Some diners are ghost-pepper-hot under the collar these days, and I can’t blame them.
The drumbeat of frustrated customers has crescendoed in recent months as they rebel against sometimes-confusing restaurant service fees, poor service and pandemic-era protocols, including QR codes and time limits for tables, that linger like boors at a party. Patrons who supported the industry through one of its greatest challenges by ordering frequently and tipping generously have grown tired of all the excuses. These days, my online chatters and posts on social media reveal, all a lot of diners want is a nice meal served by nice people in comfortable environs — some TLC in return for their money and loyalty.
While I’m on my soapbox, let me be clear: Plenty of restaurants aim to please — and diners aren’t always right, a lesson I’ve learned from decades of fact-checking disputes on my weekly online chat and via email. Also, restaurants are businesses, businesses are supposed to make money, everyone deserves respect, transparency is key and, well, on with the show.
If two things hadn’t happened to me during recent visits to Vera Cocina & Bar in Ivy City, you might be reading first about how enthralled I was by the new restaurant’s drinks, how charming the servers were, and how much I appreciated the restaurant’s creative fusion, executed by chef Jorge Baron, 38, late of El Centro: I can’t think of another kitchen in Washington that blends Mexican and Lebanese accents, and then with impressive flair. You will be tempted to video the signature gin cocktail, poured tableside, and every other dish seems destined for a shout-out on Threads. One of the most alluring and revivifying ceviches around can be found at Vera, where Baron, a native of Cuernavaca, the capital of Mexico’s state of Morelos, arranges local oysters in an ivory leche de tigre, lightly creamy with labneh and dotted with shimmering green cilantro oil and red chile de árbol oil: oyster stew reimagined for summer.
The accolades will have to wait, however, because Vera messed up twice on my visits, and I know I’m not the only diner to leave with a sour taste in his mouth that has nothing to do with the cooking.
My path from night out to nightmare began with a wedding spilling out from Vera’s ground-floor lounge onto the sidewalk outside on a recent Saturday. So many beautiful, happy people! My posse couldn’t help but be seduced by the vibe, even after we checked in at the host stand, where we were informed the table was ours for 90 minutes. Up, up, up the steel staircase we went, landing in a dining room that plays up the hybrid theme. Cactuses stand sentinel between a bank of windows and a banquette made of cinder blocks, a design detail common in Lebanon, says co-owner Nayef Issa. Ropes hang from the high ceiling, outfitted with skylights, while green tiles soften the back of the bar.
Three of us were parked in hard chairs at a table the size of a hubcap, irritations smoothed over by the arrival of our drinks and a server’s introduction to the restaurant created by Issa, an entrepreneur and co-founder of Residents Cafe & Bar in Dupont Circle, and investor Nour Chaaban. Vera takes its name from Veracruz, the port city in Mexico, where Lebanese immigrants began arriving in waves in the late 1800s and incorporating traditions. One day’s pita-wrapped lamb shawarma became another day’s taco al pastor. Similar links are established in the cocktails at Vera, some of which rely on spirits from Mexico and Lebanon, tequila and arak, respectfully. Cue the Salma — a nice balance of mezcal, fig puree, egg white and black lemon — and Arak in a Hard Place, a vivid orange eye-opener that refreshes with elderflower liqueur and sparkling wine.
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Fast-forward about 90 minutes from the time we check in. A young woman appears at our table to let us know we need to move along. I look at my dining companion’s unfinished chicken and the half-finished wine on the table and ask to see a manager. “He’s right behind you,” the host says, in a manner that suggests she’s relieved not to have to debate Vera’s 90-minute policy for three customers. (Four or more are allotted two hours.) I motion to the unfinished business on the table and point out the neighboring trio of diners who have also been asked to relinquish their spot in the middle of the dining room. Six people are leaving this restaurant with a bad impression — despite the good drinks, food and service. The manager offers to relocate us to the lounge, but we are so taken aback by the record scratch, we pay our bill and leave.
Yes, Vera spelled out its time limit before we were seated, but this is the first time I’ve actually been asked to vacate — and not because I was camping out, the industry term for diners who linger long after the table has been cleared and the meal has been paid for. There’s the rub. The pace of our meal was dictated in large part by the kitchen and the speed with which the food arrived. I walked into Vera with an open mind and an appetite. I left resembling the Hulk, angry not so much for myself but on behalf of past and future patrons.
