Surfing for somewhere different for a pre-theatre meal for my wife's birthday last weekend I came across Marcel's on Pennsylvania - they offer limousine service to and from the Kennedy Center to their pre-theatre patrons.

Not having heard of Marcel's in the 10 years I've been living in DC, I was a bit concerned but a web search turned up a couple of postive reviews and decided to give it a shot and made reservations for Sunday at 5:30 for a 7:00 show at the Kennedy Center.

As luck would have it, we had a fair amount of snow for DC on Sunday somewhere around 4". DC was beautiful with a dusting of snow and the short drive to Marcel's was a good start to the evening. We arrived at Marcel's and the valet came for the car. One slight difference - Marcel's advertises free valet parking and the limousine trip on the web and in the restaurant - the valet asked for $5 for parking. I reminded him that it should be free and he gave me an explanation I couldn't understand, so I handed him the fiver and went on to dinner.

Marcel's bills themselves as "French with a Flemish flair" and the decor was elegantly rustic with stone walls and warm furnishings. After taking our quotes we where shown to our table in the main dining room - a medium sized room with maybe 15-20 tables, with only one other table occupied. If DC didn't shut down during snow events and it being a fairly early dinner hour and a Sunday i would have been a bit concerned.

After a quick perusal of the pre-theatre menu we asked our waiter if we would have time to order from the menu and still make our curtain call and received assurance that we would have plenty of time and if we chose anything that might take to long he'd let us know.

The pre-theatre menu is a bit limited, a price fixed ($42) three course meal with two entree choices that evening being roasted chicken and salmon. One nice touch is the option to have dessert after returning from the theatre.

The restaurant treated us to a very nice duck liver terrine before our first courses, very rich and slightly smoky it was delicous.

My wife decided on the Alaskan Spot Prawns to start, I picked the Boudin Blanc. Prawns was a bit of an exageration as it was one very large prawn served over a bed of toasted cous cous and artichokes. While I didn't sample it, my wife was very happy with the selection as the prawn was cooked perfectly and the cous cous was a nice counterpoint. The boudin blanc was simply perfect, a richly truffled sausage served over carmelized onions with bacon.

Main course choices were the strip steak and the osso buco. My wife's steak was perfectly delivered medium rare and the my osso buco was melt in your mouth tenderwith a rich beef demi glace on puree of garlic potato and roasted winter vegetables afloat in the sauce.

I'd put the steak up against any of the DC steakhouse offerings (of course not the massive slabs served by a true steak house but a well portioned serving none the less.) The osso buco was as good, maybe not as good as the osso buco at Cashion's or my own, but better than most.

Next time I'll probably go for the venison or duck breast.

We shared a cheese plate consisting of healthy portions of camembert and two soft cheeses. All very fresh and no hint of amonia on the camembert.

We had the Jaques Selosse Rose champagne - very nice, could've been a bit more chilled.

Service was warm and attentive fitting in well with the elegant and rustic setting. Live music began around 6:00 pm, jazz piano in the adjacent wine bar.

Since Jean Louie's Paladin has been shuttered this will be my first choice for pre-theatre dining and I'm looking forward to going back to sample the five course tasting menu when we have time to enjoy a full evening of dining.

Hours:
Sunday 5:30pm - 9:30pm
Mon-Thur 5:30pm - 10:00pm
Fri-Sat 5:30pm - 11:00pm

Address:
2401 Pennslyvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20037

Phone: 202.296-1166
Smoking in bar area only.

Cheers,
Jeff

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"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." .... HST

The chef is Robert Wiedmaier, who made a decent name for himself at the Watergate (now Swiss) hotel upstairs dining room(I think it was called the Aqua????) after Jean Louie left the basement restaurant. I had two meals there, and was surprised and pleased that they were very French in style.

He did not stay long, but noone else did either, as I recall. I do not think that Swiss has a destination Diningroom there.

Thanks for the headsup, FreakwentFlier. We go to the Kennedy Center frequently when in DC and its always good to have another restaurant to try.
As far as returning for dessert, we really like that feature when it's available and always try to arrange to do it. Generally it's offered when the restaurant is in short walking distance of the theaters, but this is not such a long walk, and there is always the limo.

Upon rereading the review, the best part is the restaurant location and the limo service.

One should be able to street park around there, and avoid the Kennedy center parking hassle.

We did try Marcel's this evening before going to the Kennedy Center. We walked over the two or so blocks from the Park Hyatt and our 6PM reservation was honored with what we considered to be an excellent corner table at the front near the window. We were immediately informed about the workings of the limo service, and told that it would be available to take us over at about 730 for the 8PM show. As was FreakwentFlier, we were each served as an amuse-bouche a tiny tureen of highly flavored portobello mushroom flan with duck glazing.

