Alexandria: BRABO (May 2015)

My spouse and I dined at BRABO Tasting Room on a Sunday evening in late May 2015. BRABO is located on King Street in Old Town Alexandria in the Kimpton Lorien Hotel. Valet parking is available.

We did not have a reservation; however, you can reserve the fine-dining side of BRABO using the Open Table reservation system. Note that BRABO has two parts to the restaurant: the more casual tasting room and wine bar, and the formal “fancy” restaurant. The casual side of BRABO offers both indoor and outdoor seating for lunch and dinner, and it serves cafe fare such as mussels, flatbreads, salads, charcuterie, and cheese. The formal side of BRABO is open for dinner daily and Sunday brunch, and it offers indoor seating only. The menus feature traditional seasonal Belgian and French fare, created by Chef de Cuisine Harper McClure.

The restaurant is named for a statue of Roman hero Silvius Brabo that resides in Chef/Owner Robert Weidemaier’s father’s hometown of Antwerp, Belgium. Chef Weidemaier was raised in Germany and worked at various restaurants in Washington, DC before he opened his first restaurant, Cafe at M, in 1994, followed by Marcel’s in 1999, Brasserie Beck in 2007, and finally BRABO in Alexandria.
We dined outdoors in the BRABO Tasting Room courtyard near the fountain, although the indoor space is attractive as well. From the street, peeking in the windows, the Tasting Room space seems to have a diner-ish feel, but your impression quickly changes once you step inside. The dining space, while compact with just a few tables and additional seating at the chef’s counter/zinc bar, has high ceilings, making it seem more spacious. The open kitchen allows customers to watch the chefs work. Had the weather been inclement, we would have been glad to sit inside, but we dined on a gorgeous early-summer evening.

We ordered both the cheese board and the charcuterie board as appetizers, followed by moules frites and a salad. The cheese plate was nicer than most restaurants serve, and it included four kinds of cheese accompanied by four kinds of fruit spreads/chutneys/honey and candied nuts. The Boston Bibb lettuce salad included crunchy croutons, pickled onion, hard-boiled egg, and beets. The most impressive dish that we ordered was the dessert, which was plated masterfully because it didn’t resemble its name at all. We enjoyed a good meal at BRABO, and would return to try the formal part of the restaurant in the future.