Levante’s

Remarkably mediocre. The happy hour we went to at Levante’s involved a lot of dry over salted food, slow service, and watered down cocktails.

I haven’t tried all the Turkish restaurants in the city/​region but Levante’s is one of my go-​to Turkish restaurants.
One of the main reasons is that unlike other Turkish restaurants like Agora or Ezme, the portions are not meze/​tapas style so when you order a main course you get a huge plate.
Iskender is good, if you miss the real Turkish Iskender, this will suffice you, as well as Lahmacun. I like it also because of the fact that it doesn’t give me heartburn because of the onion afterwards, something is also hard to find even in Turkey.
Mercimek Corbasi (Lentil Soup) is also on a level to make Turks happy.
Why I also like Levante’s is that (maybe we only went there over the weekends on summers) they don’t let you rush out the restaurant. Just like in Turkey you can sit, and enjoy being with your friends and family…

One of my favorite places in the city. Great, very affordable happy hour. You HAVE to have the bread with some olive oil, trust me! The bread is baked in a special stone oven. Sometimes I just go have a glass of wine and the free bread, so it turns out to me a yummy and very cheap HH (I hope they never charge for bread!!). Also great for people watching and the service is very good.
Sunday brunch is great– Huge selection of foods at the buffet. You will be full. Its also a great price (18 for buffet I think? I could be wrong though). Its hard to do a buffet classy and I love the ambiance here. Sunday brunch is also when most of the Turks go, that should be a clue :) I hope they never close like the one in Bethesda did.

I visited Levante’s for a friend’s birthday happy hour recently and had an enjoyable experience. It’s not the most amazing restaurant, and it certainly doesn’t stand out from all of my other Dupont experiences, but it was a nice experience nevertheless. My friend had a party of about 15 – 20 people and the restaurant was able to accommodate us with outdoor seating (with the wonderful weather we’ve been having, that wasn’t a huge issue for us in early October). The only thing was the we were all bitten by tons of mosquitos, sitting out there :-/​Other than that, not a bad seating arrangement. We ordered some appetizers and drinks.
This is what I recall having had (all of this was shared among the group):
–Hommos (purée of chickpea, tahini, garlic, fresh lemon juice, and a touch of olive oil)
–Baba Ganouj (pureed grilled eggplant with tahini, garlic, fresh lemon juice, and a touch of olive oil)
–Falafel (lightly fried vegetable balls made of chickpea, onions, parsley, and cumin. Served with Ezmesalad and Hommos)
–Fried Calamari (delicately fried squid in a light, seasoned coating. Served with Tsatziki and Ezmesalad)
I also had a glass of red wine, which was tasty enough for house wine.
My major qualm was that the service was slow and the server gave me attitude when I asked for my check (I had to leave earlier than the rest of the group, and others did too).
Overall, I wouldn’t really go out of my way to visit Levante’s again. Though it has good Middle Eastern food, there are better options in DC. But it was a fun place for a happy hour and I would definitely visit again if I had an occasion to.

Levante’s was my first time trying Mediterranean food! The area is great and the restaurant was easy to get to. They seated our fairly large party (6 adults and 2 kids) quickly and were very attentive to our questions and needs. We ordered almost every appetizer and helped ourselves family style. I have no complaints about the food or the service.
They did lose a star from me because of the spiders. That’s a weird thing to write on a Unilocal review but our table/​area was literally crawling with spiders. Small ones, but a spider is a spider. I killed 6 in the span of a 2 hour dinner and I was not happy about it!

Well, there will always be things that keep well on a buffet and things that don’t.
The brunch here is a killer deal, that’s for sure, and we were stoked to finally try it. I really enjoyed some traditional Mezze (including traditional takes on smoked salmon, hummus) with my yummmmmy home fries, waffle, pastries, etc. they also have an omelette making set up and tons of desserts (baklava!). Bonus: if you sit strategically, hubby can watch the game!
…But I did confirm that you should still never, ever try eggs Benedict sitting on a hot plate.

