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The Bottom Line

The Curious Grape Wine, Dine & Shop is a wine shop and restaurant that offers casual fine dining including creative, seasonal, wine-focused fare. The menu includes a variety of unique dishes.

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Pros

• creative menu, great food
• excellent selection of wines, cocktails and coffees
• many appetizers and entrees are offered in both full and half portions
• wines are offered by both the glass and half glass; beers can be ordered by the draft or half draft

Cons

• located on the outer edge of Shirlington Village (may be hard to find)

Description

• Address: 2900 South Quincy Street, Shirlington Village, Arlington, VA
• Phone: (703) 671-8700
• Hours: Mon: 7:30am–8pm, Tues-Thurs: 7:30am–9pm, Fri-Sat: 7:30am–10pm, Sun: 7:30am–9pm. Sunday Brunch is available from 10:30am-2:30 pm.
• Prices: Café: $4 to $12, Restaurant: $7 to $29, Wines by the bottle range from $28 to $110; wines by the glass range from $7 to $13, and wines by the half-glass range from $3.75 to $6.75. Specialty cocktails are priced from $7 to $10 each.

Guide Review - The Curious Grape - Restaurant Review - Shirlington, VA

The Curious Grape Wine, Dine & Shop offers casual fine dining with an eclectic menu of appetizers, entrées, and desserts with a focus on seasonal produce, sustainable seafood, humanely-raised meats, and local and organic produce. A selection of house-made breakfast and dessert pastries as well as soups, salads, sandwiches and sandwich alternatives like pot pies, calzones, and quesadillas is available in the café all day along.

We enjoyed the Sunday brunch which included a variety of unique dishes. We especially loved as a starter the Doughnuts with Wild Boar served with hoisin sauce, cilantro and pickled onion. It's like a pork slider, but the roll is a donut with powdered sugar. The combination of sweet and spicy is just right. For an entree, we shared the Austrian Pancake Soufflé with sherried raisins, crispy bacon, gold rush apple and hickory syrup and the House-made Flat Iron Corned Beef with sweet potato hash, poached egg and salsa verde. Both dishes were tasty and unique combinations. For dessert, the passion fruit crème brulée with lemongrass ice cream & candied ginger palmier was excellent. The menu pairs wines for each item allowing guests to create their own tasting menu.

The dining space is centered around a black granite bar, featuring a vaulted ceiling and evocative vineyard mural. The restaurant includes 55 seats including 10 bar seats and 5 cheese bar seats. The space also features a private dining room that can accommodate up to 55 guests for a standing reception and 40 for a seated dinner. On the retail side, a selection of 300 international wines is available for sale.

_{As is common in the industry, the writer was provided with a complimentary meal for the purpose of the review. While it has not influenced this review, About.com believes in full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest. For more information, see our ethics policy. All prices and offering mentioned herein are subject to change without notice.}

Reviewed April 2013 - Prices are subject to change

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