100 Very Best 2014
At some wine bars, the food is an afterthought—snacks meant more for padding the stomach during those wine flights than for really digging into. Diane Gross and Khalid Pitts’s snug, brick-walled restaurant is different, taking its food as seriously as it does the carefully thought-out list of Old World bottles. There have been a few chef changes over the last couple of years—former Poste toque Robert Weland left in 2013, and the kitchen has since been taken over by Kristin Hutter—but the core of the menu will be familiar to anyone who has cozied into a table here. There’s still the terrific grilled-cheese-gone-Italian, with airy brioche, fontina, prosciutto, and a runny egg. Chicken-liver mousse, which is so popular it’s also sold at nearby Cork Market, continues to pair beautifully with mahogany shallot marmalade. That’s not to say Hutter hasn’t put her stamp on things. Among our favorite new additions: a panzanella salad with burrata.
Open: Tuesday through Saturday for dinner, Sunday for brunch and dinner.
Don’t Miss: Avocado on grilled bread; buttermilk biscuits with ham; fried calamari and shrimp; grilled hanger steak with salsa verde; grilled mackerel with capers and lemon; goat-cheese cake.
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.
