Evo Bistro

Evo bistro isn’t bad, but it’s very underwhelming, and for the prices they charge, it really should be much better. The Spanish onion soup was really more like a bisque as all of the onions were puréed, leaving very little texture in the soup. The flavor was also pretty one-​note. Croquetas were not at all like croquetas from Spain — the interior was dry and crumbly like a falafel rather than rich and creamy like the ones you get in Spain. My salmon entrée was cooked nicely, but lacked seasoning and was just kind of boring throughout. No complaints on the molten lava cake, but that’s been done a million times by now and isn’t enough to make somewhere like here stand out. 2 stars because nothing was actually bad, but there weren’t really any high points in the meal either, which is disappointing given the price and the cuisine.

Evo bistro is nothing like its former glory. However I have been slightly more satisfied the past few times I’ve come. They have a very good lunch special where you can get three tapas food $ 12.
Still, the food is really just average. I personally think the gambas are one of the better tapas, and the spinach salad is really good as well. It comes with a pistachio crusted piece of goat cheese.

This is now my third visit, and each one was better than the last one. Location is a bit hard to find, even though it is right on the main thoroughfare, you just have to get into the parking lot from the side streets.
Food and service are always good, and the wine selection is excellent. A nice Tapas menu as well as salads and sandwich offerings at lunch, know that sandwich often come with nice big salads. They even have Riedel glasses, so you know they are old school about good wine. Pricing is very good as well.
This is definetly on my regular visit list.

This place must have changed management and/​or chefs. I’m shocked by the good reviews for this restaurant. Service was slow, food was bland, and portions are tiny. I had the fried oysters, mussels, and a chicken/​chorizo paella. The oysters weren’t crispy and desperately needed seasoning. The mussels tasted of raw garlic and wine that needed to be cooked out. The paella was tiny and super bland with hunks of dry white meat chicken of varying sizes. Only after all our tapas and entrees were served did we get any bread with hummus. The hummus was okay tasting but the texture and color was off-​putting. The bread was not fresh at all. Don’t let groupon/​living social deals suck you into this place … it’s not worth it even at half price!

Very special and delicious tapas!
To be honest, when I went into this restaurant, I didn’t expect it to be 5 stars level but the food was really impressive.
We ordered 4 tapas, each of which was laid out pretty and tasteful. The octopus was the best octopus dish I ever had! Very soft and tender texture. The salmon was grilled perfectly.
Highly recommended.

Today Special order. Salad of the Foreign Legion. Special made by the Chef Driss Zahidi White asparagus from Germany, red and yellow beets, garlic sauteed spinach, goat cheese, heirloom tomatoes.

Excellent service, delicious food, pleasant atmosphere.
I had a great first experience at Evo Bistro and would return without hesitation. Vegetarian tapas were outstanding and the desserts were delectable. Lunch special made everything well priced too! Expansive wine list and devils backbone beers as well = A+ in my book.
The next step is for Evo Bistro to use locally sourced and organic ingredients.

Restaurant week menu review — great menu — basically big selection from their normal menu
I love restaurant week. It makes me research restaurants I want to try and within a week, I go out to eat way more than I normally would. It’s an excuse to treat myself to food with great company.
Evo is a hidden gem in a strip mall. The strip mall is no indication of the restaurant itself so don’t judge the location. We made reservations and were promptly seated. It’s listed as Mediterranean but it’s Spanish tapas mainly, and they’re delicious. Below are the abbreviated names of what we had along with must haves. You’ll find the full names on the menu
Olives — must have
Lobster ravioli
Calamari
Papas with tomato
Lamb with mint yogurt and potatoes
Petit filet — must have
Pequillo stuffed with goat cheese and mushrooms — must have
Vanilla custard — must have
Pear tarte
Everything was very good. The olives were delicious and tasted like they were marinated with lemon zest and the right amount of salt. Loved them. The petit filet is perfectly cooked at a medium rare atop spinach and potatoes. It’s very petit. The pequillo pepper had a nice pequillo pepper flavor and a balanced filling of goat cheese and mushrooms so that the cheese didn’t overpower the other favors. The vanilla custard is great for the lovers of not overly sweet desserts and it’s covered with a dusting of cinnamon. So good.
The portions are perfect tapas portions and for two people the 7 tapas were plenty and you’ll probably leave a few plates with a couple of bites remaining. They’ve got a great wine selection by the glass or bottle. The table placement is spacious so you’re not eating on top of each other which is ideal for conversation and the many plates you’ll end up ordering. Our waiter was good, a bit slow, and we had to ask for a couple of items multiple times, but it wasn’t a problem.
For two people and two glasses of wine, during restaurant week, our bill ended up $ 113. It’s a great spot for dates or a place to go with friends for food, wine, and a pleasant ambiance. Go check it out.

