Italian cuisine was born when, after building the city of Rome, Romulus and Remus discovered Greece didn't deliver to their new address. Taste the origins of an empire with today's Groupon: for $20, you get $40 worth of modern Italian cuisine at Sensi.

Sensi owner and chef Paolo Randazzo stimulates a multitude of sensory receptors with a menu of upscale Italian dishes served in a scarlet-tinged dining room that overlooks the James River. Penne, pancetta, and wild mushrooms bathe in the rustichella d'abruzzo’s house-made vodka sauce ($16.95); morsels of fennel sausage nap on velvety pillows of potato gnocchi ($15.95). The king salmon roulade ($19.95) swims toward taste buds on a current of rich beurre noir sauce, and aged balsamic vinegar regales the 8-ounce filet mignon ($26.95) with flavorful anecdotes from its youth. Crimson tablecloths and linen napkins ravish the eyes and camouflage spilled sauces as servers fill crystal glasses with red, white, and sparkling elixirs.