About Brabo Tasting Room
The staff caters kindly to solo travelers and date-night couples alike at Robert Wiedmaier’s warm-toned dining room in Old Town’s Lorien Hotel, and it has a deft approach to helping guests pick bottles from an expansive list of globe-spanning wines. Served in a large pan, Penn Cove mussels—accompanied by Wiedmaier’s crisp frites—make a great group appetizer, and an entrée of braised lamb shoulder, twirled between fat ribbons of pappardelle, ushers in winter with elegance. The knockout dessert: a maple-laced, smoky “salt parfait” of hazelnut dacquoise, sour-cream sorbet, and bacon caramel.
Open: Monday through Saturday for breakfast and dinner, Sunday for breakfast, brunch, and dinner.
Don’t Miss: Bigeye tuna crudo with preserved lemon and espelette-pepper aïoli; field-greens salad with braised vegetables; roasted chicken breast with maitake mushrooms and roasted Brussels sprouts; crisp-skinned snapper with rock shrimp and shellfish butter.
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.
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.