This place is definitely one of the better restaurants in McLean. If you come in for happy hour, the food is also pretty reasonably priced; otherwise, it can be pricey. I came here once with my son, and the wait staff was very friendly with him; however, I do not think this is in general a good place for kids if they cannot sit for 1.5 hours.
The food was fresh and had good texture. The flavoring was creative and in some cases I really liked it but in some cases I took a pass. The mussels and stuffed mushrooms were a definite highlight of the meal for my son. I was not a huge fan of the octopus.

Had a groupon and decided to try it out with my husband last Friday night… big mistake. We drove 40 minutes to get there expecting something better. It is a loud place, the host who was also our waiter sat us quickly at a tiny table near the bar, which is fine. He was doing well up until we placed our order. I’m a vegetarian so I ordered the salad and patatas bravas; my husband ordered a Tangine (lamb coucous). I also asked if bread would be brought out. Waiter reassured us it would… And so began the wait… and we saw as another party of 4 came in and were seated in a separate room behind us that was separated by a glass partition. I suppose they had reservations? Anyhow, we watched as this family’s drinks and food came out and how our waiter checked in with them and kneeled beside them to chat as if they were familiar with each other outside of the restaurant. I wondered if we had ordered alcohol and/​or not said we had a groupon our service may have been better. So 20 minutes go by and not a peep from our waiter. We saw bread baskets on the tables of other customers and wondered where ours might be? We wave him down and my husband asks if our food is on its way, and could we please get that bread in the meantime, refill our tea/​water, please? And by the way, we noticed how those guests over there (we point out the family) already had bread and their food so could he please explain the delay? The waiter backs away and holds out his palms in defense, «yes sir, I can give you bread! Okay okay you can get your bread if you want it. The bread comes out with the food by the way!» He returns with what looked like 3 day old bread and left without making eye contact. The bread was like Melba toast, and the garlic butter was runny … the food finally arrived: salad was too salty, potatoes mushy just like those frozen potatoes you can microwave and get at the grocery store and my husband’s dish was undercooked with soggy couscous. We didn’t bother eating and asked for the bill… waiter didn’t even bother asking why the food stood not eaten on the table and then said our groupon which was a pdf voucher was «not acceptable, but we will honor it this time.» Gee thanks… never going back. Needless to say, we ate when we got home and could not stop wondering what the heck we did to merit such poor service… SMH
Waiter’s name is Kostas H — customers beware of the Evil Evo Bistro

Took some clients there for dinner. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Good tapas but very pricy. The menu is different every night. Cheeses are great. Ask for her house wine if you don’t want real expensive wine.

Not the same old thing, a very nice wine selection by the bottle and the glass. Excellent happy hour till 7pm on weekdays!

We visited this French bistro on Valentine’s Day. We chose the $ 99 per person 4-​course meal with wine pairing. The beet salad with goat cheese delish. The oysters with spinach were a bit too creamy for me, but were tasty. The halibut had a great crust while still securing a moist and tasty inside. The pear tart was wonderful. With these prices and quality, I expected NOT to have to recycle my utensils between courses. A small detail that makes a world of difference.
We made it through all 4 courses in less than an hour. Living in Paris for two years, I can expertly say that in one hour we would only be on course 2. I think there is a happy medium that Evo Bistro could strive to achieve.

