Eating Out: A Slice of New York City at San Vito Ristorante Italiano

I could eat Italian food every day...every meal, really.  Sundays meant pasta and meatballs at Nana's house when I was growing up; holidays were a buffet of special family recipes ranging from savory rice balls (arancini) to sweet and licorice-y pizzelles.  Homey Italian food is in my blood and I force it on the family whenever I get a chance. 

San Vito Ristorante Italiano is one of our go-to local Italian restaurants.  Located at 8944 Burke Lake Road in Springfield (there's also a location in Centreville), San Vito has never disappointed my regular cravings for decent Italian food.  

Price-wise, it's not a place this family can eat every week.  Salads range from $6-12.  Pasta dishes can run from $10-16.  Meat entrees span from $16-19 (aside from specials).  Pizzas cost anywhere from $10-13 for a large pie.  Last week we ordered two pizzas/ milk for the kids and spent about $25.  We usually go there for special occasions--a birthday or when someone loses a job (nothing like celebrating life's joys or drowning your sorrows in carba-licious Italian food).

Kids can get a ball of dough to roll around and drop onto the floor for you to retrieve (fun for everyone, let me tell you).  It entertains mine for all of five minutes so I recommend bringing distractions if you have Little Ones.  The restaurant is fairly small and if relatively empty, the shrieks of your children will definitely attract looks from other patrons (some will smile at how cute your patooties are, others may be harder to read).  Luckily, it fills up pretty quickly at dinner time (so go around 5/5:30 if you don't want a wait) and kid noises become one of many layers of sounds.

As a vegetarian, my favorites are their Three-Cheese Ravioli (with creamy red aurora sauce, so amazing), Lasagna Verde, and Farfalle Alessandro (bow-tie pasta with radiccio, tomatoes, and grilled eggplant).  I'm not a big fan of their Eggplant Parmigiana; the slices of eggplant are thick and I prefer mine much thinner. 

I'm also in love with their pizza if for no other reason than it is the closest I've gotten to New York-style pizza since migrating south (if you have any recommendations for pizza that is reminiscent of NYC in NoVA, please share).  I'm a fan of the Margherita pizza (a.k.a. cheese) and the Carnivore and Little Ones like Rustica with salami and sausage. 

The Carnivore loves their Surf and Turf Tuesday nights (sirloin steak and a whole lobster for $16.95).  He's also enjoyed their Misto di Pesce (a mix of mussels, clams, scallops, shrimp, and calamari with a choice of 3 sauces), Grilled Calamari salad, and Pollo Michaelangelo, a masterpiece of chicken stuffed with artichoke, cheese and shrimp.  His two-cents on the overall San Vito experience: "Their sauces are really good".  Well-said.

The kids' menu has a handful of options.  Most popular with my LOs are the Rainbow Fish pizza (a large pizza shaped like a fish, with or without a giant meatball) and straight-up pasta (choice of pastas like spaghetti and penne with marinara sauce or butter).  They weren't as enthusiastic about the chicken tenders with fries (I've probably fed them too many of those microwaveable nuggets).   We've also ordered a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs off the adult menu and split it amongst the LOs.  Adult-menu pizzas can be customized and shared as a family.  Unfortunately, there are no kids-eat-free nights here but they have refilled milk for free.

The wait staff will present dessert options on a tray if you're interested (we usually are).  The best dessert, in my extremely humble opinion, is their Chocolate Souffle.  It arrives very warm and very melt-y on the inside with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  We get multiple spoons and scrape every morsel from the bottom of the dish.

Speaking of the wait staff, they're young, friendly, and super accommodating.  We broke a wine glass once while passing a child over the table (clearly an idea that had something to do with the wine we were drinking).  Our waitress was very sweet about this faux pas and acted like she didn't remember it the next time we ate there (I think you're getting the picture that we eat there a lot).  They give refills on bread baskets, too.

Special note: Wednesday nights equal half-price bottles of wine.  Especially nice for date nights (because if you're a parent you have lots of Wednesdays free for those, but just in case...) or those family meals after a long day with the kids...just remember not to pass the kids over the table.  See reason above.

All in all, I am enamored of San Vito because I love their food.  My family digs it too.  Even out-of-town family members request that we eat there when they visit and I've gone with my girlfriends for our monthly Ladies Night.  It's not going to be a cheap meal, but it's definitely delicious for special occasions or the random splurge.  And if you're anything like me, it might even make you feel a little closer to your childhood home.