Tel’Veh Cafe & Wine Bar

Definitely above average in service and quality — a dive bar this is not.
Tel’Veh is located in an awkward spot between the Chinatown and Union Station (not to mention all of the construction on Massachusetts, which complicated the walk from Union Station). As such, it’s off the beaten path a bit, which explained why except for our large group there was really no one else in the restaurant area. There is a large bar with TVs and ample seating.
I attended a Birthday happy hour here on a random Thursday night with approximately 20 people. Although we had a massive group of people, the employees were very friendly and accommodating to our needs, even splitting tabs and allowing individual tabs. Most DC bars refuse to do that PLUS charge an added gratuity PLUS give you attitude. No such animosity existed here, and they were quick with food and drinks.
I unfortunately didn’t try the food, which all looked delicious. It’s a Mediterranean bar/​restaurant that’s a bit upscale, so the dinner menu is expensive (but not unreasonable) and filled with hummus, seafood, and olives. The happy hour specials are magnificent — $ 6 wines/​rails, $ 4 beer, and food from $ 4 – 9. My only general complaint was that there was only one beer on happy hour. It turned out to be a very tasty Virginia Pilsner (I believe from Legend Brewing Company in Richmond), but more selection is always nice.
Overall, I’ll be back to try the food, and it still offers one of the better happy hours in the area. Plus the service was spectacular.

Tel’Veh might just be my new favorite happy hour spot near Chinatown, especially for big groups. Here’s why:
1. A nice selection of wine AND appetizer specials available during happy hour. I wish that happy hour went later than 7pm on weekdays, but there was a good variety of drinks and things to munch on. Note that this is a wine bar and not a pub/​dive, so there’s no classic bar food and few beer specials.
2. A small but cozy bar area inside a beautiful, open restaurant. We (a large party of 20) came on a Thursday and were the only ones in the the bar area. We were able to move around freely and have conversations that weren’t the shouting matches typically heard at many bars. The entire place was quiet and fairly empty for our entire stay.
3. We had top-​notch service from start to finish (probably due to the slow business). Pete, the bar manager, was extremely helpful in making the reservation, working with us to get separate checks, and checking in on us to get drinks.
Most Chinatown bars are notorious for getting ridiculously crowded and are impossible to navigate with large groups. I have spent too many days sneaking out of work early to nab seats/​tables, squashing through crowds to wave down the bartender, and shouting myself hoarse over loud music and voices. The next time I want to have a quiet drink after work with good company, I will definitely come back here.

Not sure about new ownership or menu changes or whatnot from the previous reviews since this was my only time here. All I know that with $ 30 unlimited everything Brunch, I was completely sold.
Unlimited booze included bloody mary’s (good), mimosas (standard), and rail drinks (strong). The food went from waffles to eggs, to salads, to just plates and plates of bacon. I’m not sure how anyone could hate on that. If it was $ 30 for just unlimited bacon and mimosas I’d pay that too. Since it was early on the Sunday, the place was pretty empty, meaning amazing service.
They actually enforce the 2-​hour limit, so get your kicks in while you can. Thankfully wasn’t drunk on my bus ride back due to the amount of food engulfed.

Ok, so after trying many another wine bar in the city, I feel compelled to add a star to Tel Veh. The food is consistently awesome — I make my own hummus at home, and I wish– oh I wish — that it tasted anything like the one at Tel-​Veh. The pide’s (Turkish flatbread) are super fresh, homemade by the chef with slow-​rise dough — so so yummy.
Last but not least, they treat our daughter like she’s a star. We try to go early (yes, 5.30 PM is our golden hour) when it’s not crowded at all — she loves the food and the staff make sure she doesn’t need to wait long before she gets some pita bread.

Nice arrangement with a large inside and outdoor patio seating (although the construction might inhibit the view). The server was attentive and provided some excellent recommendations. The food is not as good as Zaytinya, but is similar and Tel Veh will be easier to get a reservation for a group of people. I’ve heard a lot about their brunch and will need to check that out.

