Lyon Hall

This review is of the monthly beer dinner hosted by and between Lyon Hall and an invited brewery from the region. On 1÷19÷16 — I attended Union versus Lyon Hall with a 5 course pairing. Flat rate $ 65, two pours per entrée so sampling 5 beers from each brewery, while the master talks you through its composition. The menu items also were fantastic… the Salmon Brandade and Slow Braised Veal Cheeks stand out as extra ordinary — with a grand finale dessert of Basque Cake with apple butter and honeycomb — WONDERFUL. Highly recommend, next one is 2÷2÷16 and one on 3/5…perhaps see you there!

We had a great time, but I think mostly because we were with great friends. Parking is a bear but there is an underground lot around the corner. We got there before 7 so we were offered happy hour menu at the bar, but no happy hour in the restaurant part. So we chose a high top in the window by the bar and ordered $ 5 drinks off the happy hour menu and food from the restaurant. The only happy hour food that was different from the regular menu was that the mussels were only $ 10. The steak frite (hanger steak) was nicely portioned, fries well cooked and seasoned, and an arugula salad. Only trouble was the steak was so lightly cooked it was almost raw. But the drinks made us happy so all good.

Pretzel is delicious and stake is one of the best in the area! Can get a bit crowded on weekends though.

Service is good & food is great. I’m usually there for brunch every week & I haven’t had any complaints. Love the donuts!

Lyon Hall is a nice brasserie that is exactly what you’d expect from a place that doubles as a sort of generic bar in the area.
I had the Loch Duart Salmon and a set of oysters on the half shell. The salmon was remarkably well cooked and crusted, and the lentils and collard greens gave it a surprising amount of flavor. The oysters were equally tasty, though perhaps a bit small. Both dishes were perhaps a hair pricier than I thought they should have been given the volume and taste, but that’s just a bit of me being picky.
One side note — service was a hair slow and maybe a bit disorganized. It may have been time time of day, but I wasn’t exactly impressed by the inconsistency.
All in all, Lyon Hall is a decent place I may return to.

Lyon Hall is part of the Liberty Tavern and Northside Social restaurant group. All three are pretty solid and established in the Clarendon area. Lyon Hall has a German/​Belgian food emphasis, with mussels and sausages/​sauerkraut on the menu all day. The mussels are a good bet there — they are a little small but they taste fresh and the broth is flavorful. The brunch menu does have a smaller selection than some of the other Clarendon restaurants, but everything is well executed. It’s a good neighborhood restaurant with good service, and cute patio seating to enjoy nice weather on pretty days. It’s also little off the beaten path of the central Clarendon drag, which is nice because it’s not always packed to the brim. The downside is that it can be a little pricey, so take advantage of the happy hour deals when you can!

One of our favorite local spots, this feels like a cute little french bistro and is run by the same group that runs Liberty Tavern and Northside Social.
The steak frites are really great, with some of the best bearnaise sauce I’ve ever had in a restaurant. Bread is fantastic. Drinks are good. Good beer selection.

3 stars for an a-​OK bar in Clarendon. My review is on the drinks alone as we had already eaten dinner when we came by. The bar is dimly lit with seats at the bar and across the aisle. We were told by locals this was the best place to get a unique beer and they were right. Lots of foreign drafts and a couple local ones as well.
The crowd kept the two bartenders busy, but we didn’t struggle to get a drink when we were ready. I went with a local, seasonal brew and it was served in a stemmed beer glass.
Nice atmosphere and fun spot for those wanting to get a drink without going all the way into the city. Especially good for adventurous beer drinkers. Expect to pay at least $ 8 for a quality draft. They may have cheaper bottled brews, but I’m not positive. Worth a trip if you’re in the area, but not worth the drive if you’re staying in the city.

This place reminds me of an acquaintance’s ex: «I tried to like it but I failed».
It has a lot going for it. It is close to me, I like the food, I like the simple but very nice space. But the service at the bar is too random, too haphazard. Not enough bartenders, scatter brained bartenders, bartenders doing things other than bartendending. Too many times the iffy service makes what should have been a pleasant visit an annoying one.
I’ll probably come here occasionally because of the convenience, but if the service was as good as Whitlow’s, a much more casual and less expensive place, I might be a regular.

