Westend Bistro Review

The Westend Bistro, located in the Westend Ritz Carlton at 1150 22nd Street, is an elegant and sophisticated space. The restaurant itself is not large, but the space is welcoming and is encased by beautiful large glass windows. Covered in regal reds and neutral beiges and browns, West End Bistro is clearly a fine dining establishment.

Westend's service is some of the fastest and most efficient I have ever experienced, as we had our orders in and bread on our table within minutes of sitting down. For me, efficiency is key, because I hate dillydallying when I'm hungry. Westend served two types of bread, one in the style of a french loaf, and the other an herbal focaccia-style bread. Although they were both delicious, the herbal focaccia was much more unique and something that I would expect from a high-end restaurant--the other bread option was not.

Their appetizer selections feature mostly seafood options (oysters, tuna, lobster, calamari, mussels) but were pretty pricey for their small portion size. I found that the same was the case with my entree, the pan roasted salmon with olive tapenade, a lentil salad, lemon basil vinaigrette, and a sun-dried tomato pesto.

Despite my criticisms of the dish's size, the salmon was the best piece of salmon I have ever had. The salmon had a wonderfully salty and crunchy exterior, and the inside was moist and perfectly cooked. The lentil salad that came with the salmon added an extra textural crunch to the dish, and the earthy flavors of the lentils played nicely against the salty fish. Next to the actual salmon, the tapenade was my second-favorite part of this dish. The tapenade had the perfect amount of olive flavor to it, which helped enhance the salmon's delicate flavor. I could have done without the sun-dried tomato pesto though--I felt like it took away from the beauty of the tapenade.

For dessert, I had to get their most famous dish, the "S'mores." This de-constructed S'more included a thin sheet of flourless chocolate cake, graham cracker ice cream, homemade marshmellow, and a drizzle of caramel sauce.

The graham cracker ice cream was the star of the dessert--vanilla ice cream layered with delicious chunks of graham cracker expertly woven in. The marshmellows, slightly roasted with a caramelized exterior, were fun to eat. But I was disappointed with the amount of flourless chocolate cake on my plate. It seemed as if they were trying to skimp out on the cake portion here, and I was not happy about it.

Westend served Illy espresso, so the European in me needed to finish off the meal with a double shot of espresso. The espresso was excellent (no surprise there, thanks Illy) and ended the meal on a great note.

Overall, the service at Westend was impeccable, and the food delicious, but I found that the portions were very very small (especially since the prices were high). I would suggest increasing the portions by at least 25% for all of the courses if they want to keep charging $28 for a small piece of salmon and $10 dollars for a small dessert. Would I come back here? Probably not. But it was a nice meal and I thoroughly enjoyed my salmon and my wacky S'mores dessert.

Visit Westend Bistro at 1150 22nd St, NW

Washington DC 20037