Limani — Restaurant in Washington

Now I’ve encountered some terrible customer service at a restaurant but this restaurant took the cake. My friends and I booked a 5:30 reservation, they got there at 5:30. My friend informed one of the hosts that I’m not there and the host says “no problem please just go sit at the bar until all your party is here and once they are here let me know.” The policy is that all parties must be present before being seated. Due to parking difficulty and a car accident at the wharf garage I didn’t get there until 6:15. At this point I walked in and let them know that I’m really sorry and my friends have been here waiting but I was having difficulty parking which is the reason for my delay. The girl (a different girl than the original one my friend spoke to before) at the front let me know that our seat was released because it’s been over 15 min but then also said “give me a few minutes to see what I can do” I understood why our table was released so I took accountability for that and said okay thank you for your help. Now 45 minutes later my friends and I are sitting there and they have still not said anything to us. At this point, I go back up and ask the girl “is there any update on the tables?” And as she is looking, a man in a suit immediately comes and says “your table was released” and just dismisses me. I said back “I know it was released I was informed of this but this lady told me to wait a few minutes and I just wanted an update.” They ask me to wait once again and I continue waiting but again, no one is communicating anything to us as we wait, so I go back up and say “hey what’s going on? we have been sitting here for a while and no one is communicating anything to us. While I was sitting I also saw on Open Table that there is a 7:30 availability can we take that?” The manager says “no because we will charge your friend” and I say “ok I’m trying to make this reservation in my name” to which he says he still cannot make the reservation for us. At this point I was completely confused because they kept telling us to wait for empty reservations. I found one and now they’re saying I was unable to reserve at all, all while they kept telling me to keep waiting until someone cancelled! At one point they said that even if someone cancelled and we took their reservation they would still charge us but we can eat at the bar. Then the girl backtracks again and says even if we eat at the bar we will still be charged this cancellation fee. She then goes to say “she can try to refund the cancellation fee” then in the same sentence says to keep waiting for an open table. So now I’m completely confused and it’s now been almost 2 hours since I came. At this point it was 8 pm and there was so much back and forth without any attempt to help us. The manager (the man in the suit) is a terrible manager and completely dismissive. The staff is horrible at communication. I asked the girl if we should just leave and she still said “you can continue waiting for the next cancellation” and I was beyond exasperated at this point but still kept my cool and tried to understand what it is they wanted us to do. If they would have just let us know that we weren’t able to be seated we would have just left, but after having us wait for 2 hours they then decide (after I had to go up three times) to tell us they were going to charge us a cancellation fee regardless of whether we stayed or left but also insisted on us continuing to stay until a seat becomes available. They then completely disallowed me to make a new reservation. The customer service needs a lot of work and I will not be coming back. I tried to be as understanding as I could because I do understand that we missed our reservation due to my parking issues but I will never understand why they were unable to communicate with us as we sat and were going back and forth on things they...

Ooof. Normally I hate going into DC but this place looked AMAZING from the social media posts I had seen, but unfortunately it did not live up to our expectations. My husband and I came in for their brunch buffet around noon and the host told us there were no tables available. We didn't have a reservation (that's on us), but asked if we could just wait for one no matter the time and apparently that wasn't an option. She said we could sit at the bar though so we did because we came all that way to eat there. Honestly, we should've just gone somewhere else because it felt so weird eating at the bar. Our first bartender seemed pretty clueless when we asked for something simple, like if they served Bloody Mary's (which they did not) but he had no idea what that even was so we settled for mimosas which was supposed to be bottomless. They only provided us with refills of champagne and no juice so what once was initially a mimosa became just champagne mid-meal until the end. When we began eating we were confused because the brunch menu posted online was completely different than what was actually offered, it felt like a bait and switch. For example there were no lamb chops, which was one of the offerings we were looking forward to. We were also expecting a carving station which they did not have on the first floor. This place has multiple levels but no one informed us that there was a difference in the food selection. Out of curiosity, we went upstairs ourselves and found the carving station upstairs along with several other items that were not offered on the first floor. It was also just stairs to go up and down so anything we wanted upstairs we had to carry down the stairs and through the restaurant which was inconvenient. We ended up there until 2:30 (which is the last seating time) and there were plenty of empty tables which was super disappointing. If I didn't know any better, it felt like they were sending couples to the bar and just prioritizing the groups of people. Unless it was just a coincidence, there were several other couples at the bar as well and everyone else that came in looked like they could be seated at a table. Besides one decent bartender, the service was really awful. The vibe from the staff felt like we were inconveniencing them. They also have a built in gratuity of 20% so it felt like they just wanted to do the bare minimum and still receive their tips.

