La Bergerie

This restaurant’s been around for decades, and it continues to please and charm. The food’s fantastic, and the service is European style (i.e. waiters and busboys who stay within eyesight, observing and ready to help, rather than interrupting conversations with «Can I get you anything else?» or «Do you have everything you need?»; the same staff clearing each course after it’s done, rather than eagerly snatching empty plates while people are still eating).
One suggestion for owners and management — please curtail the tableside preparation of Caesar salad. The theatrics are right out of the 1960s and 1970s, and they’re now passé and silly. I don’t know of any other restaurant that still does this. This practice cheapens your otherwise-​elegant establishment.

This was one of my favorite French restaurants in town. Just went for Easter Sunday brunch and was disappointed. The mimosas we overpriced and were not even made with a high grade champagne. The escargot were swimming in greasy butter and overcooked. Service was not the greatest, the waiter just gave us attitude… mr if you did not wanted to work today you should have taken the day off, you did even even deserve the 15% tip we gave you.

Loved my experience here. I was traveling on business and dining alone. It was a Monday night, and there were only two tables sat (myself and one other two-​top). I was immediately tended to, and received delicious bread. While I waited for my beverage, I marveled at the fine décor. What a romantic place this would be! I ordered the French Onion soup, and it had real gruyère on top, not the white cheddar we Americans have become accustomed to. I then received my elk, which will seriously become my death row meal (should that be necessary). It paired beautifully with the Trefethan Cabernet. As a side, I ordered the mushrooms, which, sadly, were not good. However, the ambiance made up for it. Romantic, poinsettias everywhere (Christmas time), heavy drapes, dark wood. I honestly forgot I was in DC, and for a moment thought I was back in France!

The white tablecloth, mise en place French restaurant is a dying breed among dining experiences in the States; thankfully, La Bergerie is happy to indulge any and every Old World style culinary fancy.
La Bergerie is a restaurant – not a happy hour meeting place with light noshes. The restaurant does not feature a bar; cocktails are crafted by the server or manager. This has resulted in an inconsistent drink between mixers, and the limited liquor shelf may be a disappointment to some. The wine list impresses, though bottles are fairly expensive [not so noticeably above par with local competition, and the mean quality of the wine is better]. The restaurant prints a ‘discount wine’ page at the beginning of the book, though we missed out on an interesting bottle that sold out while on special.
The menu encourages a coursed dining experience. La Bergerie hosts several choices for the number of courses, though naturally it is suggested that the table shares the same number of courses. Each prix fixe menu features a seafood and vegetarian option. Our courses were delightful and hearkened to Parisian travels – good food prepared well, perhaps relying on classic preparations and presentations than experimental recipes or original platings. Lobster, sautéed in cognac and butter is prepared at the table, and deserts arrive via cart with tableside fixing.
La Bergerie earns a return visit – the service was congenial, the food pleasant, and the experience delightful.

Superb, Food was excellent. The escargots were to die for. Presentation excellent as well.
Coming back soon!

La Bergerie feels like an old school 1960’s French restaurant.
A friend and I went last night and were saddened by the lack of execution of our meal.
My friend ordered the lobster risotto and the rice was under-​cooked. I’m not a fan of crunchy rice, but if one is, then I recommend this dish.
I ordered the duo of squab, the waitress asked if I wanted it medium and I replied whatever the chef recommends. What I received was two rare pieces of meat that were not rested so when I cut the bird blood came out. Not exactly appetizing
I actually didn’t finish my food which never happens.
Meal Highlight: Sweet Potato Soup with Chutney, this was the soup of the night and really light and flavorful. Would go back for soup.
The servers were very nice and tried really hard to create an experience. Unfortunately, the meal wasn’t on par with the servers.

I’ve been here before about 4 years ago or so and the restaurant had mostly French or what I thought were French people serving food. I also had much better food. Now, I don’t know what happened but they mist have changed managers. It’s just not the same. C’est la vie… :(

Wonderful food and perfect service. Very quaint environment and perfect for a date night.

This my wife and I’s favorite place for a nice evening out. We have been going here for years and the food, service, and atmosphere are consistently exceptional. This is a wonderful place to enjoy a quiet meal, with professional staff, and food that tastes absolutely amazing.

Went as part of Alexandria restaurant week. The food was good; however, the service was very inattentive and rude. Perhaps, that was part of the French experience.