One star for the free bread, which was quite tasty. No stars for the terrible wine and beer selection, no stars for the service and no stars for the after work crowd and their vapid conversations on the patio.
If you are just barely 21 or have a fake ID and are looking for a place with other like you, stop by in the afternoon.

A couple of friends and I went here a few nights ago. Suffice to say, we will never be returning.
We ate inside because it was so muggy outside that it wouldn’t have been enjoyable to sweat through a meal. The A/​C on one side of the restaurant was out, and apparently they failed to mention the other one was on the fritz. It is a nice looking place, although sitting by the bar gives a view of the street whereas the dining room has the government building cubicle effect. Water was prompt, and the bartender came over to talk to us, but not take our order (shouldn’t first contact have been the waiter/​waitress)? The waitress came over, she was nice, but it took about 3 minutes for her to understand that the bartender had just talked to us and had not taken our orders. The waitress was nice and she tried (and we tipped her well based on her effort), but English was not her strong suit, and the decibel level in the place did not help her hearing. Put in the order for drinks, appetizers and food at the same time. Drinks and an appetizer took forever. I mean 2 beers and a cocktail with the restaurant not that busy? Shouldn’t take 20 minutes. Appetizer came about 5 minutes after the drink. Ordered the hummus (or hommos as it was written on their menu), and it was average. Shouldn’t have taken 25 minutes to produce, pre-​prepared chickpea and tahini purée with some olive oil in the middle? Two large flat bread pieces came with the order, and it would have been nice if they had been cut. I’m alright with communal bread tearing, but others might not be. I personally ordered the shish kebab along with another in our party. The kufte and donner were also ordered. Shish kebab meat could have been chosen better. Large fat veins were running through the middle of two pieces of my order. Portion was extremely small for 18 dollars, two skewers, 5 small cubes of meat on each with a slice of green pepper and onion in between? C’mon, that is a 13 to 14 dollar entrée at best. The kufte looked fine, and my friend didn’t seem to mind it (he wasn’t raving about it either). The donner looked limp and overdone. My friend commented that he thought it was a little tough. He may have been understating it. Since the portions were small, we decided we were going to order dessert. We got the rice pudding, some sort of pastry and bitter chocolate cake/​pie. The pastry was tough, the cake was not notable, and the rice pudding was just not good. It seemed like it had sat for too long as it had that gross congealed layer on top. We paid the bill and left as we were beginning to sweat due to the A/​C issues.
The fun started in the morning about 10 (14 hours after we ate there). 3 of us were extremely sick, and while I can’t for sure identify the food that we were served as the cause, the incubation period certainly would lead me to suspect it was the cause. So thanks for ruining my night, Levante. We won’t be back, and I won’t recommend this place to my worst enemy.

While I’d suspect the claim of being the area’s first casual Mediterranean restaurant, Levante’s atmosphere is made all-​the more casual with the sidewalk tables available in fair weather. The pricing, while in-​line with other Lebanese or Turkish restaurants, while not inexpensive, is affordable for the average DC Federal office worker.
Weeknight guest volume was brisk but not full on the larger-​than-​DC-​average patio. While service was attentive, we shared some doubt that our English was being understood.
None of the appetizers listed on the «MEZE LEVANTINE «menu appealed to us, so we shared a smallish Imam Bayildi. The eggplant stuffing featured peppers, tomatoes and onions baked together, a pleasant Medit. opener. The Sucuk Pide’s sausages were indeed spicy, moderated by the milder peppers and cheese baked together – quite tasty! The Grilled Chicken Salad featured modest regional spices combined with greens, tomatoes & cucumbers – a Greek-​stylechicken salad without feta or olives.
The Tsinandali wine served was pleasant, although lacking complexity, appropriate for an appetizers wine.
Overall, generally tasty Mediterranean foods in a casual atmosphere at affordable prices, with professional service, in a Metro-​friendly (Dupont Circle) location.

