Brasserie Du Vin

Love me some Du Vin! I’ve had many fun ass nights that have ended or began at Du Vin.
If you are a wine-​o this is the place for you. Afterall, it is a wine bar.
This was in my draft forever. So sad it’s gone. Never completed the review…

Been here Twice — of course just for drinks, I’m pretty bummed that I did not get a chance to try out their awesome looking appetizers and food though which is why I can’t really give a detailed review other than service and ambience.
Came here to take advantage of their ½ drink menu once they annouced they were closing down January 31.
They are no longer taking walk-​in reservations so be prepared to stand up and have a drink majority of the time because the bar will be packed.
our total drink tab with the discount came out to $ 34 thats 5 glasses of merlot and 1 sangria, not too shabby!

I always pass by since I work in downtown, but never knew of this restaurant until a friend introduced. I must say that the food was great!!! Our server was awesome. Nice décor. I would definitely go back!

We were looking for a restaurant that could accommodate a party of 12 on a Friday night New Year’s Day weekend… close to impossible! Du Vin had a large space that came to the rescue for our group! The space is very classy with a full bar area and a beautiful outdoor patio area right in the heart of downtown.
I started with a tasty lilikoi (passion fruit) julep (vodka with sparking wine) that was refreshing and strong. My husband and I split some pomme frites to start and ordered the nicoise salad with ahi /​pork chop for our entrees. Nicoise salad was solid and came with about 8 small slices of ahi. For $ 20, I was definitely expecting a more generous portion! The pork chop was perfectly cooked and came on a bed of carmelized onions, chard, and a mashed starch of some sort. The pork chop was definitely a good choice as our other entrée! I finished with a piping hot flourless cake that came a la mode with caramelized walnuts. Yum!
We parked for $ 5 at Walmart down the street. Great service, good food, perfect for your next large group gathering!

MEH I’VE EXPERIENCED BETTER:
AMBIANCE– nice, French, chandeliers, cute unique décor, etc. but BRRR IT WAS CHILLY. Ok so I know the weather in Hawaii hardly ever gets to a temperature where you’d actually be COLD just sitting in a non-​AC restaurant, but it was one of those dreary, rainy, windy nights, and we were at the table right by the door… there was quite a draft. The FAN was on high right above us, but apparently the switch to change the speed or turn it off was «broken.» We asked. I guess they must be burning through electricity since their fans have to be on high all the time.
SUBPAR FRENCH FOOD
Soup du Jour was celery root bisque. While fairly thick, it wasn’t overly rich and it actually was rather tasty!
However, the Moules and frites ($ 18) were so bad. I’ve ordered this dish at other french restaurants because it’s my go-​to, and it was just not good here. The mussels themselves were okay, but the broth was a disaster. The white wine flavor was very harsh and the alcohol didn’t cook out so it still tasted of alcohol. Also, they just threw the fries on top so a lot of them got soggy in the broth. I would’ve liked them on the side, like I’ve had at other places.
Lastly, the «downtown sangria» ($ 12) was HORRIBLE! It was not a sangria at all. It was more like a screwdriver with some red wine splashed on top. Pretty much all pineapple juice/​oj + vodka, very little parts wine. NOT what I was expecting at all.
I will say that their french bread is pretty good. Nice and warm with good crunchy crust.
SLOW SERVICE
Sat down and didn’t get any drink menus. Waited approx. 15 minutes before we got drink menus and water. Took our orders 15 minutes later. The food came out relatively quickly… but the appetizers came out before our drinks?!? I ordered an appetizer as my meal and told her it was my meal so I’d like it to come out at the same time as everyone’s entrees… but it came out so early. It was just sitting there because I didn’t want to be rude. Maybe it’s purposeful because in France everyone takes their sweet time during meals. I didn’t care as much because I was catching up with my friends and I actually enjoyed not feeling rushed, but if it were any other scenario, I’d probably be annoyed with how slow everything was.
Maybe I’d come back to try their happy hour. And maybe I didn’t order the right things, so that baked brie is on the list if I do return. But those are a lot of maybes…