General: The staff were very friendly. Our server was knowledgeable with the menu list. The place is small and quaint. They have good selection of wines.
Appetizer: I had Escargots. It has 6 snails with garlic and parsley butter. It was presented very nicely. The snail is already out of the shell. It is very garlic-​y which I think is the preferred way to cook it. We also had the smoked salmon crêpe with seaweed salad. At first, I was thinking of a crêpe that is flat but this one is more like a wrap. The seaweed salad was a very good addition to the smoked salmon.
Entrée: Royal Sea Bass with wild rice and red bell pepper coulis was astonishing. The skin was perfectly crispy. It has the right amount of saltiness and the meat itself was cooked right. The red bell pepper coulis was a nice touch. We also had the duck leg confit with purple potato purée and rosemary sauce. The purple potato purée was a good mix with the duck leg confit. The duck leg confit was really salty. I think lowering it down will be good. The rosemary sauce is actually better with the royal sea bass.
Dessert: We had the traditional crème brulee and profiteroles and they were both good! It was a good way to finish our course.

My husband and I dined there last week it was an amazing experience. The Cesar salad was the best we have had in a long time! From start to finish everything was incredible! The executive chef Adrian even came to visit our table! Wow! Couldn’t have wished for a better evening!

Underrated! Very classically prepared French Cuisine. The escargot was perfectly prepared and the French bread was fresh and just waiting for all that delicious garlic! The sea bass was fresh. The hazelnut soufflé was amazing and one of the best I have had. Can’t skip the staff… the waiters are old school with a wonderful knowledge of the menu and willing to go that extra step.

In a word: disappointing.
My wife’s absolute favorite food in the world is chocolate soufflé, and upon moving to this area she did her research and found that La Bergerie serves this dessert… so we thought. I made us reservations three weeks before our Valentine’s dinner was to be had, and at that time I was told that the dessert is available. The day of our meal, I check the website again and it was listed under their dessert menu. Upon arriving, chocolate soufflé was nowhere to be found.
Fancy restaurants always seem to want to keep their menu updated online with their catch of the day or soups of the week, but chocolate soufflé is pretty much a staple dessert and not exactly something that goes in and out of style. The menu we got at the table was about 4 pages, and a large font. They don’t exactly serve many options here, so it should not be so hard to keep an updated menu. We arrived for one thing only, did not get it as promised, and ended up staying for an overpriced and underwhelming meal.
They may have awards for wine selection, but in this day and age if you cannot keep an updated menu on your website then you’re going to continue to have struggles. The staff made us feel largely out of place and our waiter hovered as my wife and I wanted to have a nice Valentine’s dinner. Per course, she was asked no less than 3 times if she was finished when there was food on her plate. Trust me, the portions weren’t enough to fill anyone up, so we had to eat every last crumb on the plate.
Disappointing. So disappointing.

Good food but dessert is ok.

Was starving tonight and not in the mood to cook dinner. Since it’s Restaurant Week I decided to take this opportunity to try out some different restaurants that I normally wouldn’t go to. I chose this restaurant because I also saw kamapachi on the menu online and figured if I didn’t like the Restaurant Week pre-​fixe I could always order that. It wasn’t on the menu, but the Restaurant Week pre-​fixe looked good so I decided to go with that.
The décor is incredibly dated. But even worse than the décor was the fact that the service was bad. I was sitting there for over 5 minutes before someone even came over to greet me. It took nearly 10 to get bread and water. And I was sitting there trying to flag down my waitress and never got her attention. By the time another server noticed me waiting, I had been sitting there for over 20 minutes and was on the verge of leaving.
The other server took my order so I figured I will give the place and chance and hoped that the food would amaze me. It didn’t. I ordered the escargot, the braised short ribs and the vanilla crème brûlée. The escargot and braised short ribs were lukewarm. Escargot, in my experience, is usually served sizzling hot, or at least hot. I requested a refill of bread to sop up the escargot butter with. While the first basket of bread was good (or maybe it was because I was starving), the second basket was stale. I didn’t finish the bread or the cold escargot butter when I normally would of wiped that dish down clean.
The braised short ribs, while decent, were also not as good as it could of been had it been served hot. The meat almost fell apart with the touch of my knife and fork. Almost. The truffle purée was delicious, though again, would of been better had it been hot.
I love crème brûlée. However, I barely ate a fourth of it. While my appetizer and entrée were lukewarm, my brulee was cold! Not even the top crust was warm.
The best part about my meal was probably the glass of Bordeaux that I ordered and that really had nothing to do with the staff or the kitchen, but more on the sommeiler’s choice and my ability to choose a decent wine.
The server that stepped in to help me wasn’t very friendly. My waitress, while friendly and cheery never even apologized for ignoring me more than half my time at the restaurant, and when the hostess asked how my meal was and I gave a tight-​lipped grimace and said «it was alright», followed by a polite, «my waitress seemed to be very busy tonight», answered with the excuse of, «well its Restaurant Week and a Friday night.» No apology, no thank you for dining with us.
Normally I am pretty forgiving, I understand what it’s like, having waited tables for 10 years. However, what makes or breaks it for me is how the staff reacts and treats their customers. I could forgive lukewarm food, I can’t forgive poor service. At one point, I actually tweeted that I felt invisible because I went completely ignored by the entire staff for so long.
Did I mention that I was dining alone? If there is any table that can be taken care of relatively quickly, its a one-​top. I would always make sure to take care of my one-​tops before taking care of my larger parties, especially since larger parties have themselves to talk to. A single person is just sitting there alone, starting out and watching everyone else.
Even the manager seemed oblivious to the fact that their one-​top was being ignored and also never bothered to say thank you or good night when I was leaving.
Never going back there again.