My first time eating at Tel’Veh. It was suggested by my sister. I went there for brunch. Initially, we wanted to try their Bottomless Brunch but since one person in our table wanted to try their entrée, then we all had to switch and do an entrée. (Policy: Bottomless Brunch has to be agreed on by everyone at the table. If one person doesn’t want the buffet, then the rest of the table won’t get the buffet).
Being that I’m a waffle kinda lady, I went for the Waffles with Egg & Bacon (I substituted the bacon with sausage) which was $ 10 and a side of Spinach Pie ($ 5). I was kind of surprised at the portions of the entrée and side dish. I guess because of the prices but it was pretty damn sizable and filling. The Spinach Pie was a treat to devour.
Oh and I also added the bottomless mimosas which is an additional $ 13. And I made sure that I got my $ 13 worth. But the good thing was my waiter made sure I got my money’s worth, too. You know how some restaurants claim it’s bottomless this-​and-​that but when it’s time to get a-​pouring the waiters are no where to be found? Not at this place. As soon as the waiter saw the light orange liquid deplenishing, he arrived to pour me another one. I can say that I drank at least 5 – 6 glasses of mimosas. Oops.
If the weather wasn’t flaring up like the devil’s underarms, we would have definitely eaten at the beautiful outside dining area. Their inside dining area isn’t too shabby either. Very airy and spacey given the size of the restaurant.
The waiter was nice, helpful, and always at our service.
Great place, overall.

I find brunches without bottomless drinks to be fairly useless. If I wanted to pay $ 8 for one mimosa, I’d buy a bottle of champagne at home and call it a day. So you can imagine my delight when my friend suggested this place for brunch — not just unlimited drinks but, even better, also unlimited food!
The caprese salad and village style omelette were highlights for us, though everything was pretty good (minus the bacon, which was lukewarm and chewy. But I still ate it, because bacon.). My friends also enjoyed their crab cake Benedict’s. The staff was attentive and quick to refill our drinks or bring us more food. Overall a great, leisurely brunch experience.
Sidenote: If you’re not into mimosas/​Bloody Marys and have a liver of steel, you can also get bottomless liquor (rail) drinks — props to the woman behind us downing martins at 11:30am.

We came in the night before the Cherry Blossom 10 miler, and surprisingly, I carbo loaded the shit out of some pita bread. My table essentially got a mix of small plates (which were all super filling). The yogurt dip was amazing, the flaming cheese was fun (and SUPER filling) and my greek salad was very traditional and fresh. I also ordered the zucchini fritters which I was way too full to eat, but those were just ok. We also split the three dip appetizer (hummus, some REALLY spicy tomato dip and babaganoush) which was spectacular also. On top of it all, our server was great and super friendly and this place wasn’t super crowded at all. I did not partake in alcohol, but the wine list looked great!
I would definitely come back.

A pleasant wine bar, in my neighborhood, that I had been meaning to walk into for a while. On a grey Sunday, I needed something to help me face one more day of this never ending winter.
I was not disappointed by Telveh. I had but to give my general tastes in wine to the waiter who helped me pick a wonderful wine. I also tried their «something chocolate» dessert. It was not jaw dropping, but it was good enough — after all, chocolate never misses the point, does it?
A nice way to kill the time, I would recommend it.

*Brunch review:
As far as I’m concerned, if you’d like to down bottomless drinks, then this is your jam. However, if you’re expecting some fantastic food experience – this is not. I would also note that your entire table must partake in bottomless food in order to get the deal. If not, you can pay an additional amount and just get bottomless bloodies/​mimosas. I’d say unless you’re going with a group who all want to partake in the bottomless drink/​food deal, I would suggest picking elsewhere.

As an avid and frequent bruncher, I found this place to have every thing I look for in a brunch place.
1. Bottomless drinks (including sparkling wine, rail cocktails, bloody marys and mimosas).
2. Bottomless food (small plates to share or consume by yourself).
3. Friendly staff
Now to the specifics as to why I thoroughly enjoyed myself and will return for future brunches.
The bottomless deal here is now one of the BEST deals in the city (ever since Pulpo closed). For $ 30 you get bottomless everything for two hours. I made reservations for four people (easily) several weeks in anticipation of my girlfriends visiting from out of town for 1pm on a Saturday. We were sat by the lovely warm and bright window and were immediately asked what we wanted to drink (my kind of place, I hate waiting around for my first round). We all quickly answered mimosa and before I could even finish taking my coat off and sit down they were on the way to the table. Four beautifully made mimosas. Perfect ratio. (A little trick for when the mimosas are not a great ratio when there is bottomless sparkling wine, is to order sparkling wine refills once your first mimosa is half full). But never had to do this. The mimosas were slightly colored orange, meaning you are drinking an entire glass of sparkling wine with a splash of orange juice. Our glasses were rarely ever empty, and they even filled us up one last time past our 2 hour time frame.
All of the dishes were really great (although my least favorite was the lamb sausage benedict, not because of the lamb sausage… that was good, but the poached egg was a touch off. My village omelette with feta cheese, spinach and tomatoes was my favorite dish. The hummus was very good and I think everyone’s favorite was the chicken salad. It was quite large and the chicken was moist and sharable. The chocolate waffles were ordered and shared amongst the four of us as well.
Our waitress was not the most talkative, but she had a lot of tables to handle, but the hostess, Katie, was spectacular. She was so welcoming and friendly and when our server got too busy, she came to the rescue to fill our mimosas and chat with us for a moment. The food comes out quickly and the fun times are endless with the perfectly portioned mimosas… well not endless (2 hours), so Tel’veh gets 4 ½ stars from me, and I will come back.

