Da Marco Ristorante Italiano

They’re gone! Closed! Completely empty! So sad. This was a great spot!

I would give Da Marco 2 ½ stars and that is solely based on my Granchino linguine. The pasta was homemade, it had chunks of crab meat and the ground walnuts gave it such a wonderful texture. I really loved my entrée, it was delicious and I cleaned my bowl. Now the cons… I ordered a Sprite and was given a bottle, they were out of the Italian beers, no salt or pepper on the tables, the bruschetta was mediocre and would have been better if the bread was toasted. I’ve read some other reviews and wonder were all of the food choices went. All that was on the menu were apps, simple salad and pasta dishes. I didn’t see any fish or pizza and we weren’t told about any specials. The service wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t the best.

I liked this place overall. It’s cozy. We were seated right by a fire place.
Food was good although we definitely had better bread elsewhere.
I loved how they served both olive oil and balsamic vinegar for bread, instead of oil only, but something lacked in bread itself.
One less star is also because of strong bass sound from a live house, Fillmore, which is right next door. They must have had a concert by a rock artist. We heard enough bass all of a sudden while we enjoyed quiet conversation.

I’ve been to Da Marco four times now. Three times for date night with my fiancé, and most recently, I brought my parents. It’s perfect for dinner and drinks before seeing a movie at the AFI. The food is delicious, the service is friendly, the prices are really reasonable. It isn’t pretentious. Favorite orders include the carafe of house chianti, gnocchi, and the seafood. The special of the night is usually a great deal. Also, all the meals come with a delicious salad! You’ll love it.

We love this place, and now easy to find right next to Fillmore Silver Spring! The dishes are fresh and wonderfully flavored. With a carafe of house chianti and two pasta dishes, it’s very good value. And exactly the kind of small business that boosts our community in immeasurable ways.

i stumbled upon this place and damn it was good. I am from Boston and frequent the North End and this is comparable if not better

Delicious dinner of homemade pasta — penne trio and linguine Alfredo with shrimp. Try the Grappa Sinatra martini — very tasty! Two of us had appetizers, mixed drinks and entrees for $ 80 — a good deal in the DC area.

If I could give this 0 stars I would have! The appetizer was supposed to be a flatbread but it was literally the Thomas thin bread substitute with the oats on top that you can buy from Target, the pasta was undercooked and terrible. Even the bread served with olive oil was terrible. This is literally by far the worst meal I have ever had! If I had never had Italian before, I would never eat it again. Please don’t waste your money at this dump! On top of the atrocious food, the service was terrible as well… terrible, terrible experience!!!

I have been going to Da Marco for many years now. As a general rule, I don’t continue to frequent a restaurant that I don’t like. Therefore, it is safe to say that I like this restaurant very much.
First and foremost, Da Marco is a dinner restaurant. Therefore, if you are looking for great Italian cuisine, go in the evening. The food is authentic Italian and there is much variety. If you are looking for something light or you are on a diet, then I strongly recommend the Salmon and Spinach dinner. This is one of my personal favorites. The salmon is always fresh and the spinach adds quite a bit of zest to the meal. Top that off with a glass of wine and you can’t miss. I really like all the Ravioli meals but my two favorites are Spinach Ravioli and Pumpkin Ravioli. The Spinach Ravioli is in tomato sauce and has a nice kick to it. The Pumpkin Ravioli is sweet and almost tastes like a desert. The specials are almost always very good so consider ordering the special when you go. The atmosphere is great and the staff is always friendly and professional
Tuesday night is a real treat in that it is Pizza night. This is truly great pizza. It is thin crust only so thick crust pizza lovers might be disappointed. However, as thin crust pizza goes, I think that this rivals Pizza Paradiso or Two Amy’s. There is plenty to choose from which includes both Tomato Pizza and White Pizza. For those of you that don’t like cheese, there is also Spinach Pizza without cheese. This is actually one of my favorites. I think that really makes the pizza stand out is the Tomato sauce. This part of the pizza has been mastered here. My only complaint is that they don’t offer pizza every night.
I have been to Da Marco for lunch as well. While Da Marco is best for dinner, I do believe that they come through with lunch as well. I like the lunch menu. I usually get the Veggie sub. Now I have been reading some reviews where people have complained about the bread. Please do remember that Da Marco is an Italian restaurant. If bread is your main concern then you should dine out at the local bakery. With that being said, I like the bread. For the subs during lunch, Da Marco offers both «soft» bread and «hard» bread. I prefer the «hard» bread because I like some crunch in my bread. «Hard» bread does not mean stale bread. I have never had stale bread at Da Marcos and I have been going to this restaurant for many years now.
Not all deserts are equal and this is true at Da Marcos. I love a good desert but I will only have the home made deserts which consist of the Tiramasu (the best I have ever had) or the Key Lime Pie (be sure that it is home made… ask first). While the other deserts are solid, you can’t go wrong with the Tiramasu (always home made) and the Key Lime Pie (when home made).
The bottom line is this. Da Marcos is a great Italian restaurant located in the heart of downtown Silver Spring. The prices are reasonable but not cheap. The portions are also reasonable. I always walk out of Da Marcos satisfied but never stuffed. If you live in Silver Spring or you don’t mind driving a bit, this is truly the place to go for authentic Italian cuisine.

