Little Serow, long known as one of DC’s best Thai restaurants, has temporarily closed. Co-owner Anne Marler says the team is “keeping Serow in hibernation for now,” and to expect an update about the Dupont Circle restaurant in the coming months. She did not say whether the 11 year-old northern Thai spot, which has been operating as takeout-only since the pandemic, would re-open with the same concept or format.
Marler and husband/chef Johnny Monis paused in-person dining at their adjoining 17th Street restaurants when Covid hit. Komi, their longstanding Michelin-starred Greek tasting room, morphed into Happy Gyro, a stellar Greek deli-style takeout inspired by Monis’s childhood family restaurant. Though the couple never openly confirmed Komi’s closure, it lost its star this year. (Michelin inspectors told Washingtonian: “Our understanding is that Komi has closed.”) It seems Happy Gyro—and its terrific dessert offshoot Happy Ice Cream—is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
“The whole team has been reunited under one roof keeping up with the gyro, pizza, ice cream, and natural wine fiends, and we’ve been having fun growing in those directions,” says Marler in an email about Serow’s hiatus.
When it opened in 2011, Little Serow was one of DC’s white-hot “line-standing restaurants,” where eager patrons would queue up for an hour before dinner service to snag a spot. Monis’s multi-course tasting menus—full of bold, fiery flavors—often earned the subterranean dining room a top spot on Washingtonian‘s 100 Best Restaurant list, among other accolades. The kitchen continued to turn out stellar dishes—and tasting menu-style packages—through the pandemic, democratizing access to sought-after dishes like spicy catfish laap and whiskey pork ribs.
Now, for some good news: Happy Gyro is hosting an end-of-summer September Equinox party on its patio this Saturday, September 17 from 1 to 3 PM. Expect bubbles by the glass, summer berry sorbets, fries, stick meat, and perhaps some of Monis’s dry-aged fish tacos.
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.
