In March, Stephen Starr reintroduced DC to the Occidental. The restaurant, more than a century old and right by the White House, had plenty of history, but when it closed during the pandemic, it felt as faded as the dusty politico headshots that had crammed its walls. Few took notice.

Enter Starr, the alchemic Philly restaurateur behind some of DC’s buzziest dining rooms. (Le Diplomate was his first here; Osteria Mozza, which recently hosted the Obamas on a date night, is one of his most recent.) He took over the Occidental space in 2023 and set out to resurrect a long-gone era of opulent power dining. If anyone could defibrillate the place, it’s him.

Unsurprisingly, the restaurant has been packed since it reopened. The two stories of bars and dining rooms are glam but sophisticated, with olive-green velvet, brass-handled chairs, and a cheeky mural that conjures Bemelman’s Bar in New York. You don’t have to dress up for dinner here—Starr’s restaurants are always geared to please a crowd—but the room, and its white-jacketed servers, might inspire you to spiff things up. Not to mention the prices: This is Starr’s most expensive DC restaurant by far, with many entrées in the $50-to-$80 range.

Chef Neil O’Connell, an alum of Pastis Miami, another Starr restaurant, oversees the kitchen, and the heavy leather-bound menu is laden with nostalgia. When was the last time you saw crab-stuffed avocado? (For me, it was a luncheon in The Bell Jar.) O’Connell’s version is more 21st-century. The plate arrives with what looks like a lump of coal. Tap it gently and it reveals itself to be something far more alluring: a split avocado coated in charcoal-tinted breadcrumbs and spilling with creamy crab salad. Don’t overlook the plate’s sunburst of citrus slices, which make each bite sparkle.

There’s an elegant take on vichyssoise (the cool potato soup is dolloped with caviar), a lovely rémoulade-bound tuna tartare, a textbook shrimp cocktail, and a sextet of oysters with perfect beurre blanc (and more caviar). Don’t miss the buttermilk biscuits with honey butter, which rival the city’s other best biscuits, served at Starr’s Union Market steakhouse, St. Anselm.

While the Caesar salad is disappointingly standard-issue—it brings to mind a Whole Foods salad kit—the iceberg wedge is decadent. A thoughtful touch: The server will ask if you want it chopped and split.

The menu’s weaker dishes lie among the entrées. I love that the place serves long-forgotten dishes like steak Diane. I did not love that my $65 plate was a brown mess of leathery strip steak and too-salty Cognac sauce. Pheasant under glass, another big-time throwback, is a head-turner. The delicate roasted breast and thigh meat, plus a slab of foie gras, is presented under a dramatically high glass cloche that releases a puff of smoke. But I should have listened to the server, who let slip that the dish is more about the show than the flavor. Miso-marinated Chilean sea bass tasted as if it were soaked with an entire stick of butter.

Your best move, if you don’t just want to dabble in appetizers, is to go for one of the simple steaks (the salt-crusted prime rib, the filet with béarnaise) or the lunchtime burger, or to order the “pork chop that saved the world”—so named because the Occidental’s pork chops starred in a 1962 lunch that eventually led to the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. O’Connell upgrades the massive cut—its bone capped with a paper frill—with lemon-scented gremolata and buttery roast potatoes.

Dessert is another high point. “Here’s your Barbie cake,” the server laughs as he sets down a giant slab of pink-iced cake layered with Champagne buttercream. It tastes as delightful as it looks. Order the bananas Foster and you’ll be treated to a lively history lesson while your server flambés the sugary bananas tableside. Baked Alaska and fluffy coconut cake are winners, too.

And of course, if you’re going to resurrect the era of three-martini lunches, you’d better make a seriously good martini. The bar obliges with several, from a super-smooth vodka martini with a trace of olive brine to a tropical version made with coconut gin and cardamom bitters.

This article appears in the June 2025 issue of Washingtonian.