If all goes well, the area is going to get another great delicatessen next year.
OK, yes, that’s a bit of deception.
Not a second great deli.
A second DGS Delicatessen. Which, we can all hope, will be every bit as great as the first.
Nick Wiseman, who co-owns DGS Delicatessen with his cousin, David Wiseman, today confirmed an earlier report that the restaurant is set to open in the Mosaic District, in Merrifield.
He also provided some details on the new restaurant, which is expected to open in Spring 2015.
The second DGS will be next door to Brine, the recently announced restaurant from Rappahannock River Oysters co-owner Travis Croxton. The restaurants are expected to open at about the same time.
Unlike the original, in which you enter to the sight of the kitchen, diners will encounter a 20-seat bar when they walk into DGS 2. Among the goodies at the bar will be a vintage soda pull; general manager and partner Brian Zipin is going to expand the list of sodas.
As for the 80-seat space, designed by Edit Lab at StreetSense, Wiseman says it will “harken back more to that grand classic delicatessen.” In other words: upholstered booths, black-and-white tiled floors, and art deco lighting.
Matzo ball soup, chopped chicken liver, and pastrami sandwiches will remain the soul of the restaurant, but dinner will be given greater emphasis at DGS 2. Among the dishes to look for from chef Brian Robinson, who recently took over from founding chef Barry Koslow: chicken schnitzel with braised red cabbage and whipped potatoes and a grilled ribeye with latke tots.
Wiseman explained the motivation for expansion as a chance to take advantage of the systems already in place at DGS in Dupont Circle. Diners see only the galley kitchen up front, but below ground level is a 1,000-foot kitchen, exclusively devoted to the production of pastrami, pickles, and smoked salmon.
“We’ve put a lot into learning how to make this food and perfect these systems, and we have a production team that really knows what it’s doing,” he told me. “We felt like there was a lot of untapped potential here. We might as well tap the potential and keep going.”
A third DGS may not be too far behind. Wiseman said that customers have been lobbying for a while now for a DGS in Montgomery County and that the lobbying has not been in vain.
For now, though, all he would say was: “We hope we can keep going.”
My hope: that they not lose, as they keep going, what made the place so memorable as a one-off.
