Elena James — Restaurant in Chevy Chase

Went recently to try out this new restaurant in the neighborhood.

The interior design was very fun and modern. Restaurant was busy on a Saturday but we were able to walk in.

Unfortunately service and food quality still needs work. Regarding service, it seemed like they ran out of menus and rushed us to order quickly, with 2 people stopping to try and get our orders within 5 min of sitting down. It seemed they were still training as we had 3 different people stop to ask us about the menu and our order and it wasn’t clear who was our main waiter. There was no communication that we had already ordered.

Food was disappointing for the price and for the reviews I’ve seen at the sister restaurants (I have no tried them). The duck appetizer was too sweet and seems overpriced for $18 for 4. The American “burger” came on Texas toast and I was surprised they did not ask how we wanted the burger to be cooked. Both orders were medium done and very salty. Fries were also over salted. I couldn’t finish the dish. I think they tried to do too much in the sandwich.

My vegetarian friend enjoyed the butternut squash pasta but said it seemed too oily.

I will give this restaurant another try when they open for brunch/lunch since it’s filling a food void in this part of the county however I would not currently recommend it for anyone coming out of their way to eat here. I think the prices are too high for the quality of food (I am willing to pay these prices if the food is worth my time and effort of eating out).

FYI, they validate for 3 hours of parking...

Food is a tad expensive but given its location and ambiance, it’s pretty warranted.

I think the menu has quite a few misnomers and just overall too much creativity in naming lol.

While the duck “wings” appetizer was insanely good, heavenly i might say, balanced, moist, crispy, 10/10, it was moreso duck drumsticks without flats or tips. Kinda confused when the dish came, $16/17 for the 4 drumsticks i think is actually decently priced for the quality.

Meatballs were great 8/10

The “OG breadsticks” gets a 3/10, for one, its focaccia loaded with too much parmesan cheese, with a side of compound butter that over complicates the flavor. I would suggest renaming or changing the dish…

Mushroom Pizza was nice, 7/10, nice rich mushroom and truffle aroma. However the oven feels a bit under temp’d where there was a bit of wet dough near the middle. The flour used is also unique and I havent tasted before, but they dusted a bit too much on the bottom. Crust was mediocre at best, needs much more fermentation of the dough yeast to both puff it up in the oven and develop a flavor other than cooked flour.

Amazing and friendly service staff and manager

Will definitely come back for the ambiance and food quality, relatively new launch so I expect it to get even better as the...

Been here twice for brunch and thought the food was excellent both times, and I would've given five stars based on our first experience. I think the service has declined though in the last few months since they have gotten busier. We were there yesterday for fathers day and the restaurant was busy but not entirely full, yet the staff seemed pretty overwhelmed. It started when the hostess said they'd bring us a kids coloring menu for my 2 year old daughter and we had to go back up to remind her 10 minutes later. We did the four dish brunch for 39 bucks, which honestly is a pretty good deal for the area and if you order wisely you end up with quite a bit of food. While almost everything was excellent, they seemed to be struggling with the pacing out of the food courses. It took quite awhile for our first dishes to come and then there was a good 30-40 minute gap between our second round of dishes and when they finally brought our steak and vegetables. In the meantime they tried to bring us things we didn't order on multiple occasions. At this point we'd been done eating for so long that we weren't really even hungry anymore. We'll certainly give them another try as I love this restaurant group and the people are nice, but they do need to figure some...