This is one of the worst restaurants I have ever experienced. I stopped in because the place I wanted to go was closed. I ordered a coke and a chicken parm sandwich for lunch. The coke was served in the plastic bottle. The only good thing I can say about the sandwich is that it was served quickly. The bread was stale. The tomatoes were spoiled. The chicken was hard as a brick and about as flavorful. The sauce seemed like it was spooned from the jar onto my room temperature sandwich. The ‘waiter’ did not really seem to notice that I threw most of my pitiful lunch away and seemed only to perk up when I paid and left — I guess he thought I was going to skip out on the check. Which would have been justified. I was not surprised that this place appeared on a list of the worst restaurants in DC a couple of years back. One word — dreadful.

Walked into this restaurant because we were craving meat sauce spaghetti. The lighting is incredibly dim in here. The service is extremely fast and efficient, almost too fast. Their pasta is made in-​house, however, when cooked, and served, the noodle pieces stuck together. This place did not stand out in any way, it wasn’t particularly nasty, but nor was it particularly delicious to a point where I would want to return. The portions are generous enough.

Delicious! Came here on a Saturday night and it wasn’t crowded, we had great service and such a delicious meal at a reasonable price. The spinach ravioli was amazing. There was not a crumb left behind for dinner or dessert.

I visited this restaurant because I really wanted fried calamari and this place is nearby my house with decent reviews. The complimentary bread was old, too bad because I love eating good warm bread with oil. The fried calamari was decent, just that. We were afraid at this point to order a dinner plate, so we opted for another appetizer. The goat cheese crostini, which on paper sounded great but was hardly edible.
The place is very dark but not like nice ambiance kind of dark, is more like plain dark. I guess prices are not terribly expensive for the area, but I would rather pay more for good food.

We went with a large group, and everyone enjoyed their meal. (I don’t think anyone had pizza, but we had a few salad entrees and maybe 10 pasta dishes, and a few drinks and desserts.) I had the special — penne with sliced zucchini and the red sauce (white was also an option) and it was delicious. It was nice that the house salad came with all the pastas (making the entrée price reasonable), and the salad and dressing were excellent (except for a kid or two who don’t yet like balsamic). Olive oil and balsamic for the pre-​meal bread were also nice.
A major plus for our group was that the red sauce was homemade on-​site, so one of our diners who has trouble eating out (no artificial anything) had many more menu options than he usually does.
Potential downside: I don’t know whether any of our younger members asked for a kids’ menu (a few were under 12), but I didn’t see one and they all ordered off the regular menu. So it got pricier for the families of four, and not all the kids were into the included salads or able to finish.

The special was amazing — a lightly fried Basa fish in a lemon white wine sauce over linguine. The fish was perfectly cooked.
G’s choice of chicken parmigiana surprised me, since I make a fantastic one myself. I think he remembered why he should not have ordered it anywhere else. The pasta was good (even though they only had linguine when he wanted angle hair) with the sauce having a bold olive oil flavor, but the chicken was flat and overly coated and not very flavorful.
The asparagus appetizer was very delicious … however I felt cheated by portion size … wanting more.
Koral and G

Let me start out with the positives:
1) It’s convenient spot to grab some quick pre-​show dinner if you’re hitting the Fillmore and running late. The restaurant is literally right next door and service is fast. I wouldn’t be surprised if this place makes bank off of Fillmore attendees.
2) All of the wines they carry are Italian. I ordered a Bolla Chardonnay with my dinner, which was nothing fancy but got the job done.
3) The home-​made dressing on the house salad (an oil/​vinegar mix of sorts, with some seasoning thrown in) was good. Also, it’s nice that house salads accompany the dinner entrees to begin with.
The negatives:
That night I ordered the special, the Seafood Linguine. What was special about it? It was the worst dish I have *ever* ordered at *any* Italian restaurant in my *entire* life. Here’s why:
The seafood linguine special cost about 15 bucks, probably more — absurdly overpriced for what it offered. Firstly, the pasta was undercooked. Hey, I’m half Italian, so I can appreciate el dente. But there’s el dente, and then there’s still-​raw. This dish was the latter.
The «seafood» consisted of about 4 small pieces of shrimp, 3 mussels, and 4 or 5 scallops — like, the dime-​sized scallops, not the big, juicy ones. I thought it was a pretty stingy helping for its price. Also, the «white garlic sauce» they boasted, was completely bland and flavorless. Basically, it was bottled olive oil and a garlic clove (literally, one (1) clove).
For serious: My roommate who doesn’t cook at all could have done a better job than this.
The fact is, Italian food is really hard to screw up. Most dishes are the same flavor palate. Moreover, any moron can boil pasta — they just have to time it right. And pasta dishes, which is the majority of the menu here — are really cheap to produce. Like, stupid cheap. That’s usually why the portions at most Italian places are so big. If you’re going to jack up the prices, then the food had better taste damn good in return.
The bottom line: if you’re looking for over-​priced, stingy servings of bland food, this is your place. It’s probably a good spot if you’re on a diet. If not, I’d say that a soul-​less chain restaurant like Olive Garden or Macaroni Grill is a better alternative.