I would give this place three stars for their seven days a week happy hour deals, open air setup (when the whether is nice), and good service, but I’m not. We had a variety of appetizers, and their happy hour wine, and everything was decent. It wasn’t fantastic, but really good for the price if you’re looking for a moderately healthy snack when eating out. We went on 4^th of July, and they were completely empty, even though all the crappy bars nearby were packed for World Cup viewing. This was fine with me, as I just wanted to relax with a glass of wine. We got an appetizer sampler, and everything on it was decent.
The atmosphere was classy but relaxed, really quite pleasant. So why only two stars? Their bathroom looked like it belonged behind a gas station. It was really dirty, with very old fixtures. The toilet had a handle on it like a public restroom in an airport or mall would have, and because it was so dirty, I flushed with my foot. This was a good decision, because water sprayed out from the toilet handle. This is really inexcusable in an eating establishment.

This is my second time here. The décor is perfectly nice for a business lunch. However, there are two things lacking in this establishment.
Having lived in Turkey for three years, I know a little bit about good Turkish food and hospitality. Neither of those was in great supply today.
I ordered a shepherd salad, a combination of tomato, cucumber, onion, and parsley. What arrived had clearly been prepared sometime before. The ingredients were generally tasteless. That was followed by an eggplant pizza, a Turkish pide. This was tasty, with lots of eggplant, bell peppers, onion, cheese, on a pizza like dough crust. However, it was overwhelmed by saltiness.
Also unfortunate is that the Turkish traits of hospitality and general cheerfulness in Restaurants was not on display. The two waiters who took our order and brought the food seemed to have just woken up from a grumpy sleep. Too bad.
Perhaps I came on a bad day, but Was disappointed by what we had. I know Türks can do much better.

Levante’s is great for Happy Hour. I believe it runs M-​F from 4 – 8, and the deals – including the food – are really good. I’ve lived in DC for 7 years and only now made it here, glad I did.
First, the location, right of Dupont Metro South, is very accessible. They have outdoor seating (though no happy hour applies there), and really nice indoor seating too. The huge windows open out, so you can sit inside but feel like you are outside. The drinks are pretty good. They have sangria and margaritas on special which you can get a pitcher of. My friend was a huge fan of their sangria, but I liked the margaritas better. The food was amazing! The hummus is very tasty and the fluffy bread is served warm to order. We had the trio with babaganoush, hummus, etc. which was great, and the fried calamari were tender and tasty as well. I would definitely go back for happy hour. My only problem was the service, we got a very grumpy server. Tip: arrive early because it gets packed inside.

More like 3.5. The food is mix of Greek and classic brunch items.
Had a groupon for brunch ad mimosas. Buffet was good. Hummus excellent. Nothing else was amazing but good selection and fresh.
Mimosas were good and waiter gave us extra. Worth the price.

I was impressed with the happy hour food – although it’s nothing fancy, you can definitely pig out on the cheap here, and it goes to 8pm – but the service and the terrible, terrible beer selection really ruined my experience. Your happy hour choices are Corona, Heineken, or Yuengling, which is insulting to anyone who has ever tasted beer that wouldn’t be mistaken for urine. Sure, subjecting yourself to Yuengling is better than being sober. But couldn’t they have at least made a half-​assed attempt for some variety and worked in a Sam Adams or something? Choosing between Corona and Heineken is like choosing between fire and brimstone.
And the guy operating the tap, who I won’t refer to as a bartender, violated the two most important rules when pulling beer: Don’t touch the tap to the glass, and for god’s sake don’t submerge the spout of the tap in the beer. This practice is probably the source of the weird silty stuff at the bottom of my «beer», which I did not finish quite all the way.

I am a huge fan! Great cold mezze plate (recommended by Ali bey, our server), possibly the most delicious lahmacun I’ve had outside of Turkey (after living there for 4 months and considering one of my motherlands, a huge welcome), and Turkish hospitality in the form of complimentary cay.

