Le Sel French Bistro – A Cozy French Spot Near Dupont Circle 🥖🍷

📍 Address: 1315 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20036 This relatively new restaurant is tucked inside a hotel and has a fresh, inviting vibe 🌿. Both indoor and outdoor seating are beautifully arranged 🪑💫. The menu is quite limited in options, and portions tend to be on the smaller side. Compared to Georgetown’s Brasserie Liberté, the same dishes feel less filling—but the flavors are lighter and more delicate 🍽️. Note: They don’t serve complimentary bread—you’ll need to order it separately. Starters: We tried the Escargot 🐌 – baked snails with garlic herb butter. The garlic-butter sauce was fragrant and not too salty, and the snails were tender and well-cooked. Main Courses: • Mussels Marinière – steamed mussels served with fries. The broth was mild and pleasant—a classic, hard-to-mess-up dish, though nothing particularly stood out 🍟. • A server-recommended chicken (or duck leg? memory’s fuzzy 😅) stewed with pork belly – not sure if it’s still on the menu. It looked and tasted a lot like Chinese red-braised pork, complete with star anise and other spices, but prepared in a red-wine braise typical of French cooking. Rich, savory, and deeply flavorful—definitely on the heavier side 🍖🍷. #DMV #DMVFood #DMVFun #DupontCircle #DateNightRestaurant #JHU #DinnerIdeas #FrenchCuisine #CozyBistro #FrenchBistro #WashingtonDC #DiningOut #LightBites #FrenchFlavors #HiddenGemDC #FoodReview #DCEats #WeekendVibes