thrillist

The saying goes "go big or go home", but they don't have to be mutually exclusive, especially when you're luring Kirstie Alley back to your place with the promise of mallomars. Going big with their new home: Carmine's.

The District incarnation of "NYC's legendary family style Italian restaurant", Carmine's is a sprawling behemoth, with a huge circular bar anchoring a 670-seat dining room covered in 500+ photos (...of old Italian people...), in total 20,030sqft, officially making it DC's largest eatery, as long as nobody's breaking open oil drums of cheeseballs at Costco. Paper menu's are eschewed for massive menu-boards posted everywhere, laying out their fittingly hugely-portioned Italiano (one entree serves 4-6), with apps like spicy scarpariello wings, schloads of pastas (choose angel hair/linguine/penne/spaghetti/rigatoni, then sauces from red clam to classic garlic & oil), and house favorites like chickens cacciatore and saltimbocca, which means "jumps in the mouth", sparing you the exhaustion of knife-and-forking. The booze menu's appropriately lengthy, with 6 pitcher-able taps & 12 bottles (from NY's Coney Island Lager to MD's Starr Hill), an Italia-heavy 100+ wine bottles (including several produced under Carmine's own label), and a 20+ specialty cocktail list, including the rye/maraschino liqueur/lemon juice "Sinatra's Iced Tea" and the light rum/dark rum/muddled pineapple "Rum Runner" served a 23oz punch bowl, ensuring you'll be, at best, a "Rum Stumbler".

For truly classy party animals, they've also flown in a selection of hulking, five-liter vino bottles that get tapped tableside, unlike Kirstie, who likes a nice romantic bedroom, filled with cookies.

Add this to My Thrillist

Check out the DC-specific menu (and more!), at CarminesNYC.com