Noelia Restaurant (Formerly Noelia Italian Kitchen), Owner Kaiser Gill, Chef T.J. Fisher Replaces Carmen Piazza - Closed

[NolaCaine]

I just got back from Noelia's for lunch and enjoyed it.

First, it's location on F st between 13 and 12 hides it from the busier places on 13th.  The space is beautiful with dark leather couches and chairs.  It also feels vast somehow although it's not particularly huge.  The doors to the street were open today, letting in fresh air which was nice. The street is not busy here so road noise was not a problem.

I  had calamari and prosciutto and melon salad.  The menu is not particularly awe-inspiring but I enjoyed the squid and the salad.  The melon was really sweet and a nice complement to the very fresh prosciutto.  I could have used fewer tentacles in my calamari but I ate all of it anyway.  I've had lighter but this was tasty.

Meals are served with bread and some sort of very mild tapenade.  Maybe I didn't smear enough on the bread.

While I would not go out of my way to dine here, it was a very tasty and pleasant meal with an atmosphere conducive to discussion; which was the purpose of my lunch in the first place.

Service was perfect and the food (other than the squid) was quite beautiful, including the salad and bruchetta my friend ordered.

[Tweaked]

We did a work happy hour here and for downtown DC/Metro Center area it was very solid.  From 5pm-7pm they have a bar menu...very good Arancini (3 good size arancini for $5), also very good fried calamari ($7), and the trio of brushetta off the dinner menu was also good.  The flatbreads are overstuffed with too many toppings, so the flatbread doesn't cook very well, the Napoletana ($7) was the best of the bunch.  The Caprese skewers aren't worth ordering.  The cured meat board was on the pricy side at $21, but would be a decent size for two people to split.  Unfortunately, the beer list sucks, stick to the wine.  The bar is a good size and the front room has plenty of tables for groups to hang out.

By ordering the Arancini, calamari, flatbreads or brushetta you can cobble together a pretty tasty meal.

[DonRocks]

"Noelia Switches from Italian to American" by Mark Heckathorn on dconheels.com

This article came out on May 18th, and there wasn't much press about this story. However, in retrospect, it was "the writing on the wall," as Noelia Restaurant (formerly Noelia Italian Kitchen) is now closed. (Thanks, NK)

There's a *lot* of internet media about Finemondo switching to Noelia, but virtually nothing about Noelia changing concepts or closing - I guess that's because Finemondo was around for seemingly forever, and Noelia never got off the ground - it was pretty much a forgotten restaurant since day one.

Well, 1319 F St. NW is seriously prime real estate, so it probably won't stay vacant for long.

[Bob Wells]

"Noelia Switches from Italian to American" by Mark Heckathorn on dconheels.com

This article came out on May 18th, and there wasn't much press about this story. However, in retrospect, it was "the writing on the wall," as Noelia Restaurant (formerly Noelia Italian Kitchen) is now closed. (Thanks, NK)

There's a *lot* of internet media about Finemondo switching to Noelia, but virtually nothing about Noelia changing concepts or closing - I guess that's because Finemondo was around for seemingly forever, and Noelia never got off the ground - it was pretty much a forgotten restaurant since day one.

Well, 1319 F St. NW is seriously prime real estate, so it probably won't stay vacant for long.

I work around the corner, and it's indeed prime real estate. But so is the location of the long-time Mexican place around the corner at 14th and F (forget the name momentarily) and it's been vacant for months. Not sure how Oceanaire or the new Mastro's are doing. My time and $$ budgets don't allow me to frequent such places. Meanwhile, the casual eateries like District Taco, &Pizza, Chop't, Astro Donuts & Chicken, etc have lines out the door.

[Mark Dedrick]

Are you talking about Ceiba on 14th and G? Because yeah, I've been wondering what will go in there.

There are signs on the door for Noelia saying that something is coming in soon, but I have no idea what that may be.

[Bob Wells]

Are you talking about Ceiba on 14th and G? Because yeah, I've been wondering what will go in there.

There are signs on the door for Noelia saying that something is coming in soon, but I have no idea what that may be.

Yes, Ceiba, thanks Mark. Also, not sure how well the Todd English texymexy place, MXDC, is doing across the street. I had one meal there with colleagues and was underwhelmed.

[Tweaked]

It had originally looked like the folks behind Noelia were going to close and come up with a different concept - they had put up copy paper signs saying "Guess What's Coming Next?"

Now the whole space is up for rent.  Fairly big downtown restaurant space available for someone.

[cheezepowder]

On 8/10/2015 at 11:59 AM, Mark Dedrick said:

There are signs on the door for Noelia saying that something is coming in soon, but I have no idea what that may be.

On 10/29/2015 at 0:31 PM, Tweaked said:

It had originally looked like the folks behind Noelia were going to close and come up with a different concept - they had put up copy paper signs saying "Guess What's Coming Next?"

Now the whole space is up for rent.  Fairly big downtown restaurant space available for someone.

Proper 21, which opened yesterday, has taken the place of Noelia (PoPville).