Best Dessert in VA: Basilico Review

October 24, 2022

Hello everyone! I’ve decided to start a new post series: Best Dessert in VA. I’m always eating sugar and I’m normally in Virginia so I have a lot of places to share! I decided to start off with one of my favorites, Basilico. It’s an Italian deli and bakery with two locations in the Fredericksburg area. I’ve only been once (it’s a long drive), but it was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! So delicious, in fact that, that my sister gobbled down her slice of cake in about a minute, without saying a word. We kept asking, “Is it good, Joella?” But her only response was putting another forkful in her mouth! After trying our own slices, my mom and I had to agree: their cake is too good for words. Without further ado, here is my Basilico review!

Taste

I guess you already know how I feel about this category. The taste is great! We tried the chocolate mousse cake, lemon berry mascarpone cake, amaretto cake, and a sfogliatelle, all of which were amazing. They are generous with the fruit, the cakes had a perfectly moist texture, and the chocolate was rich, but not so rich that you feel sick. 5 out of 5 stars for sure!

By the way, Basilico has much more than dessert: paninis, wraps, calzones, pizzas, macaroni and cheese… I can just imagine the flavors as I’m typing! Hopefully I’ll be able to actually review the lunch/dinner menu soon, but if their regular food is anything like their sweets, I’m sure they are more than worth trying!

Value

When I visited in 2021, all of the cake slices were about $5.50 each, which I think is a pretty awesome deal for cake that tastes as amazing as theirs. It’s been a little over a year since then and inflation has gotten kind of crazy, so I can’t say for certain that the prices are still pretty close to that. When I looked at their current online menu, though, I saw that slices are $6 now, so there’s not too much of a price markup! You can view the menu here.

Originality

The restaurant itself was nowhere near as out-of-this world-looking as Galaxy Diner in Richmond, but it certainly has a cosy, warmly-lit (but slightly luxurious) feel. Regretfully, I didn’t take any photos (I was too taken aback by the beautiful slices of cake). I think it’s worth mentioning that I visited the Harrison Crossing location, which looks a bit different from the location on Cowan Boulevard.

Anyway, what Basilico lacks in originality of restaurant decor and design, it certainly makes up for in menu originality (and that’s much more important). They have plenty of popular Italian desserts like cannolis, tiramisu, and gelato, which is great, but they also had countless desserts I had never tried or heard of before. For example: sfogliatelle. I have no idea how to pronounce it, but it is very good and I recommend that everyone eats it (it’s basically a delicious Italian creme stuffed inside a delicate, crispy shell). As you can see in the pictures below, they also have a wonderfully crazy amount of cake options (and I didn’t even take a photo of all of them)!

Service

The two teenagers who packaged the desserts for us were wonderful. It took us a long time to decide what we wanted, but they were very patient, friendly, and excited to talk about dessert! I realize this comment seems pretty generic, but good service is so hard to come by these days! It was a nice refresher to walk into smiling, cheerful faces. Both my mother and I felt very welcome in Basilico as soon as we walked in, which just made our food taste all the better.