domenica

great italian. best mushroom soup i have ever had. asked for the caprese sandwich in a salad form and they said no problem! the lasagna was great too! over all a great place with great atmosphere. dressy casual attire . best part is the after dinner drink at the sazarac bar in the roosevelt!! def try it out

we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary last week, with an overnight stay at the roosevelt hotel and dinner at domenica, the hotel's restaurant. domenica, a john besh restaurant run by chef alon shaya, is an edgy italian pizza/pasta place that serves some very creative food. bubbles! we started with some sparkling wine to properly kick off the fesitve nature of the meal. i'd tell you what i ordered, but the wines aren't listed as part of the online menu . oops. perusing the menu was a challenge, mainly because so many things sounded interesting. antipasti choices such as grilled calamari, coal roasted eggplant, and chicken liver crostini, all sounded delightful. keeping the mains in the back of my mind, fish, goat, veal, and chicken, i wanted to exercise caution in terms of eating too much to start. but the pastas are also attractive! and everyone's been raving about the pizza for ages, particularly because of the occasional happy hour half-off special

the domenica was worth the wait!! the food was wonderful, and the service was great! will go back!

absolutely amazing food, but service was lame. arugula salad and baby greens salad were out of this world and the margherita pizza was possibly the best i've ever had. the roasted eggplant pizza was incredible too and they have a good list of wines by the glass that are unique and tasty. the service was crap though. we never got bread, never got our water bottle refilled, the server/bartender didn't come back to our table until the end to ask if we wanted dessert. if the food wasn't orgasmic i would have been pissed.

happy hour here almost too good to be true. i've only had their pizza and as good as it is, i'm not sure i'll ever try anything else on their expansive menu.

one of the best pizzas in town, and certainly the most creative with toppings.

the crust seems very simple when you first bite into it...you might think "hmm, flour + water" for a split second, but then you notice the crusty-flaky texture, the subtleness of the herbs kicks in and the light hint of smokiness from the oven perfects the bite.

pizza heaven...... if eating an entire pizza solo (and half heartedly offering a slice to dining partners but hoping they will decline) is a sign of a pizza's "yum factor", then this place's yf is off the charts. in two words....pizza....good!

ditto for the roasted cauliflower appetizer (could make a cruciferous veggie lover out of the biggest veg-a-phobe)...and it's served with a creamy, dreamy whipped goat cheese dip (which is divine on the house made complimentary bread).
ditto ditto for the lasagna-very generous portion that received a super-great rating from an adult and highly selective 12 year old.
service - excellent....sarah beth was professional but friendly, attentive but unobtrusive and most accomodating with special requests, verifying questions about preparation/ingredients and effecient with drink refills....in a word, the perfect waitress!
this was my first besh restaurant experience and it exceeded my expectations.

nice atmosphere. walking through the beautiful lobby of the roosevelt hotel and arriving at domenica, there is plenty to see. dinner at the bar involved barbeque shrimp which were the highlight of the meal. this place is good, much like buca in toronto.
i would recommend it to friends.

great place!. the pizza here is awesome! i couldn't believe what a nice dining experience we had and what great food we received for such a reasonable price. we had a huge pizza appetizer that was only $10! i loved how you could order 1/2 sized entrees. this was my favorite thing. i can only eat a 1/2 size and i loved having that option. my husband ordered the full sized entree of lasagne and was in heaven. this place is certainly one to re-visit and highly recommend. we also had a great wait staff and loved the ambiance of the place.

happy hour. cant beat the happy hour. mushroom pizza had a great, rich flavor. meat and cheese plate pretty standard. definitely plan on going again and sampling other items on the menu.

this is one of my favorite new orleans restaurants. we are vegan and they always create tasty creative vegan dishes for us. we eat there every time we are in new orleans.

the ambiance was lively and beautiful…and the food?!? let's just say when the charming chef shaya came by to introduce himself, we all broke into spontaneous applause. everything - every freaking thing - was incredible. and as you guys know, i regularly consume a lot of fantastic food, so i don't say this lightly.

fabulous. we started our meal with pizza for an appetizer, then on to crusted veal, goat, ricotta with a dates and pecans, white beans and then on to dessert, apple cake, sorbet, chocolate cherry ice cream and jelly doughnuts. this was the best restaurant i have been to in a very long time. every single dish was amazing. the flavor of the dishes were fabulous. i highly recommend this restaurant.

really enjoyed this place!. first off, i really like the atmosphere. i really enjoy places that offer good food in a nice and lively environment. traditional fine-dining is great don't get me wrong, but it is so boring and 80's.

pros: great atmosphere, nice servers, and delicious food. i love mushrooms, and this is the place to get them. the wild mushroom soup is incredible, and they often have special truffles dishes.

cons: if you don't like eggs watch out because they are everywhere! and that's it.

disappointed.... i personally love john besh. i have dined at his "the american sector" restaurant at the ww2 museum and was over the moon. the food was amazing, the service was even better. however, domenica has really disappointed me. the food was good (please do observe the fact that i did not say amazing). i've been to italy and ate real italian food. this was kind of close, but not quite there. we had the goat cheese salad (balsamic dressing was very good), the straci pasta and the lasagna. the pasta was fresh and quite good, however the whole dish was under seasoned. you don't get salt and pepper on the table because i guess the head chef (who's name escapes me right now) thinks he is too amazing for his food to be altered. the lasagna was good. i've had better though. besides the eyebrow hair in the salad and the unwashed water glass, the service was poor. granted, she did get double sat and then completely ignored us.
we finally got "doggy bags". when i asked the server if she would be so kind to give us some more bread to go (which comes free when you sit down at the table), she just gave us the 2 slices that we already had and had been sitting on our table for the past 2 hours. however, the most surprising thing (and don't get me wrong on this, i was expecting pretty high prices seeing how this restaurant is located inside the roosevelt) i had ordered a coke, which was refilled once - 3/4 ice, 1/4 soda. fountain drink... not from a bottle that comes to your table and you expect that you will be charged per drink. yet the soda was $3 per glass. where does that happen? as i said before, we were at "the american sector" before and was only charged for 1 soft drink. the food there was far superior (including the most amazing home made pickles which come to your table just like the free bread at domenica) and the prices were a lot more affordable.
so, in conclusion, "the american sector" yes and domenica not so much. i will still try other of john besh's restaurants just because i think he is amazing.

great food, not great service. another john besh restaurant we were excited to visit but were disappointed. we ate at restaurant august several years ago and enjoyed it very much.

the waiter who served us said when he sat us that domenica was one of the top ten restaurants for 2011. we told him that was why we were there! the food was great, however our server seemed very inexperienced. not necessarily a bad thing, but great service does add to the overall enjoyment of the meal. when he was clearing our table, he stacked all the dirty dishes on the table.