I was so disappointed in Lyon Hall. The place is pretty inside, very Frenchy and bistroesque, and the wine and cocktail list is good. But for being such a fancy restaurant, they practically had nothing vegetarian. I went when the summer menu was up and the only option was a salad, which is such a cop out. I guess I’m used to the versatile menus of the DMV area and was surprised to find something so limited. It was like hello 1965. I know French food and vegetarian cuisine don’t go hand in hand, but there are several other restaurants in the area that do a great job of providing options. But besides that the food I did eat was nothing to write home about and the others I dined with felt the same. Maybe the brunch is better?

A solid happy hour experience. Enjoyed some $ 5 wine and $ 10 mussels (they have several different types of broth, including white wine, curry and a few others) as well as the free pretzel for checking in on Unilocal.That rosemary honey butter they serve it with was delicious! We sat at the bar, where there was lots of good people-​watching. Fun time, decent food, good prices.

After my first visit for brunch today, it was sort of like a «meh» experience for me.
First of all the serve seems much more happier that we indulging in alcoholic beverages. I understood that since we order them, they will essentially get a higher amount of tips but just don’t show that much in front of your customers. I had orange crush and it tastes a little blend to me, I didn’t get many orange flavor from it.
With my food it’s also really blend. I had braised pork with poached eggs, the pork doesn’t has much flavor. The biscuit under is way too moist.

I’ve got mixed feelings about Lyon Hall.
On the one hand, sitting outside on a nice weather day — especially in the evening– is awesome. Great atmosphere and nice to have a bottle of wine while relaxing.
On the other hand, it was just sort of a «meh» experience for me. Now, I only had the hanger steak and fries and a bottle of Riesling, so I’d keep that in mind while reading this review.
They had a nice drink menu with some good diversity. They had a lot of different beers, some wines, and some specialty cocktails that looked pretty good.
The drink menu was a little less extensive. The only thing I found myself wanting was the hanger steak or the filet mignon so I felt sort of pigeonholed into beef. I ordered my hanger steak medium rare but it came out pretty under. There was a little bit of blood left and the center was chewy. The steak DID have good flavor though. It also came with a ton of fries which is always welcome.
I had a bottle of Riesling and it was your basic Riesling but maybe not as sweet as your average. I was Ok with the prices of the place as well. Side note– the bread and butter before the meal was pretty on point so I’ll have to throw that in. I’d like to come back and try something else to raise my review of Lyon Hall — maybe brunch.

Bonjour to my first Clarendon brunch experience!
Nice space and the staff is lovely. The food is quite yummy (shoutout to my French Ham Poached Eggs, $ 11.50) but I will note that unfortunately many of the entrees do not come with sides (ex: poached eggs and omelettes).
Fun Fact: The faucets for the ladies & gentlemen restroom face each other… can we say throwback to the old Disney Channel movie Model Behavior?!

This is a great brunch place not only for the menu selection, but also the fact that they are dog friendly with their outdoor seating!
I had the house made donuts — strawberry, white pepper glaze, cinnamon sugar, and chocolate, all were delicious but the most unique was the white pepper donut. For my main, I had the asparagus and mushroom poached eggs which was a perfect portion for a fairly hungry me — one of the eggs, unfortunately, was slightly under poached.
I’ll definitely be coming back to try other items on their menu!

Came here for brunch this past weekend with friends.
I ordered the steak tartare and it was very tasty. It was a bit on the salty side with the rosemary crackers, but they provided a nice crunch and the sauce really elevated the taste of it. I also got a side salad – nothing super exciting but not expensive either.
One of my friends was fairly disappointed by her schnitzel – it was basically falling apart and hard to eat and she said it had been better previously.
There also seemed to be a lot of confusion over who our server was. For one of my friends to wait over 15 minutes for coffee seems like a pretty big brunch faux pas.

Note, this review is only for Saturday Brunch.
It all started with a friend’s birthday brunch. Lyon Hall won’t take reservations for more than parties of 12… but they broke the rules for us once finding out it was a birthday party. Our reservation was for 12 at 11:30. Due to the size of our group, we sat upstairs.
Our server bared with us, but didn’t really seem too impressed with the people who weren’t indulging in alcoholic beverages. After two requests for a coke and a coffee (with some reminders) he finally brought them out. Now, I understand our party was large, but write things down.
The food was awesome. I was jonesing for a quiche and a side salad, so needless to say that’s what I ordered and it hit every high note on my taste buds! Our table split a round of donuts. as a non-​donut eater I can’t tell you how amazing they were, but the plate was empty by the time we left – so that seems to be a good sign!
Our server brought out a check for two people who needed to leave and then brought us the bill for the rest of the party. The usually 20% gratuity for large parties was not included.
My experience wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great either. I want to come back and give them another chance for their dinner options.

