Ripple

Brunch-​Food was traditional brunch stuff and well done. The bottomless mimosa deal was VERY boozy (not complaining)
Cocktails/​Dinner– Olives (side item) were SO GOOD and got a dark and stormy with poached blueberries. Cheese plate was wonderful. Food (we got appetizers) was artfully presented but was not super delicious. Great place to have vino and cheese night but it your looking to fill up on a big dinner, not the place.

Ripple is great. Everything we ordered as appetizers and dinners tasted great and were perfectly cooked. I typically do not drink wine, but my friend is a wino and says it has a great selection.

Thank you, Ripple, for a great meal! Everything was so good, I don’t know where to start. The custom gin martini… the bone marrow app… the suckling pig… the fresh baked cookies… it was all SO good and accompanied with fantabulous service by Ryan and Caroline. Happy New Year to a keeper restaurant in DC!

We went to Ripple two nites ago after seeing their offering of an «early bird special» for $ 35 per person. Not a great bargain, but considering the great reviews we thought we would give it a try. The early bird special was listed as between 5:00 and 6:30pm. We arrived about 6:10. The place was basically empty in terms of tables. Maybe two tables had people eating. We were told we could not be seated because we did not have a reservation. My wife went back in after we left and spoke with the «owner» who told her that the place would be full very soon. We went to Spices, and walked back past Ripple an hour and 10 min later. Place was maybe half full. What a crock. «Owner» basically a liar. We are not going back – ever.

Ever since the new season of Top Chef started my husband and I have been meaning to try out Chef Marjorie’s restaurant Ripple. Sadly we were a little disappointed with the service and the food.
The hostess sat us in a small secluded section at the front of the restaurant which was very lovely until the other tables slowly filled in and it became very loud. It was also very difficult to flag down a waiter as there were only three tables in the section and it was removed from the main dining room.
The wine selection is very large but more on the pricey side. We ordered a bottle and started with a cheese and charcuterie board. The cheese and meat were great but the oversized crackers they come with are incredibly salty and the honey and jam are only enough for half of one cracker.
After we finished our cheese board we sat, and sat, and sat. So we drank and drank and drank. Finally a waiter brought out a small corn bread plate. While the corn bread was very good, especially with the chive butter, it was clearly meant to distract you from just how long the food preparation was taking. We sat down for dinner at 7pm and the restaurant was far from full, so there really shouldn’t have been over a 30 minute delay between cheese and entrée.
Finally our entrees arrived as we finished off the last of our wine bottle. I ordered the salmon and my husband ordered the amish chicken. My salmon was well cooked but the potatoes were covered in a very thick horseradish sauce. I personally do not like horseradish so I left the potatoes alone. I sampled my husbands chicken and I was not a fan but he seemed to enjoy it.
We were still hungry so we opted for dessert but chose another cheese plate to finish off the meal since we couldn’t decide on something sweet. As we were out of wine we ordered two more classes but they did not have the same bottle we were originally drinking by the glass. I was floored when I got the bill and saw that each additional glass cost $ 16! When a full bottle costs $ 50, I’m not entirely sure how they can justify $ 16 a glass but there it was.
A very pricey meal with highlights but overall the service was slow and the food was over salted. I’m glad we tried Ripple but it probably won’t be added to our restaurant rotation.

Food was amazing. The wine was okay but over priced for the quality. The ambiance is really nice. The only disappointment was the service. I sat at the bar and the waiters were very slow to serve me and were not all that warm or nice when they did. They looked a bit like they were put out by having to serve people, too busy? and or prioritizing more important tables. It’s a shame since the food was so good. The owners should consider getting more wait staff so that the waiters have more time to do their job and make that aspect of the experience not leave such a bad taste despite incredible food.

The food was not so good, waiter was pushing us to eat fast… The great thing was the dessert, pistachio cheesecake, delicious!
Nice atmosphere, food could be better.