AMBIANCE — Okay this place is kind of cool looking with a nice relaxing feel to it. I love the rustic looking furniture and openness to this establishment. Not to mention they do have a back room for meetings or a group of friends to dine in.
SERVICE — It sucks. Not much you can say about bad service. It just doesn’t work for me. I don’t want to see bartenders taking a shot with customers. How competent can you be counting money or knowing when to cut off someone who had too much to drink at your bar. (Yikes, maybe he was the owner???)
PRICE — Some of the wines are overpriced per glass, but a few won’t hurt your wallet too much. Best prices are during their happy hour which is from 4−6pm. I’m not absolutely sure so it’s best to call in the event it changed.
FOOD — I did enjoy the food. It was above average and they have a nice selection of choices for wine drinkers. Oddly enough what I did enjoy the most was the pommes frites (fries). These buggers were delicious and it was still nice and hot. Mushroom cargos was excellent and drowning in butter :-)
THOUGHT — This place needs customer service training. And it should never be taken for granted that because the food is decent people will come. We want the whole package. If you don’t get it and service your customers then you have no business being in business.
PS. My visit was on a weeknight and not a weekend or a First Friday.

I like this place. It looks like a small French eatery with a bar along one side, seating on the other and a patio in the back. Very quaint and welcoming as if it’s been here for decades.
The wine selection is broad with American and European selections. You should be able to find a decent glass that suits your taste. I ordered the Cotes du Rhone which opened up nicely.
The lunch special was very good — a sliced roast beef sandwich with melted Gruyère cheese on a great tasting half loaf. It included a small cup of French onion soup and a small salad. Afterwards, I ordered an espresso. Very nice with a lemon zest and choice of sweeteners including turbinado.
The service was professional and nice. No attitudes, just advice as needed.
I would definitely make this a regular stop if I lived here.

The food was excellent but the service was bad, had to wait a long time for the entrees to come out, had to flag our waitress to get my ice tea re-​filled. Rod U. was spot on European type service, maybe I should have a European type tip too.
We came here for the restaurant week special, three course for a good deal at $ 45.
Started off with the crab cakes, excellent start, not much fillers here. Right blend of mayo and assorted spices. Very moist and generous real crab meat.
Unfortunately, we had to wait over 45 minutes for our entrée with NO UPDATES from our waitress unit one minute to let us know it’s coming out. She could have told us sorry for the wait or something like that.
The hamachi was perfectly cooked, very moist. As the picture shows, very well presented. Had an excellent sear on the outside. I had the duck confit and it was another excellent dish, duck was extremely moist and fall off the bone. The skin was very crispy. Note that both dishes were lukewarm, which reveals that our dishes were sitting in the kitchen waiting for to be sent out.
The dessert was the weakest part of the night but was ok. The crème brûlée was too warm and the cookie on the button didn’t quite work out.
Granted, it was a busy night for them and maybe that’s the reason for their service issues. The Manager did stop by in the ending to try to make up for the service misses.
I would recommend it for the food itself, but have to be patient with the service.

Du Vin has been a series of hits & misses for me.
Hits:
— Initial visit for dinner with friends. Bouillabaisse is stlll my favorite.
— Happy hour with the bf out in the romantic patio.
— Catch up lunch with an old coworker. Service was on point (maybe because the place was dead). The french onion soup was delicious.
— Bf’s reunion event.
–They have Blue Moon on tap.
Misses:
— A couple of years ago, I had called to inquire about hosting a holiday luncheon here. The catering person sold me on this customized menu… which she never sent over to me. Reliability is an issue that I have with Du Vin. When I made my reservation for Restaurant Week, I had the hostess repeat my reservation. When I called the day before to confirm the time, my reservation was wrong…
— Oysters during happy hour weren’t that good.
— Restaurant week.
Our server started off promising and then he literally disappeared.
We ordered a glass of house red wine and our server forgot about it. We had to remind him and then it still took about 10 minutes to get the glass of wine… really?
The escargot was a lackluster attempt.
I placed an empty bread basket on the edge of the table, expecting a bread refill. Since it never came, I asked another server to get some more bread and then half way through my meal, our server finally asked me if I wanted some more bread (failing to see the other basket I had gotten).
For $ 45 the meal didn’t blow anyone in our party of 4 away. The steak looked scrawny (because it was thin and flat). I opted out and went with the Bouillabaisse (which was sill really good). According to my bf & friends, the dessert was the only standout in their meal. We could’ve gone to so many other places for a few more bucks so I was rather disappointed.