Disappointing. I wish I could rate them higher, but I just can’t.
Came here for brunch with friends today and pretty much everything could have been better. At least the company and conversation was good :-)
First — it was restaurant week apparently. Frankly if your restaurant week deal is so complicated you need an NFL playbook to understand it, you’re doing something really wrong. In the end, a friend and I decided to do the RW special and split a pot of mussels, and an entrée and dessert each.
Second — after sitting there for an hour, only our apps had arrived (and one of those didn’t arrive until we asked after it). I’m all for leisurely dining but this was ridiculous. It got to be a running joke the number of times we were told our food was being «plated». Apparently onions for the soup had to be flown in from France, the hens were still laying the eggs, and the lamb was still running around pre-​sausage.
Finally — the food just wasn’t all that. It was plated very nicely (great for the number of times our long delayed meal was promised to be right out) but I just wasn’t overly impressed with the flavors. The mussels were probably the best — but completely due to the delicate wine and garlic broth, not the overly briny mussels. The side order of frites I ordered were also excellent — and plenty for a few people to share.
My Asparagus and Mushroom Poached Eggs (Roasted mushrooms, spinach, citrus hollandaise, croissant) was seriously under seasoned and one of the eggs overdone. Plus, for something that boasted mushrooms both in the name and description — I was pretty hard pressed to find anything more than a token representative. The biggest disappointment was probably the hollandaise — missing both the flavors of lemon and pepper, Lyon Hall’s take on this mother sauce needs significant improvement to be anything more than a yellow glaze on the dish.
Even the donuts were blah. The glazes on them were nice — but only the coconut and orange donut had anything resembling moisture in it. The rest were just dry, dry, dry.
Kitchen delays abounded and promises from the overworked staff rapidly became hollow and humorous. Our table of 5 received neither the appetizers nor entrees all together — leaving that awkward moment when the starving with food want to eat while the food was hot but not be rude to the others observing longingly.
Clearly the place was unprepared for bunch on a holiday. But for as long as Lyon Hall has been open — this was hardly a novice enterprise trying to work out the kinks.

Having recently returned from Europe (again), visiting Lyon Hall certainly made me nostalgic. Mussels, bratwurst, quiche; yes please. Keep the mimosas flowing also doesn’t hurt.
I had maybe too much kraut in my breakfast bohemian and it just got too sour to eat it all. The bratwurst was also a tad bit too salty. But the place has a nice ambiance and plenty of delicious-​looking items to choose from the menus. Of course the European-​style décor adds to the flavor.
The fresh donuts sound very tempting. You can sit in the row of small tables placed maybe a bit too close to one another, look out the window and daydream. It’s not Europe (and the alcohol prices will certainly tell you that) but you may feel like you just got transposed when you unintentionally overhear the table of ladies brunching next to you talk about their over-​fabulous, sometimes a little outrageous, lives.

Great after work, Happy Hour hook up with friends
SJF is their, not so fancy name for a Moscow Mule but in a snifter and not brass. Still just as refreshing at $ 8.95 but it looses the fun factor at that price. The bar and restaurant were busy mid week night with a mix of suits and jeans but all looking good and letting go. More than one handsie couple and I’m not just talking about me and my dinner companion. Must be the cocktails.
Dark and loud
Bar for 20 with a back rail for another 20 seated and easily that standing. High tops for another 30 and table seating for 50ish. There’s plenty of room for a single at the bar or a 10 top Happy Hour turned late night munchies.
Speaking of the food…
Mini hotdogs!!! Delicious
Brussels sprouts were hard and flavorless. Boo
½ pork sampler!!! Great. The spicy mustard is, whoaa, SPICY. Love that.
The food was better than average but the real winner here is the atmosphere and the crowd. A perfect place to meet your friends, connect on a first date or meet someone new at the bar and take off. I’ll certainly try all of those ideas.