Redwood: Beautiful Space, Underrated Happy Hour

A few of us who either work or live in Bethesda decided to meet up this past week in Bethesda for Happy Hour. While we love going to the usual spots like Black’s, McCormick and Schmick’s, or even Caddies, we decided to try something a little different, and headed to Redwood on Bethesda Lane.

I have been to Redwood a few times for lunch but not dinner, while this was Brett’s first visit all together. Redwood has begun to receive more positive reviews after they changed chefs and updated their menu. This is the type of place you would think would always be packed, given the prime location and beautiful layout and size. However, when we went this past Tuesday, the restaurant and bar were fairly empty inside.

That’s not to say we didn’t enjoy ourselves. The bartender/waiter we had was friendly and came back frequently to check in and see how we were doing. The girls had glasses of wine for $4 and the guys chose Fordham Light beer for $4 as well.

Eventually, we decided to get some bar snacks, and went for the fried oysters as well as an order of wood-oven flatbread with sea salt parmesan and olive oil. We also ordered several dips, which ranged from fresh ricotta to pesto to olive tapenade, each of which cost a dollar. With the waiter’s recommendation, we mixed together the pesto and ricotta on the flatbread, and it was an excellent flavor combination. If you enjoy kalamata olives, the tapenade had a strong flavor that meshed perfectly on the bread.

We decided we were still hungry, so we ordered two orders of the mini burgers, served with housemade chips. Each order came with two burgers, so each of us was able to enjoy one. While this is fairly common bar food, the burger served was of high quality, and we could tell that ordering a normal-sized burger here for lunch of dinner would be a treat as well.

As we ate and drank, we admired the decor of the place, especially the wood paneling by the bar that resembled actual redwood bark. It was hard to tell how real it was, but it was definitely a nice touch.

For all of you Top Chef lovers out there, a fun fact is that this restaurant was actually used for restaurant wars in the DC season. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to try the food then, but we certainly plan on going back soon either for dinner or another happy hour in the near future.