Caprice Bistro

I met my parents for my birthday this past January. French motif downstairs but upscale sofa bar upstairs. We were seated there over looking the drawn carriage outside along the cape fear river. Great wine and beer list. Service perfect and the food was awesome with my choice of NY Strip steak with Gouda mashed potatoes. My father had the 17 dollar steak and honestly best price in town over local competitors. I had Kilka Malbec a superb wine. The deserts were a fine ending, but also if you just want a good drink or wine, go for desert, especially the Mousse tray.

Incredible drinks and food! I love the sofa bar upstairs! So cozy and inviting! Service is always on point! One of my favorite places in downtown!

Wow. The food and service here are as good as any. I was amazed at the mussels for an app. Calamari was ok, and the Wednesday night entrée was rabbit. The meat was good but the sauce and the dish was amazing. Ambiance is cool, would be a great place to take a 1^st date as the prices are very reasonable for what you receive. Kudos

Really cool space, great atmosphere and service. The mussels were delicious. And the house specialty called Waterzooi was one of the best seafood meals I’ve ever had.

Consistently great food and service. If you like a more casual atmosphere, dine upstairs in their sofa lounge. Early bird specials available at the bar.

Heaven! I was 35 miles south of Wilmington where it seemed there were no good restaurants, especially open after 8 or 9 pm. So I called in a to go order at 9:30 that they were nice enough to prepare right before they close the restaurant floor at 10 pm for me to pick up at 10:15 upstairs in the sofa lounge. Everything was ready and actually still warm even though I got there at 10:20. Mission accomplished: great French food even if I have to eat it in my van… I just want great food! I’m by myself, so I don’t care about ambiance or having to get it to go; I was just happy that I got there in time! I had placed my order in a hurry and didn’t think it through too well. In retrospect, ordering the crème of mushroom soup and a cream based entrée was too much heaviness to finish it all. But I had started to devour the mushroom soup and it was so divine that I could not quit eating it! This was possibly the best crème of mushroom soup I’ve ever had in my life… and that’s saying a lot, as I’ve tasted quite a few! Then on to the Waterzooi, an herb cream sauce with mussels, salmon, scallops and other fish chunks. This was also superb, but I could only eat a portion of it since I had already had the creamy soup! So I will have delicious leftovers for tomorrow. The accompanying freshly baked, crusty bread with unsalted French butter is hard to stop eating even when full. After digesting a while I ate my arugula salad with pear slices, blue cheese chunks and caramelized cinnamon pecans with a slightly sweet lemon vinaigrette which brightened the greens. I enjoyed it all but my only complaints would be that there were some bad bits throughout the arugula that I shouldn’t have had to pick out of the mix that wasn’t as fresh as the pics of this salad. Also, I wish there had been more pear slices. But they still get 5 stars for their overall quality ingredients, techniques, sense of palette and for serving me late! Thank you for a great meal!

Fantastic! The menu is excellent. The food is amazing. The service is impeccable. Everything is delicious. Definitely check it out.

My husband took me here again this year for my birthday per my wishes. He called ahead and had a special private table upstairs in the lounge bar set up for us. Our server was absolutely a delight to talk to. She helped us pick a beautiful bottle of Pinot Noir that was delicious. The food was fantastic as usual. We tried the pork cheeks which were melt in your mouth delicious! Escargot was fantastic as well. I can not stress enough the importance of the need to try this place! Best French cuisine around!!!

Perfect dinner! Table wasn’t ready when we got there so we went upstairs for a drink. Delish martinis. Table was quickly ready (great marketing plan, y’all) so we paid and took our drinks to the cute back corner booth. We ended up ordering all tapas. Yes, a dinner of appetizers. There were four of us and we shared everything. Escargot (2), humane faux gras (yup), tomato tart, pork checks, mussels, sausage, a salad, and bread. All shared. I didn’t want to share my escargot, but we did sop up all the goodness left in the bowl. Everything was delish and the house wine was great. I recommend their martinis (dirty, extra blue cheese olives) or a fancy one. Just go, eat and enjoy!

To finish date day in Wilmington boyfriend and I decided to check this place out after seeing the Unilocal reviews and menu. We had to sprint through the rain to get here but I am glad that we did!
Once we walked inside we were seated upstairs in a cute lounge area, I could have definitely fallen asleep on that comfy couch! I started off with a glass of the Malbec and it was good. I later followed that with a glass of House Red. For starters we went with the recommendation from our awesome waitress Katrina, the Tomato Tarte Tatin. This was amazing, I loved the goat cheese paired with the tomatoes and basalmic. For entrees I went with the Salmon au Vert while boyfriend got the Trigger Fish special, we both opted for mashed potatoes instead of the standard rice. Both were delicious, I rarely finish my meal but I did for this one. We even got the Pear Crème Brûlée for dessert, I wish that they served it with a few berries, maybe blackberries, but we still cleared the plate!
Great service, great food. I recommend if you are in the area!

I love sitting upstairs at the bar for dinner — the steal frites are perfect and the coq au vin is even better. Tres Bien!

