Washington DC: Brasserie Beck (May 2012)

My spouse and I TRIED to dine here in May 2012. We chose this restaurant on K Street for several reasons – its chef, Robert Wiedmaier, gets good press, as does its sister restaurant Marcel’s, it was a few blocks from our hotel (the Hilton Garden Inn on 14th Street between H and I Streets), and it offered outdoor seating. We reserved a table using Open Table, and although the restaurant sat us outside on the sidewalk as we requested, they gave us the absolute worst table in the house despite there being better-located tables available. Our server was poised to do a good job – he seemed experienced and knowledgeable and had preferences (when asked) about items we were choosing between. We ordered drinks, appetizers, and entrees (steak tartare, pork belly, mussels, salad frisee), with plans for dessert to follow. It was a busy night, with several large tables, but we received our first round of drinks in a timely manner. And then we waited, and waited, and waited, with no sign of our appetizers. As our drink glasses emptied and no servers materialized - not just our own server, but other servers looked – and overlooked – our table without offering any assistance. Thank goodness for an industrious busboy who managed to keep our water glasses full! With one exception, we watched other tables eat their appetizers and then dig into their entrees, and we still had no appetizers or even another round of drinks. The exception to other tables receiving their food was a table of two foreigners who were treated even more poorly than we were (they had the same waiter that we did). We finally managed to attract the attention of the manager, who apologized and said that the goal of the restaurant is to deliver appetizers within about 10 minutes (not the 45+ minutes that we had been waiting). Rather than continue our terrible dining experience, we requested our check from the manager, who comped our measly round of drinks and sent us on our way. He verbally offered us his name and email address (but no business card) in case we wanted to contact him later, but we did not (what more could we say? It was terrible!). We had really looked forward to our alfresco meal at this Belgian café, but because we never received any food, we can’t comment on the cuisine. The service, however, left a lot to be desired. Prior to this experience, all we worried about at a casual restaurant was that our entrees might arrive while we are still eating our appetizers. Now we know that even worse is receiving no food at all! We wish other diners better luck than we had!