Darvish Kitchen — Restaurant in Washington

I’ve spent 15 years in hospitality industry and as a result of that circumstance i am a very patient and understanding customer. What we have experienced at Darvish was beyond any sympathy and i would strongly recommend that you wait a year or so until they get their operations in order before attending. We came in at 8:20 for an 8:30 reservation. We were greeted by a large unorganized group of people by what appeared to be a host stand. Different frazzled person would appear at said host stand periodically and frantically approach folks to ask how many people are in their party. Immediately after they would run off into the wild without any follow up or further action. 20 min later, we finally got seated on the 3rd floor along with other large parties. Alarmingly not one of the 7 seated tables had food or anything other than water on their table. Support staff came by to drop off bread and accompaniments as we proceeded to wait for another 20 min until our waitress arrived to “see if we need help”. We placed an order for 5 non alcoholic beverages and 3 very simple appetizers with prep time of under 5 minutes .. for the next 30 min we watched our waitress rock back and forth with her hands behind her back while observing the dining room full of unattended guests. We waived her down to place the order for entrees and inquired about our beverages which at this point have taken 45 min to arrive. She just said the bar is busy and they are coming any second. We asked her if the entrees came with rice and she looked at us as if we asked her to name the elements from the periodic table in the order that they appear. She just said “I’m not sure”.. end of sentence. Not “hey I’m not sure but let me find out, or I’ll send some out anyway since you guys been waiting” - nada. One hour into us being seated and 3 conversations with a manager, they finally bring 2 out of 5 drinks and place them in front of the wrong people with great pride. I assumed that the other 3 were following behind but no such thing was happening. Finally after ONE HOUR AND 46 min we got up and left. At which point it was way past 10 and we didn’t have many options for dinner. The managers and the staff saw us leave and not one person stopped us to apologize or attempt any service recovery of any sort. While i am fully aware that they are new and some things take time to iron out, this was wildly unacceptable. The restaurant is separated in 3 floors and they didn’t have to seat all of them knowing that they don’t have enough staff or the overall capacity to service everyone within a reasonable amount of time. Holding the door in order to catch up with service is a very standard practice which i believe that they are unaware of. All in all i would not recommend this place on a busy weekend or any other day, until their staff is trained and they get their customer...

I made a reservation here for my birthday. I was very excited to visit the restaurant as I’ve seen numerous social media posts recommending this restaurant for its food and ambiance.

When we got to the restaurant, we were seated promptly. I was very impressed with the decor. Despite there being empty tables both on the first and second floor, we were seated close to the door, where it was quite cold. In particular, my elderly grandmother who is extremely sensitive to the cold continued wearing her jacket because of how cold it was. I wanted her to feel comfortable and politely explained the situation to our waiter and asked him if we could be seated somewhere else. I even mentioned that I understood that it might not be a possibility. Rather than politely declining, the waiter laughed in my face and told me no and walked off.

Throughout our entire visit, the service was attentive but we felt rushed and our waiter hovered a lot. Within five minutes of sitting down, we were asked to order. I explained that we were waiting on someone else and within 2-3 minutes of them arriving (they arrived 2-3 minutes after we were initially asked) we were asked again to order. I had to tell the waiter that we needed about five more minutes to look at the menu.

The prices were fairly similar to other Persian restaurants I’ve been to. This is with the exception of having to pay an additional $7 for rice, so please keep that in mind if you plan to visit.

Our food arrived quickly and everyone seemed to enjoy the food. Personally, I felt that most of the food was a bland and underwhelming. I liked the Ghormeh Sabzi, but the kabobs and rice were standard.

Once we finished eating, our food was quickly cleared out and we were asked if we wanted dessert. We politely declined. Immediately after, someone came and wiped down our table, which we found odd as that’s typically done after a party leaves.

During this time, we were promptly given the check and after paying, we continued talking for about 5-7 minutes before we were rudely interrupted by our waiter. Before interrupting us, as he was walking to our table, he made eye contact with me and gestured that we needed to leave. When he was at our table he told us that we had to go. We all were shocked that we were kicked out of the restaurant and quickly put our coats on to leave. We were not there for a long time at all— our visit in total was about an hour and 15 minutes.

Overall, our experience was one of the worst experiences I have had at a restaurant. This is mainly due to the service. I do not plan on returning and would not...

I was in town for the labor day weekend to see close friends and attend some events. My friends and I wanted to try this new restaurant that had been trending on social media. (For context, my friends and I are all Persian and have acquired a sense for what is quality Persian food through our upbringings). We came to Darvish with high expectations given the buzz on the street. It is with a sense of disappointment to say that the restaurant unfortunately did not meet our expectations. I will start with the positives because I always like to support my fellow Persian community members as much as I can: for starters, the wait staff were exceptionally kind, accommodating and with a sense of humor that was very welcoming and quickly reminded us of the Persian hospitality we’re familiar with. Our waitress particularly thoughtfully modified one of our orders upon request, without hesitation, and was warm and inviting. 5/5 experience with the staff! Second, the table layout was very desirable on the second floor. We were a party of 5 and we were seated at a sizable round table which made it very easy for us to socialize and have a great time, and plenty of room for our food placement. I also will say the Noon Khame-e we ordered for desert was good as well. Now onto the not so good aspects: for starters, the decoration and take on “Persian decor” and ambiance was very off. I understand that the theme was Darvish /Suffi, but we did not get that vibe, as everything seemed very Victorian European. This has no ancient resemblance to Iran’s culture or Sufism. The paintings on the walls also seemed to be AI generated and had no Persian roots. Although I do appreciate the effort, it was not a resemblance of Persian history or culture. As for food, we ordered kabab barg, koobideh, Jujeh and kabab Torsh. Unfortunately, everything was very average. The koobideh was very dry, as well as the Jujeh and taste wasn’t upper echelon either. Tomatoes which are served with kabob were undercooked, and the rice portions were extremely small, cold and lacking saffron taste. Finally, the price which came out to about $500 for 5, was extremely high and incomparable to other Persian restaurants with much higher quality. As a supporter of Persian establishments, I was very much looking forward to a 5/5 experience, but unfortunately not this time. I look forward to changes/updates in the future and am open to visiting again for an...