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In today’s review… we’ll cover a new Georgetown-located Lebanese restaurant that offers aromatic, colorful, and delicious cuisine, transporting you to Beirut.

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The Ratings

Our simple & honest checklist covers a restaurant’s key ingredients:
Ambiance, Service, and Food.

9/10

Villa Yara is one of DC’s newest Lebanese restaurants and the atmosphere of an elegant, yet funky 1970s Beirut home is well executed. Nudged, on the eastern-most side of M Street in Georgetown, right across the street from the Four Seasons Hotel, Villa Yara is well decorated and boasts a nice, but small courtyard that transports you far away from DC. Well done.

7/10

From the hostess greeting to our nice waiter, the service was good. Our mezze meal was delivered to us without too much of a wait, but we could have been offered a different table or used a parasol when the sun nearly blinded us in the courtyard (next time, we’ll remember our glasses). Most importantly, our waiter walked us through the entire menu so we knew about all of the goodies we had to try.

8/10

As we stated in the review’s description, this restaurant delivers an ACD: aromatic, colorful, and delicious meal (no, that’s not an actual acronym, but every dish seems to follow those specifications to a tee, so it’s only fitting). Villa Yara is a transportation to the streets of Beirut with lots shareable dishes to snack on. However, as a traveling tourist, just remember your bill will be expensive. To kick things off, you’ll be served some fluffy pita bread and olives. We recommend you add one of the many spreads such as the traditional Hummus made with chickpeas, tahini, and lemon juice. Once you’re ready to really dig in and start your meal, you can’t go wrong — unless you don’t order a good variety of plates (the key is to mix and match the complimentary flavors since many of the dishes are deconstructed, letting you build each of your bites as desired). In your selection, please consider the Yara’s Kafta and the Arnabeet (fried cauliflower) as two solid choices (although the former could do with more kafta and the latter with less hazelnut). For desert — which is what we think truly stands out — the Tahini Sesame, an ice cream delight styled with a messy bob cut (i.e. a delicately spun Ghazal Al Banat — think: cotton candy), is a must have.

Reservation & Menu: