Alex P.
Yelp
I came to Pera Bistro w my husband a few days ago to celebrate a promotion he recently received at work. I was (and am) very excited to have a restaurant on this NW side of town.
When I got to Pera, things started off on a bad foot. The parking here is outrageous, full stop. There is a perfectly good, if small, lot in front of the building that Pera has added valet to. But to give you car to the valet you need to park in one of (at the time) one of the many perfectly fine open spots in the lot. Not much reason to do paid valet when the spots are right there in front of the building. If you don't want to pay a valet for parking you basically do yourself you can park on the street, but, yknow it's. A pretty busy street, you're on a curve and it's somewhat dangerous to walk across the road to pera. This parking situation puts you in a sour mood starting our meal. It got a little worse when there was a massive bug on one of our plates and very loud music playing above us. (Staff was kind enough to let us move further from the speakers). Oh, and it's a hookah bar so you need to deal with that smell. Fortunately there weren't many people there at the time I went so the hookah smoke wasn't too bad.
Anyway, because of the parking situation, I was coming in kind of annoyed and was thinking this food better be pretty d*** good or I am not coming back here purely because of the parking/music.
But honestly... the food WAS really good. Spicy feta was rich, flavorful and had nice warm soft bread with it. The octopus appetizer was cooked just right and had two great salads with it. My flank steak and husbands lamb were both fantastic, perfectly cooked. Cocktails were tasty, creative, and looked great. And there's plenty on the menu I still want to try. Service was good. Staff wasn't super chummy or anything but they were reasonably quick and attentive. No complaints there.
I will definitely come back for another nice date night.