Johnna’s Pick of the Week: Marcel’s (D.C.)

Exquisite. That would be the best way to describe the experience we had when we visited Marcel’s in the District. The past couple of weeks we have been on a quite expensive diet that includes the likes of Equinox and now Marcel’s as the restaurant of choice. It has been well worth it, however, with dishes that make you want to scrap the bowl even though you know you can’t in such a prestige setting. Marcel’s, named after the owners oldest son, has been in business about 10 years now and seems to be holding strong as one of the Districts top Belgian influenced restaurants.

The service was precise and extremely attentive to the customer needs (*and trust us, we definitely had some needs after the day we had…wine, please!:-) The food matched, if not surpassed the service, with our favorites being the Belgian style crab cakes, the prawn risotto and the sample cheese course (*Menu is subject to change, Chef Wiedmaier does a good job at keeping things fresh and new for patrons so the menu changes frequently). As you know, JKGF is not a sommelier so we cannot certify the wine selection as golden, but we can say the Bordeaux wine we sipped was crisp and light (*just what we needed).

We realize we are taking on a habit that can be really expensive, but Marcel’s is going to be our spot when we’re looking for that special occasion. It offers better cuisine, unfortunately, than its brother restaurant Brasserie Beck (*the owners youngest son is named Beck…and fyi, though Brasserie Beck’s food is not comparable to Marcel’s, the service here is excellent too!). Again, we put the disclaimer out there that you may not have the same experience we had based on various factors i.e. different server, head chef out sick/vacation, etc., but if you ask for Johnathan as your server when you make your reservation, we’re sure you won’t be disappointed.

Picture source: http://www.citypeek.com/washington-dc/restaurant/marcels