We have been to Ripple several times for dinner, so it was a disappointment to see that the quality and service were not the same for Sunday brunch as we had experienced before. The hostess was efficient and attentive, and the server came to take our order in a reasonable time. Drinks came all right; our food, however, took a long time, and was hardly warm when it arrived.
The potatoes had clearly been cooked hours if not days ago, as they were nearly cold and so overcooked they were beyond mush. When the hostess came (not the server) to pour more water during our meal, she asked how it was, and we told her — so-​so, not warm, etc. She apologized and said she’d get the manager. Alas, no manager ever came to talk to us. Perhaps those who do the bottomless mimosas at brunch don’t notice this sort of thing…
When we asked the server for the bill, we told her, and she said she’d take care of it. A little later, she brought the check and explained she was only charging us for drinks. While this was generous, somehow the failure of the manager to come to speak with us or offer us something else to eat, or really, apologize at all, felt a little like they were just buying us off.
Between this and the lackluster food, we will not be going back for brunch any time soon.

Brunch review! Let it be known, brunch is only on Sunday from 11 – 2:30. We wanted to come here for awhile and HOPE they extend brunch to Saturday mornings as well because we can’t really do boozy brunches on Sundays anymore. But we made an exception.
They feature a bottomless mimosa brunch that includes a pastry, entrée, and bottomless mimosas for $ 28. Not too shabs. They have flavored mimosas too, which is always a treat: regular, blood orange, grapefruit and raspberry. Fave is the grapefruit, not so much the raspberry.
Their biscuits and cinnamon rolls are AMAZING. I consider myself a biscuit connoisseur, and I can confirm their biscuits and cinnamon rolls are made fresh and in house, only rivaled by my own homemade cinnamon rolls. So 5 stars for their pastry game. For entrees I ordered the pastrami hash and my bf ordered the fried chicken & biscuit with gravy entrée. Mine was good but his was amazing. So flavorful and delicious, with the biscuit being flaky, moist and dense, not dry and airy. Basically it was a perfect biscuit.
Wait staff was cool and accommodating, always there to fill our bottomless drinks (some wait staff during bottomless deals are a little less free with their pours) and ambiance was hip and had great music. By the time we had left around noon, it had picked up a bit and I am going on the record as saying the best brunch in Cleveland Park and points NW. I will have to return for a dinner service to bump up to 5 stars but overall we were very pleased with our boozy Sunday brunch here.

Happy hour is good, half off all wine by the glass and you can’t beat that jazz. Everyone raves about the toasted cheese. Here are my thoughts… The toasted cheese is great, but super rich. I do not recommend a person eating a whole sandwich alone. They are just too rich. However, they are great to share between 3 or 4 people. I would not want to eat more than a half of one. They are some of the richest sandwiches I have had. Keep in mind they are tasty. So be careful… You can easily go overboard and then not deuce for a week.
It is a quaint little place and the other food looks very tasty. I would go back to try some of their other dishes.

This review is for brunch.
We didn’t have a reservation but were able to sit in the bar area. The bartender served us and he was great. I ordered the burger and loved it. They also serve flavored mimosas (grapefruit was my favorite). Overall, $ 28 for bottomless, one pastry and one entry is a great deal, it’s hard to complain.

Pretty good happy hour the wine was something different that I have normally had and it was delicious and pretty inexpensive as far as wine bars go. The bartender, a friendly man with a big beard who’s name I have forgotten, was also super helpful in choosing the wine.
We did not eat here because dinner plans elsewhere had already been made but the «grilled cheese bar» menu (which seems to only run during happy hour) looked VERY interesting.

