugula and fennel. The best work of this tiny kitchen, under the direction of chef Santino Filippetto, includes house-made cotechino sausage served over a light purée of potatoes; mussels on the half shell sauced with a topping of Tocai wine, garlic, onions, parsley, and fresh thyme; meat-stuffed Piedmontese agnolotti glazed with creamy tomato sauce; risotto garnished with boned quail and porcini mushrooms; and a rustic rabbit stew that would make an Italian grandmother proud. Giovanni's Trattu, 1823 Jefferson Pl., NW; 202-452-4960. Open Monday through Friday for lunch, Monday through Saturday for dinner. — Robert Shoffner May 2002