Since both of the main courses on the pre-theater prix-fixe appealed to us, we ordered one of each. I went for the roasted salmon with coriander, mashed potatoes and stringbeans, while Francine ordered the pork tenderloin on wild mushroom risotto.

The choices for the first course were a butternut squash soup (I think served in a bread bowl) or a mesclun salad with stilton, walnuts, and pears. We both opted for the salad and were extremely surprised to taste one of the most outstanding of its kind. It was so lightly dressed that in this day of dressing overkill, it seemed dry to the taste, but the faint aroma of dressing combined with a wonderful selection of greens and flowers along with the other ingredients, produced a truly unusual and memorable plate. We mentioned to the waiter that the dry salad was very much to our taste, and he replied "would you believe that some people ask for more dressing on that salad, and whatever, we give it to them."

I found the markups on the wine list to be a bit heftier than I expected, for in New York a restaurant like this (we figured it for a first-rate neighborhood French) would probably hold a more moderate line because of the competition. Although there were some very fine bottles, I could not get excited about the list because I could find no real French (I did not look at the domestics) bargains and settled for a $60 Pouilly-Fuisse, highly priced but a good example of its kind.

The main dishes were extremely well done. It is not common to get served a pork dish that is actually on the rare side, but these slices were such, perfectly brown at the edges and close to red in the middle. The tender and juicy meat made a beautiful combination with the risotto, which was studded with large pieces of at least three kinds of mushrooms. It was a super wintertime dish.

I had not had a piece of fish roasted as this salmon was for quite a while. It was crusty on the outside, the skin being perfectly crunchy, and the inside was a translucent pink, melting in the mouth, surrounded by a bit of a velvety citrus flavored sauce. At this point, our estimation of the restaurant, which had already been rather high, moved even higher, for fish cooked as this is seldom found, except from the finest kitchens (mostly French) that are deeply experienced in fish preparation (see such as NY's Le Bernardin).

Since we would need to go to work in VA the next day and had plenty of time, we decided to take the dessert then and there instead of coming back after the show (which is certainly what we would have done on a weekend evening). The piano music at the bar, which had started about at 7, would have provided a very nice closing touch to a longer night out. The dessert on the prix-fixe pre theater were a choice of a creme brulee and as we found, an unusual lemon cake with a thick dark chocolate icing, floating in a lemon sauce and accompanied by a ball of chocolate-port wine sorbet. Both ordered the lemon cake which proved to be not only unusual, but unusually excellent. The pressed coffee had a decent flavor even though it could have and should have been considerably stronger. During dessert, I accidentally tipped a wine glass and as it fell and spilled the last of its contents on the stone floor, I luckily managed to catch it on its way down and save the glass. The sommelier, whom I had not spoken to nor consulted about the wine list (my bad), happened to observe my circus catch, and came right over to offer us a complimentary drink, saying that my saving his crystal as I had was certainly worthy of a refill. By then, I had realized that we would be returning to this restaurant and asked him for a rain check, which was fine with him.

As we dined, and as the waiter claimed that this was "one of the top five restaurants in DC," we realized that this kitchen and service made this more than just a neighborhood French, and while it was very good to excellent, and certainly better than the acclaimed Melrose down the street at the Park Hyatt, we would not have thought that it truly was in the top five, but then again, possibly it is so.

The limousine ride to the theatre was handled extremely well (in a brand new Cadillac), and the driver informed us that all we had to do was call about five to ten minutes before we needed him and he would get us where he dropped us. We called, he came on the dot, and took us to the door of the hotel when we mentioned that we were not stopping back in the restaurant. Altogether an extremely satisfactory pre-Valentine's Day evening.




[This message has been edited by monitor (edited 02-13-2003).]

Marcel's is having a burgandy wine dinner on March 13. $95, inclusive, which is a real deal for Wash DC. Marcel's is in the top 10 Zagat rated DC restaurants.

Went to Burgundy Night last night.

4 courses(seabass, squab, venison(NZ) & desert) with 3 burgundy and a loire for desert. Delightful petit fours(sp) after.

Wiedmaier certainly can cook. The food matches anything in DC and seems to me to compare to 2* of Paris.

I thought the ambiance and the staff attitude was horrible. The noise level is close to a NYC singles bar. The place is all tile and plaster.

The 7:30 start seated at 7:45, and bread and water arrived at 8:00. The chair seats are starting to wear, the centers have sunk, and they are not particularly confortable.

The 7:25-45 stand at the bar was very uncomfortable. Smoking, including cigars are allowed. No seats available, and a constant push for us to buy a drink.

After the dinner, coffee was offered, and a big push for us to go out to the bar and buy a few after dinner drinks.

The coffee was not included in the price of the dinner.