I don’t understand how anyone can give this place a bad review. As an Italian American who has been eating this type of food my entire life, I can confidently say I know Italian food. And this place gets just about every dish right, especially if you’re looking for authentic Italian cuisine.
The pasta dishes are all fantastic, and also reasonably priced. My favorite dishes are definitely the prosciutto ravioli, penne trio, and gnocchi, but just about everything is good. All of the pasta is freshly made, so you can’t really go wrong. Pasta is served Weds-​Sat. On Tuesdays, there is pizza night, which is fantastic as well. My favorite is the Prosciutto Pizza with fresh Mozzarella, which is unlike anything you’ll find in the area. I don’t understand how anyone could try this pizza and dislike it, unless they don’t have taste buds.
The atmosphere, like most authentic Italian restaurants, has a homely-​feel, so its a vey welcoming and comfortable environment. Also, a few of the reviews are outdated, as the place now has a liquor license, so its also a great place to come if you’re attending a Fillmore show (it’s next door to it). Anyways, DaMarco’s one of the few small businesses left in the chain-​loving downtown silver spring area, so check it out. You will not regret it, and it is definitely a better experience than the way overpriced-Sergio’s or middling-​Olazzo.

A dark-​lit, smaller place with decent italian fare. It wasn’t particularly memorable though.
Yes, there were dishes with hand-​made noodles. I’d say the ravioli and stuffed variety was quite good. However, the noodles (fettucini) were kind of gritty/​doughy – a swollen-​fat noodle gumming up in your mouth texture. People who like that tight, firm noodle may not like it; people who prefer a softer or less al dente texture will probably think it’s fine.
Pasta carbonara was sinful. Drenched with oil that congealed the next day; it was delicious the night of – bringing regrets the morning after.
It was «nice» and I wouldn’t mind returning, but it doesn’t have me craving it the way Pasta Plus (in Laurel) had me hankering for a next visit despite the unclean spot on my plate.

I was feeling nostalgic for the Italian Store trips my office would order when I worked in DC so I looked up Da Marco’s menu online. The Italian Coldcut sounded just like what I was looking for: mortadella, genoa ham, salami, and provolone. On a whim, I also ordered the Chicken Salad, which was described as lightly fried chicken topped with mozzarella on leafy greens and tomatoes. The plan was to have the salad for lunch and save the sub for dinner.
Disappointment was in store for me folks. Returned to the office to find that the salad was plain grilled chicken on iceberg lettuce with tomatoes and cucumbers. It wasn’t any better than the salads sold in office building cafes across the nation but at least it wasn’t drenched in some creamy dressing (insert bawdy joke here) and was livened up by oil and balsamic vinegar instead.
The sub, however, was awful. No peppers, was covered in Italian dressing, and served on a hard roll– not hard as in traditional sub rolls, but hard as in two days old. I guess I’ll have to suck it up and travel across the Potomac to get a good Italian sammich.

Almost. 3.5, which is why I rounded down.
The Captain and I wandered in here after we found out that Sergio’s was temporarily closed for vacation. Mind you, he patronized Da Marco several years ago, did not like it, and did not want to return.
However, I’m glad we gave it a chance. There were some hits and misses. The misses were the antipasto appetizer, the bread, and the salads. The antipasto was piled with meats (prosciutto, salami, etc), some cheese, marinated artichokes, and a handful of olives. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, per se, I just wouldn’t order it again. The bread was cold and presumably store bought — nothing special. Finally, the salad wasn’t very good — too much (grainy) dressing and basically just lettuce leaves with a slice of cucumber tossed in.
The hits were most definitely the pastas. I opted for linguini carbonara and Captain went with the daily special — house made fettucini with a ragu sauce. My carbonara was delicious — it was creamy but light and delicately flavored. There wasn’t too much pancetta and it didn’t taste «eggy.» I enjoyed it and would most definitely order it again.
The house made fettucini with ragu sauce was also done well — the pasta was fresh, tasty, and not swimming in sauce (an error common in Italian restaurants).
Some things worth mentioning: All beverages are served in cans or bottles, no free refills. Also, the restaurant is small and dimly lit so you get an intimate feeling. Unfortunately, this is destroyed by either one loud person or one screaming baby. We were fortunate to be seated near both! Score!
However, I enjoyed the pastas enough to return and I’m also eager to try out the much heralded pizza.