My review is for Alexandria’s Restaurant Week
Located inside a building with other stores.
About 5 min walk away from the water area in Alexandria.
The restaurant looks so fancy inside but also cheap. I think what makes it look a little cheaper is the blow up wine bottles (I’m not completely sure if it’s blow up bottles but that’s what I thought it was from a quick glance).
The service was just okay, almost a little rude (I don’t know what it was but the servers gave of some unpleasant vibe).
Most of the dishes were NOT memorable.
I remember thinking not to get the fish next time. It was just mediocre. I ordered the pork dish and I think we all agreed that it was the best dish. The beet and lentil salad was good. The beet and lentil salad and the pork dish is probably what I would recommend.
The raspberry soufflé tasted like marshmallow and something else. It was not good. The crème brûlée was better.
The one word I would use to describe this place is pretentious

My husband took me here last night for a date. We decided to try this place during the DC Restaurant week because normally its a bit expensive (our bill was over $ 120 with the discounted meal).
First thoughts:
We thought we might be late due to traffic (duh its DC) and we called to let them know before showing up to no table. They were accommodating and held our table for about 15min. We walked in and went right to our table.
Ambience:
I first walked into the building and the signs led me right to the actual restaurant. Easy to find if you are actually looking for the place. The décor was very «vintage» and I loved it. It is small and romantic, I liked that the lights were dim but it wasn’t oddly dark.
Attire:
I wore a fitted black lace dress with black heels and a wrap. My husband wore a black pant and jacket set with a button up. We noticed a few people came in with a more casual look… not exactly the type of place where you can throw on jeans and a T-​shirt and be okay but you don’t need to go crazy.
Food:
APPETIZERS:
He got –Snails with garlic and parsley butter.
I got-​Frog legs lightly battered and fried in tempura with homemade teriyaki sauce.
ENTREES:
I got-​Black Angus Tenderloin with Seared Foie Gras served with Baby Vegetables and Potato Puffs.
He got-​Duck risotto.
DESSERT:
He got-​Puff pastry with vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate sauce
I got– A hazelnut soufflés.
Only negative I have is that the table next to us had a odd couple that kept looking at my husband and myself. They were too close to us and it really made talking about anything intimate with my husband impossible. Maybe take one or two of the tables out so people aren’t on top of each other?