I love this place. France holds a special place in my heart and Brasserie Du Vin helps remind me of why I love France and French food. I have been here several times.
I coordinated a large group event here, and I’ve been here for dinner, and pau hana. All of these visits were great. It was pretty easy to coordinate the group event. We worked with the manager to set it up with tables, seating, and payments. It went very smoothly.
I have had their jidori chicken, the duck confit, the escargot, the crème brûlée, and of course, the famous baked brie. Everything was delicious. The duck is for sure my fave entrée. I love the crispy skin and juicy duck. It is great and not too greasy. The escargot was buttery, but not too rubbery. It had a great texture. The baked brie is amazing, as everyone else has attested to. They also have a great wine list… duh. Hahaha
I also love coming here because it is dog friendly. I bring my little pooch here to enjoy the ambiance and food. If you’re lucky, you’ll meet Jurado, the Frenchie. He is so sweet and a staple of the restaurant.
The only complaint I have is the heat. There is no AC in there and it is usually pretty warm inside the restaurant. If it is rainy and you can’t sit in their lovely patio, you have to stick it out inside and it can get humid in there too.
In the end, this is a great restaurant. You can come here for casual drinks or a nice meal. I totally recommend it.

I come here for one thing and one thing only… the BAKED BRIE. It’s found in the appetizer section of the menu, but to me, it’s my main course whenever I come here. I’ve always liked cheese (who doesn’t?), but this brie has brought cheese to a whole ‘nutha level! It’s sweet and savory at the same time, but light and still full of flavor. On the outside you have a flaky puff pastry, and in the inside… it’s so creamy, buttery, and soft. And then you find little pieces of dried cranberries and pecans which add texture to the softness of the cheese. It doesn’t stop there, you’ve got honey drizzled all over this absolute divine creation to add some sweetness. It’s just perfect…
I love the décor of this place. I love the outside back patio even more, makes you feel like you’re in Europe. It’s even more gorgeous at night when they turn on the hanging lights.
Though the baked brie and outside patio get ⁵⁄₅ stars, the service not so much. Most of the staff are nice, just not so efficient. Don’t come here if you only have an hour lunch break, you’ll end up packing up your lunch and eating it at your workplace like we did because they took a while to give us menus, take our order, give our food, and hand us our checks.

Let me start this review by saying that I come here a lot for happy hour. I always sit at the bar, but on this occasion there were 4 of us and we wanted to get a table.
Long story short, it took at least 25 minutes to receive a menu. By this time happy hour was over. I went to find a manager to see if we could get some service. I spoke to 2 servers who informed me we would be allowed to still order from the happy hour menu. We did. From that point on the service remained sparse. We had an additional person who joined us. She was there for at least 10 min and was never able to order a drink. At that point we decided to just leave and go somewhere else.
I hunted down our server so she could bring us the bill. Then I had to find her again to run our cards. Our bill was $ 100. We left 15%-20% tip merely because I work in the industry and don’t feel right about leaving less. That being said 0% is what was deserved.
Side note: even after all of this, me having to leave my table to go directly to the server so many times, our clear dissatisfaction with what was going on, no manager was ever brought over.
I don’t want this one experience to eliminate one of my previously favorite restaurants from my list of places to go, but I don’t think I’ll be returning.
Update: this restaurant must not put very much stake in what people write on social media. It has been a week and I haven’t received any response regarding my awful experience.

