Il Canale
Be sure to check out our lunch menu, featuring delicious paninis made with our fresh bread baked instantly in our wood fire brick oven and four new pasta items. Our happy hour, from 3-6 pm Monday-Friday, features all drinks at 1/2 price! (Happy Hour restricted to bar area).
Coming down from M Street, il Canale is the 2nd restaurant on the left.
Private Dining
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Safety precautions
- Surfaces sanitized between seatings
- Common areas deep cleaned daily
- Digital, disposable or sanitized menu provided
- Sanitizer or wipes provided for customers
- Limited number of seated diners
- Distancing maintained in common areas
- Extra space between tables
- Waitstaff wear masks
- Diners must wear masks unless eating or drinking
- Sick staff prohibited in the workplace
Popular dishes
Organic Pasta: Pomodoro / Burro
36 reviews
Gnocchi
Housemadeorganic flour and ricotta dumplings, tossed with cherry tomato sauce and buffalo mozzarella
28 reviews
Gnocchi alla Bolognese
Housemade organic flour and ricotta dumplings, served in a fresh meat sauce
6 reviews
Menu
My husband and I went for a light dinner and cocktails. We sat outside, much better than noise level instead. The appetizers and drinks were great.
Had a delicious lunch there. The gnocchi was amazing and the pizza was very well made. Sitting outside felt very safe in today's world.
Fantastic food and service! Some of the best pizza in DC.
Food was just fair.
Fun evening!! Friendly service!! Table was small for 4 people with dinner plates, wine and water glasses but overall a great dinner!!
Shout out to Besmir, our waiter, who provided amazing service for my wife and I on our first anniversary. Il Canale has the best Italian food I have ever tasted. The lasagna was impeccable and the tiramisu deliciously creamy. We bought a margharita pizza to go. Without exaggeration, it was the best margharita pizza we've had. Il Canale even provided us with a lovely treat for our anniversary. We will definitely be going back!
The table outside was just too small for 4 people and on a terrible slope
Outstanding service, delicious food — this was our second time here, and we absolutely loved it!!
College goodbye
GREAT gluten free pizza. Absolutely recommend it for the GF folks.
Good all around except service was bad. 15 minute wait after seating for first sign of waiter. 30 minutes before first drink received. Ordered a drink before entree, received it after entree. They need to fix staffing issues ASAP.
Best pizza in DC
Awesome Service, excellent food. Good sized plates
Fantastic food and service—everything is great, ample portions and pretty fast service too. Very popular so definitely recommend making a reservation. Also on busy weekends particularly it can be very loud, but more quiet on weeknights. Pizzas, pastas and salads are delicious. It’s so good, we went twice during 3-day stay.
Great gluten free options for Celiac people.
The pizza's were very good I had the meat lovers and my wife had Diavola. The pizza's were quite tasty and well cooked. We enjoyed a few cocktails, split a salad and a bottle of wine while watching all the Georgetown students and their parents explore the neighborhood. It was a very busy Saturday nght in Georgetown. The biggest complaint I have is that we had a 6:45 reservation. We were forced to wait almost a half hour waiting for a table while walk up customers were seated before we were seated. I not sure it makes a difference if you make a reservation on Opentable for this restraunt or just walk up without a reservation.
Jorge was fantastic!!! Could not recommend him enough. Food was tasty, but I’d pass on the focaccia bread next time.
Italia pizza and cannelloni pasta were hits! Would recommend trying this spot out.
there wasn't enough space between the tables although the restaurant's safety precaution mentions "extra space between the tables."
Extremely loud
Everything prefect especially service
Very attentive to my gluten intolerance! And brought a lovely Cannoli with a chorus of waiters to sing for my son's birthday. Always a treat to be at Il Canale!
Always great dining here, only downside is that it’s super loud. Not in a rambunctious or annoying way, it’s just the acoustics of the space. But the food is really exceptional and our server was lovely and prompt! Looking forward to returning.
Great food, wonderful service, perfect family restaurant there was something for our everyone in our party
Very good meal and service was excellent.
Food was great, service was a bit slow due to staffing issues, friendly host, very busy.
Many options in Georgetown and we find ourselves always going back to Il Canale. The food is great as is the service (though on this visit it was obvious they were down a server - did not want to complain as Wendy was working so hard to make up for the lack of a server). Make a reservation as it is crowded on weekends.
A special thanks to Jessie who was our waitress.
Fantastic service, great food!
Food was good, a pasta dish and pizza. Good wine selection. Couldn’t sit outside due to thunderstorm.
The only issue, and for us a big one, was it was incredibly loud. We could not carry on a conversation. We were upstairs, so I don’t know if this was the case in the rest of the restaurant.
Unless we can be outside, I don’t think we can go back.
Great food and wonderful atmosphere.
Awesome food, great service! Would recommend it to anyone!
We had an unexpected layover in DC and went to dinner at il Canale. Our sever Francesco and the manager were excellent!! Very friendly and the food was fantastic! True Italian. We will definitely have to return!
Appetizers we’re good. Pasta portion size was very small lacked flavor. Waiter was not very attentive. We were through with dessert and we still do not have a coffee that we ordered. We will probably look at other restaurants to dine at the next time we are in D. C.
Always a beautiful experience here - fabulous food and service that keeps us coming back!
Great place! Nice attendant!
It felt like a Sunday dinner with family. The flavors where exquisite, fresh and just done right. Coming back!
We dined on a busy Friday evening - the service was friendly and you could tell everyone was working super hard, but it was just slow (my husbands cocktail, which we ordered when we arrived, didn’t get there until dinner was ready; couldn’t eat appetizers because we had no plates, etc). It might be better to visit on a non weekend evening. Pizza was incredibly delicious. Lovely patio - make a reservation if you’re going after 6pm.
EAT HERE!!! Best pizza crust ever, from a wood-fired oven that we could see from our table. When we ordered foccacia, we were given a basket full of hot pizza crust wedges dusted with olive oil and herbs - fantastic! They make everything from scratch, including their pasta (delicious! perfectly al dente! fantastic sauce!) from ingredients that they import from Italy. Lovely baby arugula salad was dressed lightly and had an egg-sized (I thought it was an egg when the plate arrived !) portion of extremely fresh mozzarella along with huge olives and grape tomatoes.. Service was exceptionally good - packed all our leftovers (and 2 cannolli that we were too full to eat) in a bag for transport. We will tell everyone we know not to
miss Il Canale when they are in D.C. Excellent authentic casual friendly !!
Wendy was amazing!!!
We were celebrating my daughter’s birthday
Food is always delicious at II Canale
FAQs
You can order delivery directly from Il Canale using the Order Online button. Il Canale also offers delivery in partnership with Uber Eats. Il Canale also offers takeout which you can order by calling the restaurant at (202) 337-4444.
Il Canale is rated 4.6 stars by 3084 OpenTable diners.
Yes, you can generally book this restaurant by choosing the date, time and party size on OpenTable. Due to local restrictions, this restaurant may not be accepting reservations at the moment.