Incredible food and wine in an a «secrete» place, or so it seems. Off Chain Bridge road, you have to know what you’re looking for. But it’s worth the search.
Try the lamb sliders or Albondigas with a rich cab, it will be an incredible experience

Best meal we had in DC during out trip last week!
The spinach gnocchi is out of this world good — damn, I could’ve eaten that all night! The meatballs are tasty, but the tomatoes had a canned flavor to them, didn’t quite taste fresh. The grilled artichoke hearts with prosciutto were the surprise star for me — I didn’t know quite what to expect and they were delicious. My fiancé liked the lamb sliders on brioche quite a bit, although they weren’t my cup of tea. Great wine selection and great music — mostly 70s and 80s! Awesome!
Clientele skews a little older/​more conservative, but hey, that doesn’t take away from my meal!

Funny… this place reminded me of the TARDIS from Dr. Who. The space inside is WAY bigger then the way it looks from the outside with their one table for patio seating.
Came here and had some soup, salad and cheese/​meat plate. I thought everything tasted fine. My only downside was that I felt everything was too pricey for what was given to us and that really I could have gotten more at other places. But it’s McLean… people in that neighborhood can afford it obviously! :)
Nothing wrong with the place but overall nothing I would go back for.

They really know how to cook their fish here. Scallops were fabulous, and the halibut was tender and paired well with seasonal veggies.
Soup of the day was French Onion made with beef stock. Although not served with a messy hunk of cheese that French Onion soup is known for, the soup itself was deliciously comforting.
I also had the Roasted Beet salad. I really liked the dressing it came with and the feta was not too overpowering. I am not usually a fan of feta, but it worked with this salad.
BF had the Hersh burger, and my, was it a good burger! Perfectly cooked to med-​rare temperature, the bacon was delicious and the fried quail egg made it even better. A must try!
For dessert we shared the snickers cheesecake special, and this espresso gelato cream thing that was fantasic. It was light and perfect :)

Went here with my parents and my uncle. The space inside was actually a lot bigger than I thought that it was going to be, which originally was the reason that I had stayed away from it for so long.
We ended up getting one of the special appetizers (arancini: fried risotto balls) and marinated olives. I’m not enough of a fan of olives to have enjoyed it, but everyone else liked it. Although, spending $ 7 on olives seems just ridiculous to me when you could eat a salad or something more filling. As for the arancini, it was just okay. Came out lukewarm and we all decided it was better in concept than execution. Would not order it again if it were to pop back up on the menu.
We got one of each of the pastas: the ravioli, gnocchi, and risotto. The risotto was good, and I wish I had ordered it as a meal. The gnocchi was tasty and had a nice sauce. The ravioli was good, but not especially memorable.
Also ordered the sauteed shrimp, scallops, chicken kebab, and one of the fish. I didn’t try the scallops, but the shrimp (we got the chili lime) had good flavor and was cooked well. The chicken kebab was just chicken. Nothing wrong with it, but just overall forgettable.
Four people shared all of the above and two bottles of wine. And I personally left still hungry. For the price tag, it just wasn’t worth it to me. I’d rather just go somewhere else and get a real meal. Or maybe I just wasn’t ordering filling enough food.
Honestly, there isn’t really a similar place that I can think of in McLean with this atmosphere and selection. So they don’t have much competition on that front. I’d return with a group if they really wanted to, but otherwise I would skip this joint.

This place was middle of the road for me. It didn’t do anything bad or anything to knock my socks off.
I came with a few friends, and were seated immediately at a large table. It was great because we had space for all of our glasses and plates. It didn’t feel overcrowded. I had elbow room.
The space itself is alright, nothing spectacular. It doesn’t feel stuffy or too trendy though which is nice. Our waiter was cool and provided decent service. At some points, though, it seemed he was too eager to engage with us. It wasn’t bad though.
One con — there are too many menus! We had to ask for the cocktail/​beer list which is separate.
We ordered a cheese plate and a bottle of red wine. The wine was tasty, and because there was a half off special on certain wines, the price was right. The cheese plate was sub par — the two cheese pieces were so very small, and the boar salami was too salty. Perhaps I just do not like salami, but it was not palatable. As for the cheese — they were alright, but I think there should be more of it on the plate. The jam was the star of the dish. Other dishes are tapas-​style.
It could be the location, but it was sad that the restaurant emptied out so quickly towards the end of the night. The crowd is slightly older and more established, so at 10:30 on a Saturday, the place was ready to shut down.
Bottom line: Evo Bistro is okay. There are other wine places I prefer, so I don’t think I would make a special trip to come out here.