Petit Cerise - 1027 7th Street NW in Shaw. French-inspired by Jeremiah Langhorne and The Dabney team. Opening Fall 2021

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New, French-inspired/focused all day restaurant from the Dabney folks.  Opening Fall 2021-ish.

Washingtonian with the story. 

The restaurant won’t be your typical bistro with onion soup and escargots (not to say the classics won’t ever make appearances). Rather, Langhorne describes the place as “more similar to a French restaurant you’d find in France than the ones you’d find in America.” It will focus on fresh-from-the-market cooking with simple plates “really, really well-executed.”

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Petite Cerise social media page (on IG) saying Summer 2022

[lotus125]

Has anyone been?  Curious for reports.

[Rhone1998]

I’ve never been but my wife is raves about the food and service there. She says only downside is a fairly limited menu without many vegetarian options. 

[eatruneat]

We went in May to celebrate @MichaelBDC's birthday. Our meal was really really good. Great ingredients and the dishes were well executed. French food is not my favorite so we aren't in a rush to go back, although the current menu online looks really good. One of our friends lives in the neighborhood and he goes nearly every week. Definitely worth a visit. 

 

[Bart]

I took my kids here a month or so ago.  It was good, expensive, but good!  Very loud (the upstairs is covered in subway tile so imagine having a dinner party in a giant bathroom).  The other lasting memory was it was a long meal.  The waiter made a point of telling us that at the start of the meal, and noted their logo is a snail, but still, there some long (too long) pauses between courses.

[The Doctor]

It sounds like the service has improved? I went opening week and it was the slowest, most inattentive service I've ever had in a high-end DC restaurant. (I am a huge fan of The Dabney, so maybe my expectations were too high.) I was forgiving for it being opening week, but for a restaurant of this caliber, I expected to at least be checked on even if the kitchen is running behind. A friend went a month later and said things hadn't improved. The food was excellent, though, but pricey.

[Bob Wells]

This place is on the same block as my office. I plan to try it with a friend when I make my next visit to the office. Menu looks good!

[The Doctor]

On 7/12/2023 at 10:14 PM, The Doctor said:

It sounds like the service has improved? I went opening week and it was the slowest, most inattentive service I've ever had in a high-end DC restaurant. (I am a huge fan of The Dabney, so maybe my expectations were too high.) I was forgiving for it being opening week, but for a restaurant of this caliber, I expected to at least be checked on even if the kitchen is running behind. A friend went a month later and said things hadn't improved. The food was excellent, though, but pricey.

I'd like to go on record with a follow-up to my original comment. I returned a few weeks ago and there was a night-and-day difference in the service. It was up to the standards I expected. This time I sat in the downstairs area, which seemed a bit more lively than the upstairs.

[eatruneat]

Went for our last DINK dinner last week. Food was very good, service was very not good. 

We started off with two glasses of sparkling wine, the escargot en croute, and assiette de rillettes. The escargot was amazing, especially the pastry dough that wrapped around the shells. I could have gone for another order. The plate of assiette de rillettes consisted of two slices of bread topped with with a sizeable amount of rillettes and a healthy amount of sliced sausage, some mustard, and two cornichons. It was enjoyable, but hard to mess this up. For our entrees, I had the duck l'orange while @MichaelBDC had the seed crusted tuna with maitake mushrooms and beet bordelaise. Both dishes were perfectly cooked and I especially enjoyed the duck breast. Our only nit was that the tuna came with two small-ish slices of tuna. The dish was beautifully composed and the mushrooms were excellent, just wished there was another slice of tuna to make it the main event, not equal to the radish and mushrooms.

Service was really slow, with a long and unacknowledged wait between the appetizers and entrees. This was especially annoying because our wine glasses sat empty and one of us would have ordered another glass sooner if someone had stopped by. Another aspect of the service that was less than great for this level of restaurant was the "pushiness" of our server. For example, after putting in our orders she asked us if we'd like any bread to start. We declined without giving a reason, not that we needed to provide a reason to pay for bread we didn't really want but both appetizers already came with carbs and we felt more bread would be overkill. Her response was "Really?! REALLY?! It's just that the bread here is really good." We got a similar reaction when we declined dessert. This time I said I had too much leftover Halloween candy throughout the day, which prompted her to tell me that their sorbet is a really digestif. Pretty off putting way for us to end the meal. 

We'll be back, only because I still want to try those foie gras beignets. Hopefully service will have improved by then. 

 

                 

[Pat]

Those service things are odd, but it would make me hopeful that it's just one person behind it. (Congratulations on the transition from DINK.)