All I could think of as we left the restaurant, besides the obvious boot, was how unfair it was to the chef. Trust me, I’d much rather sing his praises than rant about Vera’s rigidity.
Because there’s much to praise. The appetizers, for one, amount to a beauty contest. Barbie-pink diced raw tuna mingles with charred corn, buttery avocado, freckled dragon fruit and sliced radishes in the pool of yellow watermelon juice charged with chile de árbol and escorted with crisp tortillas for scooping. Yellow squash is split, filled with basmati rice flavored with warm spices and raisins, and finished with labneh kisses and a flower that dresses up the dish like a boutonniere. In another first course, tumbleweeds of spiky shredded phyllo contain an object of affection: shrimp mousse veined with jalapeño and corn. The fritters, three per order, are affixed to their plates with cumin-laced poblano pepper cream that doubles as a dip. As for main courses, the roast chicken takes a back seat to its garlicky marble potatoes dusted with cotija cheese, but shrimp Veracruz celebrates smoky whole shrimp in a tomato broth sparked with capers, jalapeños and pickled okra.
I’m all about giving places second chances, and my next rendezvous — a weeknight, I should point out — found a colleague and me sipping some first-rate cocktails and digging the starters. A round of house-baked pita becomes a canvas for dozens of precise green, orange, white and black dots, created from hummus infused with pureed cilantro, roasted pepper, spiced labneh and black beans, respectively. Eating a slice leaves some diners with multihued mustaches, but there’s no denying the allure of all those spreads converging on the tongue (or appreciating the skill it takes to place them just so on the pita).
“We’re working on our wine list,” a server tells us after our drinks are cleared. “We have a white, a red and a sparkling rosé.” Anyone see where this is going? Shame on him for not mentioning the cost. Shame on us for not asking, but the entrees average around $37, and I figure the wine prices will be in line with the food, including tonight’s hanger steak, which we wash back with a bottle of red wine from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
I’m beginning to feel better about Vera. Oh, the music is played at a level that forces everyone to talk louder, but the smile on the face of my dining companion tells me he’s enjoying the ropy beef lapped with mole as much as I am. Baron tells me in a subsequent phone interview that he uses his grandmother’s recipe for mole, built from multiple roasted chiles, two kinds of chocolate, sesame seeds, cumin, lard and so much more. In brief, the process takes him a day, and all I can say of the marriage of flavors is “Gracias, chef.” My first visit didn’t allow for dessert. Tonight, I’m making up for that with a molten chocolate cake whose heat turns out to be from (surprise!) Baron’s mole. Corn gelato plays the role of firefighter.
The tab includes a 20 percent service fee, which I’m fine with, and an unexpected and outrageous wine charge of $152 — for what is supposedly the sole choice for red, the 2012 Massaya Gold Reserve. For a restaurant that put so much thought into its cocktails, why didn’t anyone think diners might want a greater selection of wine? At the very least, someone should have gone to a store and picked up a bunch of cases, and chosen wines more in line with Vera’s food prices. At the risk of turning into the Hulk again, and despite my advice to readers to bring problems to the immediate attention of the restaurant, I bit my tongue and exited. In my defense, critics have forums for praising and panning. Like the one you’re reading now. (On my first dinner, we also ordered a wine that was presented as the solo red, a 2019 Massaya Terrasses de Baalbeck, without a mention of its [less-expensive] price. When I looked at that receipt later, I noticed I hadn’t been charged for it, so I subsequently reached out to Vera to repay the restaurant $80.)
A truism in the business I cover: Diners tend to forgive even middling food provided the service is great. No matter how good the cooking, on the other hand, customers have a hard time accepting a restaurant that dismisses their needs.
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It shouldn’t be hard for the owners to make lemonade out of lemons at Vera. They just need to lower the volume, extend the time they allot for dining — or break their own rules when they see diners are still eating — and find some wine that makes recipients smile rather than steam.
Transitioning from the Hulk to Pollyanna, I believe there’s a good restaurant waiting to emerge here. Fingers crossed, I hope the wait isn’t too long.
Vera Cocina & Bar
2002 Fenwick St. NE. 202-855-1770. veradc.com. Open for indoor dining 5 to 11 p.m. Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Prices: appetizers $14 to $25, main courses $32 to $48. Sound check: 81 decibels/Extremely loud Accessibility: No barriers to entry; wheelchair users can be served in the ground-floor lounge, which has an ADA-approved restroom. Vera does not have a lift to the second floor.
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