Adarra Is Easily A Top 10 Restaurant In RVA

Restaurant Adarra (@restaurantadarra) was hands down one of my top 5 meals of 2022 and honestly one of the best meals in my life! 🤯🙌 I’m only mad I waited so long to try it!

Adarra has a lot of unique food concepts which I was a little nervous about going into this dinner, but I decided to place trust in the excellent customer reviews. Luckily, our server was really kind in helping us pick what to order, given we weren’t familiar with a lot of the dishes. She described it as a tapas style menu where you choose 3-4 plates to share for the table, so that’s exactly what we did!

🧀 Selection of Cheeses // We started out with the cheese plate which had a cow’s milk cheese, goat cheese, and a blue cheese with local honey and house made marmalade on the side. The cheese and crackers by themselves were delicious but the honey and marmalade combination just took it to the next level! It’s the PERFECT, non-filling appetizer!

🐟 Sardinas Escabeche // For conservas, we ordered the sardines in spiced sauce which were nice and spicy yet buttery. I’d actually never had sardines before and was scared to try it at first, but it ended up being probably my FAVORITE plate of the entire meal! Our server described how you start with a piece of bread and then add mustard, sardines, butter, lemon juice, and a sprinkle of salt. All of those flavors mixed together were outstanding!

🦐 Shrimp // Lastly, for the main dinner portion, we decided to split the shrimp which were cooked in a delicious al Ajillo sauce (garlic and parsley). The shrimp were HUGE and the sauce was perfect for dipping the leftover bread.

All the food was so fresh, savory, and flavorful and I highly recommend all of the above dishes. For dessert, we tried the apple cake and panna cotta with high expectations considering how good our meal had been thus far. Unfortunately, both desserts left more to be desired, so I’d recommend making a pit stop elsewhere for dessert after—maybe at the nearby One Way Cream and Goodies.

Other than the dessert, this meal was 10/10! 💯 I made a reservation for an early dinner at 5:15pm which was a smart move because the dining area quickly filled up within an hour or so, even on a Wednesday. You definitely need a reservation if you go here, unless you’ll be sitting at the bar. The interior is small but cozy and certainly an intimate atmosphere for a date night or special occasion.