The ambiance was also really loud and obnoxious. Not blaming that on the restaurant though, because it was some of the groups of guests that were yelling. This just added to the already bad experience. I had a hard time speaking to my husband who was sitting right next to me.

Anyways, it was a really disappointing experience and we would not come back. Honestly, we would've been happier hitting up a fast food place than coming here.

Also, another random tip that does not factor into my review is that parking garage for less than 4 hours was 29 dollars, which is crazyyy. The most annoying part was when we got to the exit and the gate lifted without scanning our ticket. Is it free parking on Sundays? There wasn't any signage shown so we ended up paying for nothing. If you do decide to come here, maybe check if it's free on Sundays/the weekend...

Absolutely beautiful venue and incredible food. But if Limani DC wants to be a “high end” restaurant that it deserves, they need to reconsider their management team, and especially their Events team.

My husband and I chose Limani DC as our Wedding venue in May 2025. We loved the location, the beautiful terrace overlooking the water, and the delicious food. But our experience throughout the whole planning process, and ESPECIALLY on the day of our wedding was terrible. I wish I’d chosen a different venue.

I first reached out to Limani DC in ~November 2024 (6 months before the wedding). Kat (one of the Limani DC Events managers) was our primary point of contact from the start. Super nice girl, but honestly just not good at her job. It was impossible to reach her sometimes; she wouldn’t respond to emails unless I emailed 2 or even 3 times, she would make promises to do 'XYZ' that she couldn’t keep. Our wedding floor plan was not finalized until HOURS before the event when she TEXTED me asking if I was ok with booths instead of tables (and the floor plan was still wrong when we showed up). Just so disorganized throughout the process.

The day of the wedding was even worse. Kat was there but so was another events manager Fernando. We had never met or spoken to Fernando before, and it was clear he didn’t know any of the details of our event. The venue was 15-20 mins late in setting up our Dinner room and held our guests in the lobby. When we brought these concerns up to Kat and Fernando, they argued back instead of acknowledging we were right. Fernando also argued with me that our open bar ended at 10:30 PM instead of 11 PM, and he brought the contract to “prove” his point - but it was explicitly clear that he just didn’t read the contract (I literally flipped the page and pointed to the line that said our open bar went until 11 PM). Fernando was rude, accusatory, and kept pulling us away from our guests that night so that he could argue with us. I’m shocked he has the job position he does, with how he treated us.

The only saving grace throughout the whole night was the chef Carlos. Carlos was fantastic. As already mentioned, the food was incredible. And Carlos stuck around the whole night as our advocate, as we were dealing with Kat and Fernando. He witnessed the way we were treated and backed us up. The bartenders and other staff were also fantastic - I was truly impressed with their service.

At the end of the day, Limani DC did provide us with several concessions because we spoke up and complained about the treatment we got that night. They extended our open bar that night for longer than we paid for. They comp-ed us for several food and drink items. But it still doesn’t really excuse ruining our big day. The next day, we tried to contact Michael, the General Manager of Limani DC but could not reach him. We also emailed him asking him to call us, but never heard back. Maybe after leaving this review, we’ll finally hear back from them.

Limani DC has the potential to be such an incredible event space. It’s still a great place to have a nice meal, but I would caution anyone (especially any future bride) against hosting a major event here. It’s...