DISCLAIMER: My rating is on the food and service, but my review is mainly on the bathroom.
BATHROOM: Looking at this bathroom I think simple and clean. Looks can be deceiving however, the second I walked over the threshold of the bathroom I felt like I had just walked into a gas station bathroom (one of the really bad ones). The smell was off putting. My initial thoughts were overlooked by the fact that it smelled terrible. The bathroom was tidy and picked up, but there seems to be a misunderstanding of visually clean and actually clean. I was worried the smell would stick, but luckily I had some perfume in my handy dandy purse.
SERVICE: Service was amazing. They have some cute servers (male and female) who are very helpful, patient, and who have a sense of humor.
FOOD: Delicious! As you can tell from the photos.
RESTAURANT: Adorable patio in the back. You can easily get lost in time while they serve you their delicious food and cocktails.

A little trip to an intimate European street dining experience.
Du Vin is located close to Hawaii theater. Theater goers most likely stop here for drinks, but I’d advise to stay for dinner. French cuisine isn’t familiar to most locals, but hey, I like butter, cheese, and wine. What’s not to like? Plus, we aren’t in France, so we will get better service too. Complicated french words are all over the menu, but don’t worry, there are English explanations for all the unknown dishes. The servers are very helpful as well.
I’d recommend:
— Baked brie
— Pork chop
— Jidori
The brie is inside of a pastry with raisins. It was very interesting and tasted great.
The pork chop is thick, but super juicy. The pork chop is by far the best I’ve had. The potatoes are good too, but I highly doubt we got Okinawan potatoes like the menu claims. Maybe they ran out?
Escargot is okay, but I’m no lover of it in the first place. Escargots are way below oysters and mussels in my opinion.
The jidori chicken with ratatouille was very good too. The chicken had a good flavor, but not that juicy. The pork chop wins for juiciness. The ratatouille is a bunch of veggies and potatoes in a tomato sauce. The sauce is soaked into the veggies and makes all the random veggies and potatoes come together very nicely.
The restaurant has ceiling fans, but I saw nobody sitting inside. Everyone flocked to the European street scene in the back of the restaurant. It was hot outside, but came cooler as the sun went down. The comfort level is a little on the hotter side, but if you make later reservations, then don’t worry about it.
A bunch of Unilocalers are recommending this as a first date place, but I’d save this gem for a second or third date. The price is on the higher side. If you’re trying to impress a girl, please do so with your personality fellas!

Went to this place for Happy Hour. Our servers were great. They were friendly and attentive. Our waiter was able to answer all of our questions.
We had some pretty good dishes and some we didn’t care for.
The blue cheese mushroom cagot was very tasty. It was rich and buttery. Plus we dipped the house bread into the butter sauce.
The fresh penn cove and fanny bay oysters were really fresh and tasty.
The cheese and meat selection were pretty good.
I didn’t care much for the prosciutto crostini. It was dry and lacked flavor. The blue crab cakes was also kind of bland and felt like there wasn’t enough crab inside.
Overall I’d give this place a 3.5. The place is nice, relaxing, and has good service. The food is ok, but not much was really memorable.

Based on my last review, the manager messaged me and offered me a gift certificate, which I used to give this place another try.
This time, at lunch again, the service was great and, most importantly, quick. I had the chicken, and it was very tender and delicious. I very much enjoyed my experience all around this time.
I will come back again!

