About Restaurant Openings Around DC
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Elyse. 10822 Fairfax Blvd., Fairfax.
For the last several months, former Clarity chef Jon Krinn has been quietly operating a tasting menu restaurant in Fairfax as “invitation only.” To snag a seat at Elyse, you had to be in the know and subscribe to Krinn’s email list to book a reservation. But after some final touches to the 30-seat dining room, the restaurant is gearing up for its public debut on Wednesday, October 9. Elyse will feature a $125 five-course menu that changes monthly, with dishes that might range from a smoked beef tongue and tendon salad to cornmeal-crusted lamb brains.
Krinn’s approachable fine-dining consistently landed his former restaurant Clarity on Washingtonian‘s 100 Very Best Restaurants list. But at the end of 2021, he says he needed a shift and departed the restaurant (now operated by chef Tracy O’Grady). “I had worked so hard to get everyone through [the pandemic] at Clarity that I didn’t even have perspective at how much it had taken out of me physically and mentally,” he says. Krinn and his wife, Antonia Le, went on a cross-country road trip, and when they returned, he pivoted to restaurant consulting and private tasting menu dinners. He and Le, a yoga teacher, also have been hosting cooking and yoga retreats since 2016 in countries ranging from Croatia to Vietnam to Belize.
Krinn started to get the restaurant bug again at the end of 2022: “I wanted to do it for the original reasons I love doing restaurants, and that’s basically two reasons: I love cooking for people, and I love getting to know the people I cook for.”
Elyse—Krinn’s youngest daughter’s middle name—aims to have an intimate dinner party feel with just 30 seats, the majority of which won’t turn so diners can have the table for the night. The team is also small with just three people in the kitchen.
The five-course menu ($125 with a 20-percent service charge) will offer diners options for at least two of the courses, plus some off-menu add-on specials as well. Krinn, now 56, says he’s challenged himself to use products, flavor combinations, and techniques that he hasn’t personally tried before. “It’s an exploration concept, not totally out of the box but some could be out of the box,” he says.
Past dishes have included handmade pasta with bone marrow and clams as well as tuna with pickled bamboo and white asparagus. Krinn has recently been playing with riso nero—an Italian black rice that cooks like risotto—for a dish topped with caramelized scallops and finished with bottarga. He’s also working on a duck that’s cured for two days with spices, brown sugar, and fish sauce before it’s roasted, then served with caramelized endive and apple confit. Off-menu specials might feature lesser-seen ingredients like lamb brains, which he’s served with a cornmeal crust and a truffle-mango vinaigrette. “Funnily enough, so many people ordered them,” Krinn says.
Krinn also plans to continue his yoga and cooking retreats and let his travels inspire the menu. He imagines the opening menu will draw from an upcoming trip to Marrakesh, where he’ll be joined by former Pineapple & Pearls chef Scott Muns, who worked for him at 2941 Restaurant. The menu of Elyse will completely change every month. One constant: Krinn’s father, Mal Krinn, who used to bake bread at Clarity, is continuing to provide French and country wheat loaves.
David Hale, a longtime sommelier at Citronelle, consulted on the wine menu. Krinn told him he’d prefer if diners don’t recognize the labels so they’d be more open to exploring something new. “It’s not a list full of big names. It’s a list of wines that are highly curated to go with the food,” Krinn says. A pairing option is available for $85 a person.
Krinn and Le have been slowly redesigning the space—located in a standalone building next to Fairfax’s La Dolce Vita—with a dark and moody “speakeasy-style” look for the October opening. The restaurant will operate just four days a week, and if Krinn isn’t there, the dining room will be closed.
“You want to be invigorated every time you open the doors,” Krinn says. “Opportunities to make something like that work don’t come along often.”
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