My wife and I have had an OpenTable gift card burning a hole in our pocket for months, as not many restaurants near us are on their gift card list. We were going to DC for a week and noticed there were lots of options near our hotel… after sifting through many many OpenTable/​Yelp reviews, we settled on Ripple.
Started with a cheese and charcuterie plate, choosing three cheeses and two meats. The cheeses were all tasty, and while one of the meats wasn’t anything to write home about, the duck prosciutto was awesome. They gave us an assortment of yummy giant crackers, nectarine mustard (meh), and apricot jam (yum)! I was a little disappointed the accompaniments weren’t matched with each cheese, but I may just be spoiled by Gracie’s in Providence. Very very good bread also came out before our entrees. Warm, soft, and reminded us of the vienna bread we sometimes make at home in terms of subtly buttery flavor.
My wife ordered the duck breast, and the meat was excellent, although she didn’t love the side items (polenta and a mustardy squash). I got a two-​way chicken entrée with a roast breast and fried boneless thigh, with potato purée and watermelon… it was one of the best dishes I’ve eaten in a long time, with tons of flavor in the two types of chicken, and the watermelon fitting surprisingly well. We closed with a brownie sundae (moist brownie, banana pudding, peanuts, and a chocolate chip ice cream that I wish had just been vanilla) that was tasty if not spectacular. I wish it had been bigger, but I guess we did choose to split one dessert.
I had a great time, but I was torn between 4 and 5 stars, because while the food was delicious, it was also kind of pricy (two entrees, the cheese and charcuterie board, a bottle of wine, and dessert ran $ 160 after tax and tip). The tie-​breaker for me is the grilled cheese bar they have in the bar area during happy hour… We didn’t get to try this, but it’s such a fun idea that it bumps my impression of the restaurant from 4.5 to 5.

Absolutely fantastic experience — quaint restaurant, amazing service and a phenomenal cheese & meat board hand selected by our server. She hit a home run! The wine list was extensive too and we managed to pair some fantastic glasses of wine with our meat and cheese board. Get in there and check this place out!

A bit on the expensive side, but the food is solid. It’s one of the many restaurants I’ve been to that charge out the yazoo for scallops and then they give you five or less. That’s really where the deduction of stars came from — I’m all about price/​quality/​quantity as a «ratio» of sorts, and Ripple follows the tradition of almost every single well-​reviewed restaurant in DC, where you’re paying a lot for small portions, and I’m not sure the price was totally justified for me in that sense. The service was great, our waiter was very knowledgeable and patient, and came to talk to us the right number of times.
The real stand-​out for me was the cheese board. You can’t go wrong with the selection, and the crackers are perfect.
I’m hoping to come back for brunch some time!

I made a reservation for a Saturday for 9 people to celebrate a big family event. Spoke to someone at Ripple, and got a confirmed reservation. Unfortunately, when we arrived, the restaurant was closed. Apparently, it is never open for Saturday lunch. Our party of 9 hungry people went down the street to Spices, instead.
I called Ripple and got the answering service, then left a message for the manager. I emailed. No one ever responded to me. I still don’t know how they gave a reservation for a time they aren’t open.
Fortunately, there are many other fine restaurants in DC with excellent customer service. From our experience, this restaurant is not one of them.

