About Restaurant Openings Around DC
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Not even your cocktails are immune to the tapas trend. A new bar located beneath a doughnut shop in Shaw will serve “tapas-style,” three-quarter pours in flights when it opens on October 26.
Nocturne comes from the owner of Sugar Shack and has a similar hidden set-up to Captain Gregory’s, a cocktail lounge inside the doughnut chain’s Alexandria location. The menu, however, is a little different from that of its Virginia counterpart:
You can choose from 30 cocktails divided among six categories: carbonated, aperitifs, seasonal, savory, digestifs, and rich. The list definitely leans experimental with ingredients like porcini mushrooms, duck fat, black sesame, mascarpone, and fish sauce.
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Mix-and-match a trio of drinks for $35, or five for $50, with the option to add extras for an additional $10 each. For $75, bartenders will curate a flight to your tastes with six on- and off-menu cocktails plus four snack pairings. The idea behind the mini drinks is that you can sample a lot of things without getting totally sloshed. The format isn’t so different from Columbia Room or Barmini, which also offer cocktail tasting menu options.
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Captain Gregory’s executive chef Brandon McDermott will prepare a small menu of oddball snacks like beef heart jerky or oysters with caramel, coffee, and espresso. Naturally, there will be doughnuts, too.
To get to the 17-seat bar, you’ll descend an elevator from the doughnut shop. You first enter a French-inspired parlor, then walk through a “garden door” into a room designed to feel like you’re stepping into a starry night. The look is inspired by one of the first cocktails ever created for Captain Gregory’s: “An Abandoned Apartment in Paris.”
Nocturne. 1932 9th St., NW.