This is a great casual restaurant, one of the best in the world, serving large portions of traditional bistro dishes for bargain prices, with world class quality. There is nothing here intimidating or formal, so there’s no reason to wait to go here, as I had.
Best duck in the world. Herbaceous, fully cooked to perfection. I’ve had lots of Hudson Valley duck (including CIA’s), duck at Wheatleigh-​Lenox, MA, and spent a week in France, and I love Indochine’s duck, but this was better than any. The potatoes were good, but the salad served with it was wilted and bland.
Pork cheek appetizer was spectacular, one of the best appetizers ever. We used their great bread to mop up this amazing sauce.
Lamb shank was very good, with a different take on ratatouille.
Water Zooi was good, but I thought it is very creamy, and seafood was good but not great.
But then again, the people who ordered these thought they were perfect dishes as good or better than my duck!
Chocolate mousse was great, especially the milk and dark chocolate (and this is enough to split with 2 people).
Crème Brulee was not so good: too dense, it’s unlike any I’ve ever had, it’s like solid cream with sugar (and everyone in our party agreed on that).
Wine list was disappointing: the least expensive Cote du Rhone was over $ 40. There are better CDR’s (according to everyone) for under $ 15 at any wine store or Trader Joe’s. I understand overcharging wine to make up for the low prices on food, but this was ridiculous.
Great service.
Beautiful location.
Some window seats have sunset views over the river.
Highly recommended.

Went to Caprice last night for the first time and it was phenomenal! I had done some Unilocal research before deciding on a dinner spot, and I’m so glad I chose this one!
We sat upstairs — I actually preferred the upstairs dining room versus the downstairs. They were both super nice, but the upstairs is more like a swanky lounge and feels more casual.
We ordered a nice bottle of white wine for a reasonable price, then started with the calamari, which was tossed in fresh Parmesan cheese and came with a side of marinara (which I also think was fresh and homemade). So delicious! We then split the large Mussels and Frites which were also great. My favorite part of the dinner, however, was the Waterzooi. This dish contains mussels, salmon and scallops — it is to die for! The sauce was amazing, and all of the seafood in the dish was cooked perfectly. The waiter even gave me an additional side of bread for the meal since I wanted to use it to soak up the delicious sauce!
Would highly recommend this spot!

This place is really great. Fresh ingredients, well prepared. Loved it! Had the waterzooi and loved it. Wife had the chicken. We also shared the tomato tart and we both really loved it.

Such a pleasant surprise in downtown Wilmington. The owners are French, the atmosphere quaint and romantic. The food absolutely amazing!
We started with large order of mussels, definitely didn’t need large but we ate every bite! Fresh herbs, lemon, white white these were perfect. The tomato pie was light and flakey with savory goat cheese. The seafood waterzooi was unbelievable! Fresh shrimp, mussels, salmon, scallops and halibut with a delicious sauce is a must try!
Will definitely be back when I’m in the area.

Tres Tres Bien Aussi!
I love Caprice Bistro. This is a complete restaurant. If you don’t love the food you will love the ambiance, if you don’t love the ambiance, you will love the martinis– or quite easily you may love all 3 or more, like we do. There have been so many other rave reviews about this downtown staple that I feel trite just echoing them. Caprice is every bit as good as they all say it is, if not better. Romantic authenticity and genuine care towards their customers and the dinning experience make this place a true standout with some of the most competitive prices — given the high quality of the food in all of town. You will not find better food or a more complete dinning experience– for the money — in Wilmington. From the service to the kitchen to the drinks, everything was excellent.
Even the late night menu which they serve upstairs at the quaint martini bar is done well and feels genuine, and much like the entire martini bar itself, is quite good, has unique selections, and does not feel like a mere afterthought. Caprice Bistro is one of the few places I have been that seems to do everything well, and that is quite rare these days.

Everything from the wine, to the cheese, to the escargot, and finally the rich meals were fantastic.
As a table, we got the duck confit, ny strip steak, lamb, and the seafood medley. I got to try a little of everyone’s dishes, and was beyond impress by everything but the steak (which was good, but just didn’t blow your mind).
Great date spot, group dinner, whatever. Definitely on the pricey side, but the value is more than worth it.

Caprice will always be my favorite restaurant in town. My wife and ended up here late Friday night after I got off work. We called first to make sure the kitchen was still open and was told we had about 45 mins. We arrived with almost 30 minutes to spare and decided to sit upstairs at the sofa bar. The bartender was on his cell phone and made no rush to clean the dirty plates so we could sit which was unacceptable. After about five minutes he finally took the time to clean the bar and give us menus and rushed us to put in our orders.
I always order the same thing but he seemed to not remember who I was or most importantly who I worked for. After almost 15minutes without a drink I had to ask for water. The food arrived fairly quickly and was delicious like always. However I was insulted with the lack of service.
If you go order the pork cheeks, duck, mussels and Cesar salad.

Thank you Caprice. You are Amazing. We had a special event here for 12+ people and the food a service was terrific. I wanted everyone to enjoy our little gem here in downtown Wilmington, and they found it to be as delicious and charming as I do. Patricia and Thierry were so great to work with and made our special night a great memory. The Water Zooi was the favorite dish of our group as was the short rib special they had for us. We consumed a large amount of the delectable mussels and escargot. We also put a good dent in their wine list. Thanks again for all you did.

Great location on Market St close to the boardwalk and parking garage. We’ve been to Caprice for dinner before and loved the food so we went back this time for appetizers and drinks before a show at Thalian Hall. The atmosphere is very romantic and the service is top notch.
We order the salmon rellettes, escargots and smoked seafood. My fav was the escargots. Great to share because it is so rich. They serve bread before the apps which is nice if you’re drinking, which we were. I am in love with the cocktail called Manhattan to Paris. For desert we ordered the macaroons. I’m a sucker for macaroons and these did not disappoint. Two drinks, three apps and desert $ 65 with tip. Well worth the money.