Alright h8rs, I don’t know if I am just easy to please or if Levantes has upped it’s game significantly after reading all of the bad reviews, but I had a great time brunching here.
After reading some of the reviews, I think it was good that we came on a Saturday because instead of having to serve ourselves from a supposedly «awkward» buffet table, we got to order everything a la carte. Since it was like colder than the arctic tundra outside, we couldn’t wait to get started on some mimosas. Our server seemed to realize this quite quickly and never allowed our glasses to reach less than half full. Perfect.
We started with the eggs benedict, manchego, tomato and basil omelette and all of the dips. The eggs benedict was definitely good, but didn’t quite satisfy my egg craving. The omelette was decent, but the dips really stood out (my faves: the red pepper and the babaghanouj). We tried everything in the cold dishes section, including the spinach pie like 3 times because it was that good (or because we were kind of drunk). The cigars were also a top choice in the bunch. The lamb flatbread pizza thing was also super tasty.
I think we sat there from 1pm to 3:30pm and never felt rushed to leave or to stop gorging ourselves. We must have ordered 5 rounds of food, and our waiter was super supportive of it. He brought out dish after dish and poured mimosa after mimosa. 4 word conclusion: We dined like kings.

I was very pleased with Levantes! It’s a fairly large space with tables spread out, dim lighting, and a nice atmopshere for conversation and dinner. The waitress was very friendly and attentive. The food was delicious!
I highly recommend the Adana and chicken kebabs. The adana kebab had some spice to it and was absolutely delicious. The hummus was up there with some of the best that I have tasted. The baklava was also very good. I’d pass on the grilled calamari, but am eager to try other options on their menu.

LivingSocial deal $ 25 for 2 brunch buffet with 2 mimosas per person was a great deal! Especially since I used the AUG10 promo code and received $ 10 off the deal. So $ 15 for 2 brunch buffets?! No complaints!
I’m not sure what Levante’s regular prices are for brunch buffet, but with the deal it was definitely worth coming here. Brunch buffet had an assortment of cold and hot food. The cold food consisted of fresh fruit, pastries, baklava, Mediterranean dips (i.e., tzatiki, hummus, baba ghanoush), salad, dolmas, smoked salmon, cheese, and more! The hot food consisted of pizza, salmon, beef, chicken, made to order omelettes, french toast, waffles, and other goodies! On top of all that food, you get fresh, hot bread brought to the table! The mimosas were also delicious! I was a bit buzzed after 2 mimosas! :) Service was great and friendly! The manager made sure to come by and ask how everything was, which was very nice. Food was a 3, but adding an extra star for friendly bartender and manager!
**Make sure your make reservations via telephone if you want to sit indoors! They don’t accept reservations online for brunch. Without a reservation, you’ll most likely be seated outdoors or at the bar.
Great place! I enjoyed my experience at Levante’s!

My lahmacun wasn’t bad but it came out kind of cold which seems like a cardinal sin with these sorts of things.
I would still like to try the adana and iskendar kebabs but it’s just sort of pricey in general and I like my kebab platters clocking in at under $ 12.

This review is for happy hour, I haven’t eaten dinner here.
The happy hour is a hidden gem (can a restaurant in Dupont Circle count as a hidden gem? No matter) — the glasses of wine are cheap (THREE DOLLARS?!) and they pour as much wine as they possibly can into your glass.
The happy hour plates are also solid and almost everything is less than $ 5. Get the pide and the Levante’s Trio and you’ve got dinner for less than $ 10. #winning
Get there as close to 5:00 as possible as this place tends to fill up as they get to the end of Happy Hour at 7:00.

Solid three and a half stars. We were seated on the patio within moments of waving hello, and given a few olives to pass the time. Hummus was very muted on the garlic, and came with a basket of warm pitas. I enjoyed my hunkar begendi, the lamb was braised to tenderness and the pureed eggplant soaked up the grilling juices. Honestly I didn’t detect the mozzarella but it was hearty nonetheless.
Service could have been better, they kept prematurely clearing when I wasn’t looking. The language barrier with our particular server didn’t help, though I experienced an exemplary mute performance from another staff member. Come on, if I have a hummus-​laden piece of pide in my mouth while digging through my purse, doesn’t that suggest I wasn’t done eating yet?