We stopped in here for the first time for a light supper type meal early one Saturday evening (about 6 pm) and the place was quite empty. Food was tasty but portions quite small (tapas style) and on the high price side (bar food at entrée prices). We had grilled shrimp (fresh!), hummus, a pizza type dish and a dessert and a drink each. We didn’t do the wine flights but that looked like an interesting drinking activity with a seemingly wide range available. Waiter was quite helpful and chatty and was from Turkey. The owners are apparently Turkish and Greek which explains the generally Mediterranean-​themed menu and flavors. I don’t know when this place gets busy but it must be later in the evening or a specific day. Not sure if we’ll be back or not as I’m not sure what is this place; maybe I just don’t know what is trendy.

Review limited to the wine bar:
Our large group stopped by last night and we were so well taken care of! They even brought out a crêpe dish with nutella and whipped cream for the birthday gal in our group.
For a Friday night, it was quite relaxed so that we could have great conversations in the autumn night without feeling crowded or rushed. I love the décor on the patio, in lieu of candles they opted for string lights which made photos so pretty. They have various options of wine flights on the menu and I recommend the melon flight among the whites for something that ranges from sweet to crisp to floral (but really their extensive wine list will satisfy any wine proclivities).

The spread sampler, some nice Austrian wine and a pleasant secondary server saved this from a one star review.
It was Friday and the place was a quarter full, but service was excruciatingly slow. The food came out quick, but it took 30 minutes to order and 30 minutes to take our check. The food was meh at best. They had a sampler of hummus spreads that was delicious but they gave you the smallest thimble of pita for dipping. The grilled calamity was rubbery and bland. The tuna tartare nothing too interesting. The dates with bacon were nothing special. The wine list… I have seen far better and with better prices.
The waiter was absent and clueless. One of his coworkers kept coming over to see if I was ok and clean up because he kept disappearing and even she was annoyed.
Do yourself a favor and get reservations at Zatinya

Met a friend here for dinner a few nights ago. The wine was good, the leek and feta flatbread and the oysters were good (and on sale for $ 1 each). The pancetta and the margarita my husband had he said were really good. We had dinner outside and it was a perfect way to relax. Our waitress Lauren was wonderful!
We would def go there again.

Decent food, terrible service.
Our waitress couldn’t describe the size of the dishes so we didn’t know how many to order. She just sort of shrugged and said «they’re kind of small» but couldn’t gesture or name a size. Neither the waitress nor the guy who brought our food out could tell us which cheeses were on our cheese board and one of them he named was one we didn’t order. When we said «oh we didn’t order that one, we ordered this one» he said «Oh right, then it’s this one.» When we went to try the other two cheeses it was clear he misnamed them. Hard to re-​order when we don’t know what we’re eating. Service was slow despite the restaurant not being very busy.
The food itself was fair. The cheese and charcuterie boards were great. The small plates we had were OK. We tried the honey/​rosemary lamb ribs which were bland and dry. I also had the herby bronzino which was good but pricey for the amount of fish you get. Overall, the price is a little high for what the food is, coupled with the poor service — I don’t think we’ll come back here.

Went here last night for dinner with 4 friends. It was Monday night half priced bottle of wine night and it included their entire wine list, which was pretty reasonably priced to start. We ordered the sampler of dips to share and they were good but I would probably just order the htipiti (feta dip) because it was really delicious. Make sure you order extra pita because the dishes are in fantastic sauces and you won’t want to waste them. The oysters were ok. Not fantastic. The dates were good, but keep in mind that the dishes are small so you’ll probably end up ordering more. The seabass and shrimp saganaki both came in great sauces. The plevrakia was good too.
I would definitely come here again.

