Cafe Bonaparte
1522 Wisconsin Ave NW - Washington , DC 20007
- $$
A Cafe, Bistro and Bar With French Flair
Highlights
- The restaurant doubles as a “gallery” with shows like Malek Naz Freidouni’s romantic and elegant photos of Paris.
Good to Know
- Breakfast is served from 8am to noon on weekdays.
- The $9.99 lunch special, available Monday through Friday, includes half a salad or cup of soup with half a sandwich or half a crepe.
- During Happy Hour at the bar from 5 to 7pm daily, a selection of cocktails and beers are half price, and the house red and white wines go for $5 a glass.
Recommended Dishes
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·Moules cooked with Belgian lager, mustard, and cream
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·Frites with mayonnaise
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·Teras Major steak with Bordelaise or Bernaise sauce
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·Smoked salmon crepe
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·Juliette crepe
Best Bottles
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·Good Value: Famille Pernin, Cotes du Rhone, Reserve, 2010, $45
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·Worth the Splurge: Taittinger “Brut la Francaise”, NV, $85
Full Overview
Channeling the vibe of Paris’ hipster neighborhood, the Marais, Café Bonaparte is an all-day destination where you can breakfast on café au lait and flaky petit pain au chocolat, lunch on smoky grilled shrimp and endive-fennel-walnut salad and sup on steak with Bordelaise sauce and hand-cut frites. Parisian accents -- gold lettering in script on the jaunty red awning, a pressed copper ceiling, and bare wood tables and floors -- add to the rakish appeal of this snug dining room.
Besides a menu of bistro classics like lush croque-monsieur with French ham, béchamel and gruyere and moules steeped in Belgian lager, there’s a roster of crisp crepes with fillings. Two to try: the Lisbon with smoked salmon with chives and dill and the Wellington with ham and cheddar. Crepes also make their way into an interesting starter by way of crepe “chips” with melted brie and apples. And you can go the crepe route for dessert too; the Juliette with lemon, butter and powdered sugar, is especially memorable. To mix it up a bit, dark chocolate shells filled with chocolate mousse and paired with hazelnut gelato are a wonderfully satisfying non-crepe option. The wine and champagne list is full of French (and other) gems, and most are available by the glass. French hard cider, often paired with crepes in France, can also be had. Cocktails, coffee and tea are also taken seriously; The French Press Costa Rican Doka, a luxurious, smooth coffee is a nice cup to linger over.
Noise level: Relaxed during the day, but can get rather chatty during the dinner hour.
Affiliated Restaurants
A reservation will now earn you: 200 Reward pts.
For every reservation that you make and honor (you actually show up at the restaurant and have a meal) on CityEats.com, you will earn 200 CityEats Rewards points. If you then write a review of your dining experience, you will earn an additional 200 points. Once you have collected 2,500 points, you can redeem them for either a $25 gift certificate or a charitable donation in the amount of $25.
