Cuisine: A paean to all things piscatory, Bob Kinkead’s flagship serves up glittering platters of raw, shucked oysters, chowders that would make a New Englander pine for home, and crab-stuffed filets of fish that honor and improve on the Maryland fishhouse staple. In an age of freewheeling fusion, this trusty veteran of the DC restaurant scene remains a kind of gatekeeper for vanishing culinary values—for cooking that looks to the past but isn’t bound by it, fine but unfussy and rooted in a sense of place.
Mood: Upstairs, it’s a proper setting for a business transaction or a date. The excitement is downstairs, around the bar, where the spirit of an Irish pub mixes with the sophistication of a supper club.
Best for: All those traditionalists who seek quiet excellence from a restaurant.
Best dishes: Plump, sweet Ipswich clams, fried to a turn; oysters on the half shell; any of the rotating list of chowders; the best crabcake in town; a filet of cod topped with crab imperial and sided with spoonbread; a generous portion of skate wing, either pan-seared or crusted; apple tarte Tatin.
Insider tips: A new lunch-menu promotion offers a choice of soup or chowder and a sandwich for $12—or an excellent crabcake and house-made fries for $17.
Service: ••½
Open Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday and Sunday for dinner. Very expensive.
See all of 2010's 100 Best Restaurants
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
