This chef-driven restaurant wins your heart with the little things. Chef Daniel Singhofen sources locally and cooks with conviction, and the young staff is so passionate about the restaurant’s mission, it could probably talk you into joining up.
Two years after opening, the softly lit rowhouse remains something of a secret. You don’t come here to impress the boss–but you might come to woo someone with an appetite for adventure. Singhofen is a committed nose-to-tail cook, but he seems less interested in shocking than in satisfying. The $65 tasting menu is one of the area’s better values–five courses combining sensuality with an artisan’s eye for detail.
What to get: Chicken-liver pâté with pistachio cake; crisp-skinned shoat belly with country-style white beans; lamb Bolognese with blue cheese; salmon with roasted kabocha squash and harissa; a deboned poussin impersonating a Chicken McNugget; lamb medallions with hummus; huckleberry tart; stewed peach with sarsaparilla ice cream.
Open Tuesday through Saturday for dinner. Expensive.
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.