It’s crazy that La Bergerie has been around for 30 years, garnering its business through word of mouth, local advertising, and its wine club. We’ve known about La Bergerie since the same owners opened the more casual Del Ray Café, but never quite knew where it was. Turns out it was next door to someplace we’ve gone to for years, and we never noticed.
I subscribe to Del Ray Café’s newsletter, and therefore get La Bergerie’s. I’ve been meaning to get their Monday lobster special (whole, flambéed in Cognac) for over a year now, but had also been eyeing the notices re: their special wine guest dinners they regularly hold. Unfortunately, the boy detests lamb, blue cheese, and goat cheese, which has been on every single of these set menus — until this week.
We attended the Tablas Creek (of Paso Robles, CA, secretly organic — score!) special wine dinner with a 6-​course set meal with wine tasting pairings, all for $ 78. Canapés and a rosé for the first half hour in the building’s atrium (Spanish chorizo and manchego toasts, nearly 100% crab balls in crispy panko, & smoked salmon and basil roll-​ups on spoons).
Then we were lead into the private room for dinner. We were seated at shared tables, banquet style, with the general manager presenting the story of the vineyard and their wines. Each course, he or a distributor sat with a different table to chit-​chat. It seemed that many people knew each other, were part of the wine club, or even the Tablas Creek wine club — and that’s how they learned of the dinner. I was pretty much the lone person who found out about it because I wanted to eat at the restaurant. A bit like crashing a wedding, but otherwise fun if you’re in a more social mood.
First course was a rather large fried softshell blue crab, stuffed with an enoki mushroom mixture that mimicked the texture and sweetness of the crabmeat. Sauce on the plate consisted of pickled shallot, caper, and another kind of mushroom. Really fresh, sweet meat — the beginning of softshell crab season. Paired with a tasting of a heavily-​viognier-​based wine.
Second course was something I’ve wanted to try for a while — another East Coast speciality, shad roe. I’d only had it once before (deep-​fried, overcooked). La Bergerie’s, however, was sauteed medium-​rare, with an olive vinaigrette sauce and red peppers. It was fun to finally try, but not something I’d go out of my way to order again. It was reminiscent of the ocean and quite mineral-​y. Paired with a tasting of another white wine.
Third course was roast squab, one of my new favorite things. Quail has nothing on it. Medium-​rare, over fennel purée, with a tender-​crip carrot and a super-​tasty demi-​glacé sauce. I was hoping for the advertised panisses, but in the end didn’t need another fried item. I’d just never tried fried chickpea flour sticks before :). Served with a tasting of a blended red wine that was mostly grenache and syrah.
Fourth course was the best yet. The French distributor guy sat with us this course, and after one bite, he let out an unmistakeable sigh and whispered to himself, «oh wow.» Braised Creekstone Farms beef cheek with green olives and citrus, in another demi-​glacé-​based sauce with licorice-​infused celery purée and broccoli rabe. Served with a really excellent $ 67 bottle of red wine. The purée was a little on the too-​sweet side for me, but other than that, the rest of the meal was just perfect. Bravo to the chef.
Oh, and dessert consisted of miniatures (we received the coffee-​chocolate Napoleon, cream puff complete with mini swan head, and lemon meringue tart) and coffee.
The main dining room had that classic «old Washington» vibe to it, like a favorite steakhouse or French restaurant by Congressmen on the Hill or something. We will definitely be back — maybe we’ll go through the communal table-​style dinner again if the planned menu looks as amazing as this one was. The regular menu, except for the Thursday date night specials, seem less inventive and less based on what is in season right now. However, they do have tasting dinners that are similar to the type of food served at the wine dinners.
Yes, we will DEFINITELY be back. Maybe sooner than later, for that $ 24 lobster special, also available at lunch (including on Saturdays).

A gem in Old Town. Overall, a very nice experience. La Bergerie is a small, charming, romantic french restaurant.
My husband and I came here for dinner armed with a Google offer (30% off food) a few weeks ago and had a lovely time. La Bergerie offers several prix-​fixe menus, and because we liked menu dishes off a few of them, we decided to mix and match al a carte. I got the shrimp and avocado purée appetizer and the pheasant breast stuffed with ox tail and foie gras. The pheasant was a bit dry, but the ox tail/​foie gras mixture that filled the pheasant more than made up for it. My husband got the soft shell crab and the black Angus beef Tenderloin with potatoes 2 ways. The soft shell crab was awesome. We eat soft shell crabs a lot when they are in season but sometimes they just aren’t cooked right or are overly fishy, but this one was neither. Perfectly crispy and just delicious. His beef was cooked perfectly. For dessert we split the raspberry souflee, which was excellent.
The crowd does skew a bit older. You definitely don’t find many 20– to 30-​somethings here.
On this particular visit, service was ok. This was our second time eating here, and I remember the service being better last time. It wasn’t bad, but there were just long stretches where our waiter didn’t stop by our table. He was pretty busy though — the dining room was fairly crowded and they didn’t seem to have a ton of waiters. On the plus side, we weren’t rushed, which was nice.