Rustico Restaurant - Ballston

No Longer In Business

Pretty spacious restaurant/bar with nice selection of 40-ish beers on tap. Quality selection with some old money, but also plenty of new ticks for me. Impressive bottles list which prices quite good for the US. Bit reserved service. I'm glad I did a detour and paid it a visit.

Visited on a Tuesday night. So this is owned by the ChurchKey people and it really shows. The selection is NOT as good as ChurchKey - very few places are, and this place only has ~20 drafts (heavily regional) and a good but not quite as spectacular bottle list (heavy on stouts and sours, more US-focused than ChurchKey). All that said, VA's beer scene is great and these guys are a big part of why (and they get some really good stuff from it). Service was great, pizza was very good, wings were superb. I would absolutely come back here. One big advantage this place has over ChurchKey - you can get bottles to go ...

Visited at the end of a Friday work day, around happy hour. I sat at the bar first, and the bartender was super ... beer-savvy and Johnny on the Spot. I moved later to a table around the perimeter and the wait staff there was a bunch of air heads. The beer list was very good, with very high quality regional selections. I live in the region and had to choose between several things I'd never had. Definitely worth a visit to find some new things. Suggest aiming for a quieter time and finding the right bartender. Didn't eat.

Another excellent establishment in the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, one I’ve visited many times. Different ambience than the Alexandria location, but similarly high-quality with respect to their beer and food offerings.

On the street parking which was a pain. Nice contemporary atmosphere. Selection was okay, but I came to have a bottle Allagash Century (it was listed as available on their website and on their paper menu) and was not available. The pretzel bites and butcher block pizza were just okay. Value was pretty good. The waiter didn’t know much about beer. I just don’t feel like this place was worth it.

Came here for dinner and sat outside. Decent food, albeit a limited menu, and some really good rare beers on tap. Would come back.

Big, comfortable, open, fairly upmarket restaurant. A little loud. Large range of beers: ~20 on tap and many more bottles - a large menu book. Pleasant and efficient service. Food was decent.

This is a regular stop for me when I’m in town because the hotel where I stay is just a few blocks away. It has an upscale but relaxed ambiance. I always sit at the bar and the bartenders have all been friendly and knowledgable. The draft and bottle selections are both pretty extensive and I’m usually able to find a few new hoppy ticks. I’ve never eaten there, but the food always looks great. Looking forward to a return visit this summer.

Pretty solid place. Busy on a Monday night, in part surely because the Skins were on MNF, but still. Bartendress was nice and knew her beer, but she was far more interested in the game than her customers. Pretty solid taplist, but it is a measure of my beer geekiness that I had rated about 25-30 of them already. Bottle list was pretty solid - two beers on my wants list were consumed. Pizza was good, not great. All in all a place I would go back to if I were in the area.

Definite upscale vibe which leads to a very mixed crowd. Service is generally friendly. Tap and bottle selection is very comparable to Church Key in my opinion. Prices are similarly inflated but that’s to be expected for the area. Having eaten here many times, the food ranges from mediocre to outstanding depending on what you order. The pizza is usually a pretty solid bet. To me this place is a pretty good alternative to Church Key minus some of the special events.