Bar del Monte — Restaurant in Washington

Finally tried Bar Del Monte. Simply put, it was a delicious dining experience.

To elaborate, I ordered a pizza entrée (the "Chistorra Pizza"--one of the day's specials) and a dessert (the "Fior di Latte Gelato").

🍕 The Chistorra Pizza ($27) was amazing. The dough was thin but topped with layers of other flavors, and the pie's crust was both flaky and soft to the bite. The peppers, olive slices, and sausage slices tasted fresh and juicy, and the pecorino cheese drizzled over all of it added the perfect complement to the overall textures and flavor. In short, it's a wonderful pizza.

🍦 The Fior di Latte Gelato ($11) was served in a small glass with raspberry preserves layered in. Don't mistake the portion size by sight, as it looks small at first glance: its richness in flavor and presentation insists that you slowly savor each bite of its creamy texture so that, by the end, you feel you'd indulged in a top-tier dessert. The cream and the raspberries were so perfectly layered that I didn't want to rush anything. The dessert demands that you momentarily ignore your surroundings and/or company so that you can fully enjoy the dish placed before you.

🏠 The interior was busy on a Sunday night. I'd walked in as a party of one without a reservation and requested a nice quiet table, which they kindly accommodated in a cool, shaded area towards the back (it was sunny and the light poured in, especially against the table to my left). Almost all tables were occupied, and people filled the bar seating area as well, so you can imagine how full the place can get, especially considering it is only open for dinner. For solo diners, I might have lucked out and walked in right place, right time.

💁‍♀️ Service, as you can imagine, was busy, but I was regularly checked in on by a friendly server. It took what felt like long stretches of time between ordering and eating, but I was always served before my instinct to check the time ever kicked in. Also, the food was just too good and the server very friendly without being invasive, so I have absolutely no complaints.

🚻 I can confirm that there were two gender neutral bathrooms available which, for my non-binary and transgender friends, helps alleviate any binary bathroom anxiety 🏳️‍⚧️

✨️ Finally, I loved my dinner here. Bar Del Monte is a fantastic addition to the Mt Pleasant area of NW DC. I was so curious to try it and finally made my way in. Solo diners are treated equally well, as I can confirm by my visit. The food I tried is outstanding and am looking to visit again to try other...

I’ll preface this review by saying that I never, ever write reviews for anything. I was so let down by my experience at Bar Del Monte that I feel compelled to make this my inaugural review.

I’ll go through the 3 categories as listed by Google: Food, Service and Atmosphere.

Food: I found the food to be extremely mediocre. We had a pizza, lamb skewers, and charcuterie (more on that later). The pizza was fine, the prosciutto was good but isn’t prosciutto always good? Not much else I can say other than it was fine. The lamb skewers were TINY. So skinny. The meat was tough and clung to the wood skewers. It took considerable effort to separate the meat from the skewers. Not good. The bottle of wine we ordered was nice.

Service: Back to the charcuterie. We were surprised to find that it did not have cheese. After further research later on, we found that Italian charcuterie often does not have cheese. The more you know! We kindly asked our server about whether charcuterie normally comes with cheese, and he gave us a flat, terse No’ and walked away. It was just rude. He could have easily told us “it’s the Italian way” or really ANYTHING, but he was dismissive. My husband and I are always friendly to people who work in the industry. It was unwarranted. They also did not clear our plates and give us fresh ones after we had finished the skewers and charcuterie, before the pizza came out. At their considerable price point, fresh plates for the main course should be standard.

Atmosphere: The tables are jam packed together. You will hear the full conversation of those near you (even if you don’t want to or if you try to tune it out). My husband told me later that he spent the whole meal being very conscious of not moving around too much, because one of the people at the table behind us was so close to him. The restaurant does look nice and modern without feeling pretentious, I will say that.

Summary: I do respect that the restaurant is committed to paying their employees a fair wage, that’s a really great thing. I wanted to like this place! Bar Del Monte has great reviews from other diners, and maybe it was an off night, but dining out is expensive and there are so many other places that will treat you kindly and serve you incredible food. We...

Lost our name on list after waiting 90 minutes.

We came to Del Monte last night around 7 PM and were told the wait for a table for 2 would be about 40–50 minutes, which we completely understood. We ordered drinks and waited patiently on the back patio. After an hour and a half had gone by, my husband walked up to check on our table — only to notice two open tables inside. When he asked the host about our spot, she informed him that they had “lost our name in the system.”

I went up to the front as well, and the hostess — a young woman with long reddish-blonde hair — was very unapologetic and defensive. She shrugged and said it was a “human error” and that they were training new staff, as if that excused losing our place after 90 minutes. What made it worse was that she didn’t offer to seat us right away at one of the open tables, but instead offered to “add us back to the waiting list.” There were already multiple parties behind us by then, so we essentially would’ve had to start over.

We tried to remedy the situation offline by asking the hostess if the restaurant would get in touch with us to make this right, but instead of taking my information, she handed me the restaurant’s general email address. The whole experience felt dismissive and careless.

It’s a shame, because we’ve eaten here before and enjoyed the food, but after this experience, we won’t be back. Judging by other recent reviews mentioning similar seating issues, it seems like Del Monte is going downhill. Hopefully management addresses this, because right now the service and attitude are not up to par for a place with this...