How ever you’re suppose to pronounce this place, that main thing is that it’s good. No question about it… even though I’ve been told by numerous people different ways, we can all agree that this place is full of deliciousness and great prices for happy hour.
Coming here before a concert on a Saturday night & they have happy hour… say what? I’m a sucker for any place that has happy hour on a Saturday night… seriously! Most places it’s strictly Monday through Thursday or Friday, but this place beats the rest especially since they also offer specials during the week like half off bottles of wine on Tuesdays. Your welcome.
Highly recommend the mushroom escargot or even just the regular escargot. Packed with buttery goodness and don’t forget to use the bread for that extra taste in the holes. Baked brie is oozing with cheese in every bite, and baked to perfection of a golden top. Onion soup was okay, but maybe it was because it wasn’t piping hot when it came out. The beef sliders on happy hour was delicious, and comes with fries so if you think about ordering a side of fries but already ordered the sliders, don’t!
I have yet to try their cocktails, but never can go wrong with wine or beer which is always a win in my book.

Seriously? This place was hiding from me far too long.
Brasserie Du Vin’s courtyard makes you feel as though you are traveling with a loved one in Paris. The umbrellas and metal bistro sets are set perfectly cozy under big umbrellas and vines crawling up the brick and cement walls beside you. The setting is beautiful.
The service is kind and rather prompt. The two men that served my boss and I were very sweet and gave great recommendations.

I met up with one of my buddies quite some time ago. I remember having a great glass of red and some of the tastiest mussels. I’ve been back to the islands but never had a chance to come back here. Thank God Joanne got married! Brought the partner here to check it out again, and it’s still a great place for wine and food!
We decided to eat our way through Chinatown, so we just ordered a bottle of their Super Tuscan (?), the baked brie, and the beet and chevre salad. Both went very well with the wine. We sat inside, but they have a great courtyard in the back… maybe next time.
The service was friendly and attentive without being intrusive. There is also a great breeze that blows through the restaurant. This is a great place for a first date, a romantic meal, or to impress someone. I will definitely be back!
A little bit of France in paradise… Oui, s’il vous plait… oh la la!

CHEEEEESE!!! I’m a cheese-​whore, really, so when I see that baked brie is on the Happy Hour menu, OF COURSE I’m going to order it! Likewise, if I’m there for dinner, there will definitely be a purchase of the chef’s cheese board (4 kinds of cheese, nuts, and dried cranberries).
Parking:
Unless you magically find street parking, you’ll have to suck it up and pay for a lot somewhere nearby.
Happy Hour (HH):
Available Monday through Saturday from 4pm-​6pm. Their HH menu is on their website, but they both drinks and food on the list. Notable items being the aforementioned baked brie ($ 9.50, normally $ 16) and the escargot ($ 7, normally $ 12)! Delish! Also note that Wednesdays they have oyster shooters. I’ve never tried them, but I’ve only heard wonderful things about them.
Other Food:
Du Vin Bouillabaisse (Provence-​style seafood stew with shrimp, fresh island fish, clams, and Penn Cove Mussels in a lobster saffron broth; $ 20) — REALLY good. The bowl is FULL of seafood and the broth it’s in is just as delicious as the seafood itself. I suggest using the complimentary bread to dip into the broth and wipe up every last bit!
Pan-​Roasted Jidori Chicken Breast (Served with ratatouille and a lavender balsamic reduction; $ 19) — The chicken was moist and delicious, but the lavender flavor is sort of lost in the overpowering flavors of the balsamic.
Chef’s Board (Comte, Camembert, Roquefort and Herb fromage blanc (serves 1 – 3); $ 16) — If you’re me, it only serves one, but you can definitely share if you have more self control. LIke I said, this also comes with a small side of pecans (or walnuts? it was dark, I couldn’t tell) and what I believe were cranberries. It doesn’t come with special crackers or bread, but the table’s bread basket is endlessly refillable, so the servers normally suggest using it.
~~~~~~~~~~~
I know I’ll be going back again in the future, and probably for the oysters next time!

Had a birthday lunch here for Riana S.; Nicole K. and Linda K. joined too.
I had the Croque Monsieur avec les frites et le salade. That was pretty darn good, all the ingredients taste freshly picked and are probably grown locally (+).
Friends had the Steak Sandwich, which I had last time and that was magnifique; and the Burgers du jour, which tasted SO DAMN AWESOME. Wish I got one: O ooh la la, C’est la vie.