I know, I know, I know that going out on Mother’s Day is akin to going out on Valentine’s Day and that we should expect less. I am not one of those people who is willing to accept that sub-​par is acceptable for a neighborhood spot that has as much buzz as Ripple. I generally trust the Eater 38 and am normally not disappointed. I read about the $ 28 brunch when making reservations but didn’t learn about the $ 40 Mother’s Day brunch until after making the reservation. I hesitated a bit when the opentable res required a credit card but plowed on still excited.
When I spoke to the restaurant the night before to ensure there was a kids menu for Mother’s Day, I was told they’d do the menu a la carte for $ 10.
Upon arriving I was surprised that it wasn’t packed (based on needing a credit card for reservation) but was still excited. Then came the disappointments…
The $ 40 MD menu didn’t include drinks like the normal menu does.
Iced vs hot coffee? Happy to see they served stumptown so I asked if the iced was coldbrew or if it was hot brew over ice. Was told the latter. Ordered iced tea instead. The iced tea came to the table with no ice in sight, had to request an extra glass of ice… Not a big deal but just not good service. About 15 mins later, I saw the cold brew being served next to us. It was the bottled stumptown that is served in the little brown bottles. That isn’t hot brew over ice, it’s packaged as coldbrew from the coffee shop. Again, alone, that wouldn’t have been enough to make me write this review.
The «chef was offering» a $ 20 kids meal which wasn’t a la carte as I was told but was a pastry, entrée and dessert. There was one offering for the entrée. I asked what if my child wanted a burger vs eggs and bacon and was told that the chef strongly preferred the eggs breakfast for kids. We ordered the eggs. Unfortunately, the chef decided to heavily pepper the eggs on the kids meal. My child was unable to eat the eggs which was the majority of his meal.
Onto the adult meals…
First, I asked if we could order one selection at a time… no dice, as «chef strongly prefers that you order all courses together».
Asked about the forest mushroom egg entrée because I didn’t understand what it would look like. Asked if it was like a frittata… «Was told kind of, but softer and served in skillet a». Also was told it came with home fries as I wanted more tha just eggs. While it was very good, it was nothing like a soft frittata, it needed to be eaten with a spoon and was the consistency of stew. There were no potatoes and nothing to compliment the gravy/​broth that was in my skillet.
We also asked if the «creamieux» was like mousse or pudding and were told, «neither, it’s more like a chocolate tart». Should have looked it up because it was much more like pudding than anything else I can think of to describe. Same server told the table next to us that it was like pudding when they asked.
When the plates were being removed, I suggested to our server that he let «chef» know that extra pepper and kids meal scrambled eggs are probably not a great combo. There is no way that chef didn’t know this was a kids meal based on how we had to place the order. He said he would pass it along. While I wasn’t expecting the whole meal to come off the menu, I was expecting some kind of follow up. Actually, by this point, maybe I wasn’t.
The icing on the cake was when I went to the unisex bathroom at the end of the meal. Walking in, the first sight I had was the unflushed urine in the urinal on the wall. Gross. I had to walk by the urinal to get to the toilet. The second thing I noticed was the urine all over the floor under the urinal. Looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a while.
Stand alone or even in pairs, I wouldn’t have left this review. The whole package was too much for me to remain silent.
We go out to eat often and are Happy to spend money on quality dining. For reference, last two meals out prior were Osteria Morini and Fiola Mare. Was hoping to find a neighborhood gem but instead found a total dud. I don’t recommend going out of your way to try Ripple.

Good food with an excellent waiter.
My husband and I found ourselves in upper North West on Saturday and decided to treat ourselves by going to a restaurant in an area that we never find time to visit– we’re entirely too spoiled with the wonderful options around Eastern Market/​Capitol Hill.
Ripple has been highly recommended in the Washingtonian, and I’ve been meaning to try it ever since we attempted to visit their short-​lived ice cream sandwich shop-​in-​a-​restaurant, only to learn we’d missed closing time by 15 minutes.
The most off-​putting aspect of the whole evening was when we first entered. We arrived at around 5:50 on a Saturday to a basically empty restaurant. We asked the host to find a table for two. He looked at his computer, said… we’ve got this table up in front… and another all the way in the back. The place was empty and he made it seem like we were lucky to get a table. Now, to be fair, by the time we left– at 7:15, the place was more crowded, but still– not very good customer service.
Our waiter, Julian, on the other hand, was outstanding. He offered great and knowledgeable recommendations throughout the menu. He helped us pick out three delicious cheeses, had no problems with our substitutions (since my husband doesn’t eat pork or shellfish) and recommended the swordfish which was fantastic.
We ordered:
–deviled eggs– these were excellent– very tasty
–cheese plate– it was a fine cheese plate. A bit expensive for the amount of cheese you get, but nicely presented with a good range of cheeses
–lamb tartare– This was delicious. The mustard sauce was very good (and I don’t normally like lamb)
–mushrooms– these were fine, although my husband was a fan
–brussels sprouts — amazing! they were fried to a crisp and were quite crunchy. You could almost have made chips out of them
— swordfish– the swordfish was perfectly prepared and the sunchokes were a very yummy side.
Overall, this is a great neighborhood restaurant that I’d go back to if I were in the upper northwest, but probably not one I’d go out of my way to return to.

