If Logan Cox were a stock, he’d be the low-risk, high-reward kind that the masses have yet to discover. Having apprenticed under Frank Ruta at Palena, then run New Heights, Cox is coming into his own at this Cleveland Park cafe. On a busy night, the neighborhood seems to have descended on the warmly lit, shotgun-style space to take a stool at the expertly tended bar or to see what Cox has up his jus-flecked sleeve.
The chef’s mastery of techniques, from powders and foams to emulsions and broths, is the diner’s reward. An array of influences–India, Pacific Rim, regional American–are knitted into a cuisine that increasingly feels like personal expression.
What to get: Pickled vegetables with cardamom-spiked yogurt; pistachio agnolotti; quinoa risotto with lobster mushrooms; rabbit two ways (rack and leg-meat confit); duck with crab-apple sabayon; butterscotch pudding; chocolate-chip cookies.
Open daily for dinner. Moderate.
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.