Came here for a friend’s birthday happy hour and was not disappointed! This is probably one of my new favorite happy hour spots! The specials aren’t that cheap ($ 8 for a malbec?), but the quality is definitely better than the hot bland mess that is Chinatown. Since it’s a little more removed from the metro, it also tends to not be as crowded and you can actually find a seat. The décor is a little more upscale casual, and almost feels like a naturally lit hotel wine bar. There’s also a bikeshare station right next to it if you’re lazy and don’t want to walk.
They have various nicer bar food on happy hour special (think hummus, cheese selections, $ 1 oysters, mussels, and $ 6 flat breads). The have one beer, a few wines (a red, white, and rose) and margarita and sangria drink specials. Like I said, the specials aren’t as cheap as other happy hours ($ 6 sangria), but the drink specials are better than drinkable here. All of the food I tried (flatbread, hummus, cheese selections) were pretty tasty, so I’ll have to try the mussels and oysters in the future. Add in that they have $ 1 oysters all night on Saturdays, and this place is definitely bookmarked for another visit.
Happy hour runs from 4:30 — 7:30pm Monday through Saturday.

Over inauguration weekend, I came here on a «triple date» at the request of a friend’s girlfriend who suggested we have dinner here. So much for her having any say in future hangout plans. I’m not into the whole tapas thing or going to a restaurant to spend money only to come out in search of someplace else to eat because I’m still hungry. Yeah that happened.
Interesting enough however, our table got to experience eating rocky mountain oysters which to your assumption had all 3 guys making jokes and posting silly things on facebook like school boys all night. Props to the servers for laughing alongside our childish antics. Modern décor and loved the huge windows. As a table with 6 people, we ordered a bunch of plates: 2 orders of steamed mussels (they were good), 2 orders of hummus (nothing special), lamb chops (2 tiny ones on a plate… stomach rumbling), tiny ny strip steak, 2 orders of tuna (eh), salmon (eh), Sangria (good but more like fruist salad in a glass). Alot of food right? sure because I don’t know who they think they are feeding. Man friends and I left still hungry and my man friend and I went out in search of a burger or something…
not impressed. Left hungry, unsatisfied and disappointed.

I’ve been here on two occasions now and have been quite pleased both times. They just recently got a new GM and things seem to be operating just as smoothly as before. The new guy, Allen, has a degree in wine stuff (I believe that’s the technical term) so there’s a pretty good chance he’ll have good wines on rotation.
I was looking for a wine bar to throw a happy hour bash for my university’s alumni group and, after much research, considered Tel’Veh the front runner. I brought The Vegetarian with me to check it out during her visit, and what better person to be my test dummy than another Cal grad! Footnote: the GM’s master is from one of Cal’s little sister schools. California represent.
We started with wine, of course. Ami ordered the rose and I had the red. Like most places offering wine during happy hour, Tel’Veh offers one red, one white and one rose. But unlike most places, they don’t offer some cheap shitty house wine, they offer a legit option for each one, and rotate the offerings frequently. We were both pleased with our, and each other’s, selections. And the happy hour pricing was just $ 6 – 7 a glass. Of note, they also offer beer ($ 4) and rail martinis ($ 5) on the happy hour menu.
For the noms, we got the hummus ($ 5 HH), a flat bread ($ 9 HH) and a salad (not on the HH menu). The hummus was perfectly creamy — albeit a bit too lemony the second time around, and for just $ 5 was a total steal for happy hour. The mozzarella, artichokes and red pepper flat bread was thin but still a good size for the price and for a shared plate. The feta and watermelon salad was unique and beautifully presented, but my least favorite of our three picks.
After the successful girl date, I finalized plans for my alumni happy hour and came back a few weeks later with nearly 30 fellow alums in tow. With such a large group, the main thing that really stood out was the service. Everyone on the wait staff was helpful and they went out of the way to accommodate us – allowing us happy hour pricing at a large low table (generally happy hour is at the bar and the high top tables). The one down side was that I had assumed since it was happy hour that each person would pay as they went; I had not asked and therefore did not receive separate checks. Oops, my bad. Lesson learned for the next event I do, but props to my fellow Golden Bears for paying and tipping well and great job to the staff for their patience and for accommodating cash and like 10 credit cards.
Though I haven’t tried the café portion of Tel’Veh, I’m sure their product would be worth a try if I was ever over in that neck of the woods in the morning. At the very least you’d be in for friendly and accommodating service!