Leesburg’s Cajun Experience turns out authentic shrimp po’ boys—served on New Orleans bread—and terrific pecan pie. Photograph by Chris Leaman.
Bryan Crosswhite, an economic consultant with the US Agency for International Development, and wife Melissa were fledgling restaurateurs when they opened the Cajun Experience in Leesburg in April. But if they lacked experience, they didn’t lack know-how. The Crosswhites drew extensively on their southern-Louisiana heritage and five generations of Bryan’s family recipes.
The restaurant occupies the second-oldest house in historic Leesburg, a clapboard-sided building converted into a charming 50-seat restaurant that would be at home in New Orleans. The Mardi Gras beads and feathered carnival masks are fun, but it’s the honest food that speaks to the Crosswhites’ intentions.
The star of the menu is the po’ boy—there are eight varieties at lunchtime—anchored by its delectably floury bread, imported from New Orleans’s Leidenheimer Baking Company. The fried-shrimp version features Gulf Coast shrimp with minimal breading and a sweet-spicy sauce. Crawfish étouffée is also excellent, its cayenne-spiked cream sauce complemented by the sweetness of long-cooked onions. Boudin balls, an appetizer, are tasty rounds of ground pork, rice, and scallions, fried just short of greasy.
When we heard that Morou Ouattara, chef/owner of the recently closed Farrah Olivia in Alexandria, was going to open an Italian restaurant, we didn’t know what to expect. Would the chef, known for his ultra-modern dishes—shocked escolar with soy pearls, cured duck breast with pickled-kumquat liquid—send out deconstructed lasagna with tomato-sauce powder?
No, it turns out. Ouattara says he didn’t trade Farrah Olivia in for Kora—he wanted to keep his Old Town restaurant open, but he couldn’t negotiate a lease with his landlord. He’s currently scouting spaces in downtown DC to reopen it. Kora was created with his older brother, Amadou, a 22-year veteran of Italian cuisine who’s worked under some of Washington’s best-known Italian chefs, including Roberto Donna and Francisco Ricci.
It seems as if every time a Café Saint-Ex or a Cork or a Granville Moore’s opens, it’s immediately crowded with people looking for a comfy neighborhood space. If there’s a thoughtful array of beer, wine, and cocktails—great. Good food? All the better.
For those weary of elbowing their way into Cork and so over the Saint-Ex scene, Room 11 (3234 11th St., NW; 202-332-3234) is the answer to your prayers. Just not all of you at once, please—the tiny corner wine bar seats only 15 inside and 28 on the patio.
If you’re lucky enough to score a seat, you can enjoy simple and reasonably priced ($10 a pop)—yet hearty and delicious—panini, which come with a salad. Most of the panini are vegetarian, and the fresh-mozzarella-roasted-tomato-and-pesto version is packed with ripe summer flavor.
Can authentic pho be found inside the city? We stopped by Pho 14 (1436 Park Rd., NW; 202-986-2326), a new mom-and-pop restaurant in Columbia Heights, to find out what diners think about the Vietnamese soups. The lunchtime crowd turned out to be full of regulars and included one self-proclaimed “pho connoisseur.” Find out what they had to say in the video below.
The peppery fried chicken is one of many simple pleasures at the General Store and Post Office Tavern. Photograph by Stacy Zarin-Goldberg.
At the General Store and Post Office Tavern, carryout—a practice discouraged at chef/owner Gillian Clark’s now-closed Colorado Kitchen—is not only an option; it’s the best option. While customers at Clark’s first restaurant enjoyed her glorified diner food in the 1940s-like space, the faux-vintage atmosphere at the six-month-old General Store isn’t conducive to sticking around, which is a shame.
J&G Steakhouse (515 15th St., NW; 202-661-2440), superstar chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s more-than-just-steaks restaurant, bowed last night at the W Washington D.C., a new hotel adjacent to the Willard InterContinental and now officially the closest lodging to the White House.
Amid the throng of curiosity seekers, Washingtonian food and wine editor Todd Kliman dropped in to sample the wares at the 26th restaurant in Vongerichten’s multinational empire, and tweet his first impressions. The transcript is below.
Washington has never been short on dark, wood-paneled steakhouses where power players broker deals over porterhouses and sides of creamed spinach. But in recent years, a glossier type of steakhouse has emerged—and each boasts a celebrity chef’s pedigree.
Manhattan-based chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten brings the latest offering. Today he’ll debut J&G Steakhouse in the just-opened W Washington, D.C. hotel. Like Bourbon Steak’s Michael Mina and BLT Steak’s Laurent Tourondel, Vongerichten has a number of different restaurants and concepts in his repertoire, which extends to Shanghai and Bora Bora. There’s already a J&G Steakhouse in Scottsdale, Arizona, and another will open this summer in Mexico City.
Gone are the robust bureaus for the Los Angeles Times, Newhouse News, and other once-healthy news organizations. Digital media bureaus now are taking their places with as many reporters and plenty of swagger.
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Though Ann Limpert graduated from Connecticut College with a degree in art history and creative writing, she spent most of her time in New England debating the merits of warm, buttery lobster rolls vs. cold, mayo-y ones. She spent two years covering the internet for Entertainment Weekly magazine (highlights include interviewing the Beastie Boys and dancing to "Livin' la Vida Loca" with Penn Jillette), then left to hone her kitchen skills at the Institute of Culinary Education. She has worked as a cook at several New York restaurants, researched and edited cookbooks, and now writes about food and restaurants for the Washingtonian.
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Kate Nerenberg
Kate Nerenberg started as an editorial intern at The Washingtonian in January 2008 and became an assistant editor in September 2008. A native of West Hartford, Connecticut, she spent the first half of her writing life as a sports reporter, and was the editor of the athletics section for the newspaper and student-run magazine while at Middlebury College. A joint Spanish and Art History major, Kate graduated in 2005 and took off on a year-long journey around the world. After tasting everything from fried crickets to lavish Turkish breakfasts, she realized she wanted to devote herself to writing about food, a lifelong passion. She lives with three roommates just east of Logan Circle in a house that's often filled with the smell of sauteed garlic, warm banana bread, or fried bacon and eggs.
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Rina Rapuano
Rina Rapuano's English degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond put her on the path to becoming a managing editor of a weekly business magazine; a freelance copy editor; and assistant managing news editor—and later the lifestyles editor—at a weekly paper in Maryland. But she realized her true calling when her descriptions of meals to friends and colleagues always seemed to end with the same statement: “You're making me hungry.” Frankly, it was making Rina hungry, too. She chucked her day job in 2006 to become a full-time freelance writer focusing mainly on food, and now works as assistant food and wine editor at The Washingtonian.
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