No plans yet for Pesach? No problem! Here are five restaurants serving up Passover meals that offer everything from traditional fare to Italian- and Mexican-inspired kosher feasts.
Casa Nonna
Friday, April 6, through Saturday, April 14
À-la-carte or tasting menu ($40 per person)
It’s like Passover in Italy at Casa Nonna, where chef Amy Brandwein has crafted a dish for each course that can be ordered à la carte or as a complete prix-fixe dinner. Think gefilte fish in a saffron gelatina with ramp aïoli and chive blossoms, house-made matzo pasta with suckling lamb ragù and olives, and a honey-walnut tart with apple-charoset marmelata and olive oil sorbet.
Dino
Friday, April 6, through Friday, April 13
Four-course menu ($59 per person; $25 children)
Dino’s Passover celebration honors chef-owner Dean Gold‘s mother, Ella, and is served family-style with platters that range from traditional (charoset, gefilte fish) to Italian specialties such as lamb cooked in red wine and market fish prepared with tomatoes and parsley in the Jewish tradition of Livorno, a town in Tuscany. Groups are welcome to bring their own Haggadah and can request a Seder plate. Those heading to services can make reservations at 5 on April 6 and 7 and be finished before sundown.
Hudson
Friday, April 6, and Saturday, April 7
À-la-carte menu
Chef Demetrio Zavala offers a lineup of the greatest Jewish comfort food hits, including matzo ball soup, potato latkes with applesauce and sour cream, roast chicken with matzo-apricot stuffing, and braised brisket. The regular seasonal dinner menu is also offered, so you can mix and match.
Tragara
Friday, April 6, through Friday, April 13
À-la-carte menu
Bethesdans can get a Kosher menu and wines at Tragara’s annual Passover celebration, which offers an extensive à-la-carte menu. Many of the dishes are traditional Italian items–caprese salad, veal scaloppine–but there are also specials geared toward the holiday. Among them: house-made gefilte fish with horseradish, matzo-crusted rack of lamb, and a Passover roulade with strawberries and Sabra liqueur, a chocolate-orange concoction made in Israel.
Rosa Mexicano (Penn Quarter and Chevy Chase locations)
Friday, April 6, through Friday, April 13
Lunch and dinner à la carte
New York-based chef Jonathan Waxman (Barbuto, Top Chef Masters) has concocted Passover menus for the Rosa Mexicano chain, which include Mexican riffs on traditional Jewish dishes. Among the offerings are kosher sangria made with tequila and a Manischewitz wine reduction, red snapper gefilte fish with habanero-tomato sauce, and pulled-beef-brisket tacos with pomegranate and charred onions.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