This is one of those reviews that I’m really not hyped to write. Last night I took someone to Ripple for her birthday and it was just a large disappointment. The kind of disappointment that doesn’t even have you mad, just bummed.
What drew us to this spot was their grilled cheese menu, which both of us were really excited for. Upon entering, the hostess, who was very nice and welcoming, greeted us and led us to our table. Then our server, who was also very nice, greeted us and asked if we had any questions. Turns out if you want any grilled cheese action you have to sit at the bar, so she helped us move to one of the high tops outside of the main dining room.
It was that event which led to us being let down. If we would have stayed in the main dining room and not had grilled cheeses we might have had an entirely different experience.
Instead, we had a server who was completely uninterested in us being there. He didn’t know the menu, had little to no idea about the cheeses featured, and seemed like he’d rather be somewhere else. It’s unfortunate he didn’t wear a post it note on his forehead saying «general apathy» because we would have just left instead of having to experience it.
I ordered a beer, and she ordered a coke. They came in a reasonable amount of time but once they hit bottom? Well the bartender didn’t notice until after we asked for our check. I like drinking beer, and usually order a few, but my glass was sitting there empty for the rest of our meal without anyone noticing. When we ordered fries they came out, but at no point did he check on us to see if we wanted salt (no salt or pepper out at each table? Cool, but maybe offer us?) When it came to ordering the grilled cheeses he had no clue about the cheeses and even less about the spreads. We ended up going with the make your own option, and while my friend’s grilled cheese turned out okay, the one I ordered wasn’t a grilled cheese, but a sandwich with some cheese on it. Had I known they’d put the Gruyère on so weak I would have ordered an additional cheese.
In the end, I think this experience was simply just bad inattentive service. It just sucks because both my friend and myself were really excited about this dinner which was planned for over a week. There’s a good chance that if you visit the main dining room you could have a entirely different experience. The hostess and the first server we had were also very nice, it’s just a shame that the server we were stuck with in the bar was apathetic.
If you want grilled cheeses, I’d suggest sitting at the bar instead of one of the high tops that way even if the server does ignore your existence you can at least get the bartender’s assistance.
Excuse me, I have a make up dinner to plan for.

Enjoyed Sunday brunch at Ripple this weekend with my husband and two friends. We all opted for the $ 28 option which included bottomless mimosas, a pastry selection, and an entrée. Since bottomless mimosas a la carte cost $ 18, going with the pastry, entrée, and bottomless option was a no-​brainer. I ordered the Egg white frittata which came with a spinach salad and for my «pastry,» I selected an English muffin which I had intended to enjoy with my frittata.
While our waiter was very nice and pretty attentive when it came to keeping the mimosas flowing, my husband’s burger came out incorrectly and our pastries were forgotten until the end of the meal. Admittedly, the pastries coming out last wasn’t a huge deal for my friends who ordered cinnamon rolls as they acted as a sort of dessert, but I had hoped to enjoy my English muffin with my meal. The waiter admitted that the pastries had been forgotten, hence coming out later. My husband’s burger was corrected very quickly which we appreciated, so Ripple handled the mistake well.
The mimosas were excellent and very strong. I enjoyed the option to choose between several flavors including classic, blood orange, peach, and grapefruit. Generous with the champagne for sure, and our waiter kept them coming!
Reasoning for three stars would be the initial missing pastries, and I personally found my frittata to be very bland. My husband and friends all enjoyed their entrees, but I had chosen to go with a healthier option and was a little disappointed by lack of flavor which does not have to accompany lighter fare.
Loved the décor and atmosphere, and I’m sure we’ll be back eventually!